In Hanna Shammas Takes it to Heart, this effortlessly charming comedian and writer combines storytelling and stand-up comedy to explore the complexities of everyday life as a Palestinian living in the 1948 territories, in the city of Haifa.
During a stay in hospital he discovers he has had a hole in his heart since birth. With wry social commentary and hilarious self-reflection, while waiting for surgery he meets a bizarre bunch of hospital staff and patients and searches for the cause of the hole.
Is it the women in his life? His family? His ludicrously unsupportive psychologist? Or the insanity of his identity as a Palestinian living in Haifa?
Inevitably, Hanna takes it all to heart.