Marrying within your faith means finding your husband-to-be on a TV news show. Your parents can’t come to your wedding and you can never come back. Ethnic Chinese? Hutus? No, Israelis. The Druze is an ancient Arab tribe of warriors and religious independents that got caught between the lines of Syria and Israel in the1967 war.

Since then, they’ve lived in a no-man’s land between the two countries. They are recognized as citizens of Israel (they trace their lineage and religion to Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses). Because they are recognized by Israel, the Syrians won’t let them in unless they renounce their Israeli citizenship. But they must marry within their religion and the Druze singles scene is in Syria (actually, there are so few Druze they have their own world-wide dating site, DruzeCafe.com. Take a look at some Druze cuties).

Director Eran Riklis builds his story on the Catch-22 that plagues the Golan Druze. She lives the Golan. He lives in Damascus where he hosts a Syrian TV show she watches. They’ve only met by phone and mail. To marry, she must renounce her Israeli citizenship, and walk into the no man’s land between the borders. Her only witness will be a UN inspector. Once married, she will enter Syria and never be able to come back home. It would be funny if it were not so sad.

Leaving everything you know for an unknown life with a stranger is the dramatic conflict on which Riklis builds his story. In Lemon Tree, also reviewed on MovieWithMe.com, the conflict is: the price of security is walling out humanity. Both films star the amazing Hiyam Abbass, who seems to have carved out a career as the long-suffering Arab who wears the weariness of generations on her face.

The Syrian Bride, The Lemon Tree, Laila’s Taxi (different director) are all political films that explore society, not sociology. As director Riklis said to Tikkun Magazine, “I see myself as a relevant director. I believe in movies that relate to political and social circumstances. I think it’s impossible, particularly in Israel, to say that what happens around you is of no interest to you, that you are an artist and that you make movies like the Americans do. In Israel, you have to acknowledge that you live in a very complex and problematic region.” If there is hope for a peace plan in Israeli, bet on the filmmakers.