A House in Jerusalem review – supernatural drama of

A bereaved child moves to Jerusalem where she encounters a ghostly Palestinian girl no one else can see in this sensitive film about intergenerational trauma

Uncanny timing for an uncanny tale of Israeli-Palestinian history returning to haunt the present; in this case literally. This is a small-scale domestic drama with a supernatural tinge, set almost entirely in Jerusalem and Bethlehem and made by Palestinian film-maker Muayad Alayan, based on his own family history.

The story begins with Michael, a bereaved British-Jewish father (Johnny Harris), and his daughter Rebecca (Miley Locke) arriving in Jerusalem, looking for a new start after the death of their wife/mother in a car crash, a tragedy still fresh in both of their minds. They have inherited Michael’s father’s home: a grand old villa with plenty of light and space – not your classic haunted house. But Rebecca’s discovery of an old doll leads her to an encounter with Rasha, a pale young Palestinian girl about her own age, who apparently lives in the water tank in the garden, and whom no one else can see, not even Rebecca’s phone camera.