Assassinated in Brussels on 1 June 1981, Naïm Khader was the PLO’s official representative in the Belgian capital for six years. Over the course of his fourteen years of voluntary exile in Belgium, Naïm had gradually established himself as a brilliant diplomat for the Palestinian cause.  ‘The Road to El-Naim’ recounts the life of Naïm Khader, as well as that of his homeland, Palestine, suddenly bound by a shared fate. Following the Palestinian Resistance ceremonies, his body was buried in Amman, Jordan. N. Khader could not be repatriated to his home in the village of Zababdeh, which is occupied by the Israelis. His repeated funerals (in Brussels, Beirut, Amman) formed a veritable stage-setting for an ancient tragedy: his wife Bernadette, like another Antigone, followed the funeral procession, hesitant and uncertain, to the temporary grave in Amman, barely 100 km from the borders of Palestine, unable to reach the end of the journey: his native village and its small cemetery. The testimonies of Bernadette Khader, and of Naïm’s parents and relatives in the village of Zababdeh, form the backbone of the film, which presents itself as a poetic parable. The Palestinian villagers, torn between sadness, rage and pride, express—through the words of farmers, through songs born of working the land, through images inspired by the countryside—their daily hardships, their resolve and their powerlessness to resist the Israeli occupation, at times brutal, at times subtle, the exodus of young people to Arab countries, their love of traditions, and the memory of Naïm... All gathered together, they will celebrate the memory of their national hero in grand style, whilst the army surrounds the village.

A documentary by Michel Khleifi and André d'Artevelle (RTBF, 1981)