''Mayor'' () is a 2020 documentary film produced and directed by

David Osit David Osit (born May 6, 1987) is an American documentary filmmaker, editor and composer. His documentaries include '' Predators, '' ''Mayor'' and '' Thank You for Playing''. Life and career Osit was raised in the suburbs of New York City in ...

. The film follows Musa Hadid, the mayor of

Ramallah Ramallah ( , ; ) is a Palestinians, Palestinian city in the central West Bank, that serves as the administrative capital of the State of Palestine. It is situated on the Judaean Mountains, north of Jerusalem, at an average elevation of abov ...

, the de facto

capital Capital and its variations may refer to: Common uses * Capital city, a municipality of primary status ** Capital region, a metropolitan region containing the capital ** List of national capitals * Capital letter, an upper-case letter Econom ...

Palestine Palestine, officially the State of Palestine, is a country in West Asia. Recognized by International recognition of Palestine, 147 of the UN's 193 member states, it encompasses the Israeli-occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and th ...

, for two years.

Release

''Mayor'' premiered in March 2020 at the True/False Film Fest, one of the last film festivals to proceed as scheduled in the first half of 2020 due to the

Coronavirus pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

. The film was acquired by

Film Movement Film Movement is a North American distributor of independent and foreign films, which is based in New York City, founded in 2003. History Film Movement was founded in 2003, and has released more than 250 feature films and shorts. Having grown f ...

for theatrical distribution in North America, beginning at

Film Forum The Film Forum is a nonprofit movie theater at 209 West Houston Street in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York City. It is a four-screen cinema open 365 days a year, with up to 250,000 annual admissions, nearly 500 seats, 60 employees, over ...

on December 2, and was released online on the

Criterion Channel The Criterion Collection, Inc. (or simply Criterion) is an American home-video distribution company that focuses on licensing, restoring and distributing "important classic and contemporary films". A "sister company" of arthouse film distributor ...

and

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos, television shows and films Digital distribution, digitally on request. These multimedia are accessed without a traditional video playback device and a typica ...

platforms in early 2021. The film was subsequently a recipient of a 2022

Peabody Award The George Foster Peabody Awards (or simply Peabody Awards or the Peabodys) program, named for the American businessman and philanthropist George Foster Peabody, George Peabody, honor what are described as the most powerful, enlightening, and in ...

Reception

On review aggregator

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, the film holds an approval rating of based on reviews. The site's critical consensus reads, "A clear-eyed look at an extraordinary subject, ''Mayor'' makes essential viewing out of one politician's quest to preserve dignity in the midst of bureaucracy." In his Critic's Pick review for '' Indiewire'' Eric Kohn writes "There have been countless documentaries made about the West Bank experience, from “5 Broken Cameras” to “The Settlers,” and they often involve the travails of ordinary life existing side by side with military persecution. “Mayor” offers a striking new perspective on that struggle, with a personal on-the-ground quality matched by grand tonal ambitions that makes it the best of its subgenre." Tomris Laffley of ''

Variety Variety may refer to: Arts and entertainment Entertainment formats * Variety (radio) * Variety show, in theater and television Films * ''Variety'' (1925 film), a German silent film directed by Ewald Andre Dupont * ''Variety'' (1935 film), ...

'' writes "Osit brings a respectful approach that admirably never registers as observations of a patronizing Westerner", and called the film "astonishing" and "sharply witty". Many reviews praised the film's use of dark comedy; in his Critic's Pick review for ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' Ben Kenigsberg calls the film "surprisingly funny", Stephen Saito of Movable Fest writes that the film often resembles "a lost season of

Veep ''Veep'' is an American political satire comedy television series that aired on HBO from April 22, 2012, to May 12, 2019. The series was created by Armando Iannucci. The series follows Selina Meyer (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), the fictional Vice Pres ...

" and Mary McNamara of

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

describes the film as both "troubling and hilarious". Alissa Wilkinson of Vox wrote "At times, it plays like Veep — if the characters in Veep were actually kind, compassionate, and oriented toward what best serves the public’s interest. But Mayor also shows how challenging the job of mayor is, even for a talented leader like Hadid, who struggles to show the world what the citizens of his city are facing as they, and he, go about their lives under impossible and seemingly intractable circumstances."

Awards

Lists

References

External links

* * *{{Rotten Tomatoes, m/mayor, Mayor 2020 films American documentary films 2020 documentary films Documentary films about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict 2020s English-language films 2020s Arabic-language films Israeli–Palestinian conflict films 2020 multilingual films American multilingual films 2020s American films News & Documentary Emmy Award–winning programs English-language documentary films Arabic-language American films Arabic-language documentary films