Epic Mideast Drama Plays out in Film Credits

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When Elia Suleiman's "Chronicle of Disappearance" opened at a film festival here, he was appalled at what was written in the program. His first feature-length film was listed as a product of "Israel and the Palestinian Authority."

The film, he says, was a product of neither. Though he is a citizen of Israel, as an Arab he considers himself a Palestinian, and not an Israeli. But as a native of Nazareth, which has been part of Israel since 1948, he does not live in the disputed territories considered "Palestinian" and has no intention of living under the three-year-old Palestinian Authority.

But art imitates life, and such conflict-laden, overlapping identities are …