Trouble in Paradise is a dysfunctional sitcom set out to explore humor as a mechanism of coping with trauma, pain, and taboos in relation to the Nakba and the Israeli occupation, by posing three sets of jokes ranging from the classical misogynistic genre to anti-jokes and culturally specific humor in order to examine why Nakba jokes never fully evolved as a genre and entered the Palestinian mainstream. The main protagonists of the film are the artist’s parents, who do not speak English and read the jokes from transliterated title cards and have lived through various phases of colonial rule, namely the Nakba, the 20-year-long military rule, and the Naksa, and never shared their memories from these events.

Mona Benyamin (b. 1997) is a visual artist, filmmaker, cellist, and writer based between Palestine and the Hudson Valley, New York. In her works, she explores intergenerational outlooks on hope, trauma, and temporal consciousness. Through appropriating formats from mass and popular media and tampering with their apparatuses, and utilizing dark humor, she questions notions of authenticity and veracity, and challenges concepts of agency and victimhood.