Palestinian director Rashid Masharawi conveys the palpable sense of tension that he perceived below the surface of daily life for the Palestinian population during the period of the "peace process." The film focuses on the act of observation itself, eschewing spoken dialogue altogether for a narrative that is produced rather through the editing of images, music, and incidental sounds on the track. Tension is organized around the natural cycle of sunrise and sunset, restated in terms of another "natural" work cycle: the many waves of Palestinian day workers who move through gates and checkpoints to labor in Israel and return each evening.

Described by Masharawi as a "fiction documentary," Ticket to Jerusalem offers a privileged view into everyday life in the West Bank though the story of Jaber and Sanah, a Palestinian couple living in a refugee camp near Ramallah. Their existence is a daily negotiation of checkpoints, IDs, and soldiers as Sanah works in the emergency service of the Red Crescent Society and Jaber screens cartoons for children in the refugee camps. Jaber encounters a schoolteacher who enthusiastically envisions an open-air movie screening in the old city of Jerusalem. As he faces the mounting risks of crossing into Jerusalem, his obsession with the project grows, as do the suspicions of his wife. Masharawi, who himself screened films in the refugee camps, creates a fable of lives that are as intricate and complex as the journey though the labyrinthine war zone in which they live.