Bella is a brilliant satire about the relations between Jews and Arabs within Israel-Palestine

Here it is – my favorite film from among all the new Israeli films screened this week at the Jerusalem International Film Festival -- 

Bella represents a full collaboration between two directors, Zohar Shachar and Jamal Khalaily, an Israeli Jew and a Palestinian Arab.  At the premiere event at the Jerusalem Film Festival this week, the audience was filled with many members of the cast and crew and their families – about half Jewish and half Arab. The speakers thanked the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund which supported the film from the very beginning. (I am proud to be part of the Gesher fund.)

This is a superb satire about the political situation. It is about the friendship between two couples, who are trying desperately to get a very special dove to a competition in Jerusalem. Zohar Shachar, in her opening remarks, said that in the making of the film, they met a lot of people, both Arabs and Jews who raise doves, and they found them to be definitely interesting and sometimes weird! 

The main character in the film is apparently the dove, named Bella. Yaki and his girlfriend Limor arrive from Europe for his father’s funeral.  Also attending the funeral is Yaki’s friend Bilal (married to Nargis) who has been working for his father.  Bilal insists that Yaki’s father left him the dove and, at first, Yaki is willing to give it to him.  But when they begin reading the text messages on his father’s phone, they realize that the dove is worth a lot of money.  So, Yaki and Limor drive over to Bilal’s house in Kfar Kassem (an Israeli Arab village in the Lower Galilee) to retrieve the dove, only to realize that Nargis refuses to let her husband be cheated out of the dove.  

When Bilal and Nargis and their extended family pile into cars to go to a family wedding in the West Bank (Area A under control of the Palestinian Authority), Yaki and Limor follow them.  A road trip ensues.  There is plenty of absurdity, comedy, political references, and heightened tension. It all begins when the Palestinian police stop them in Area A and then continues throughout.

This film is brilliant in many ways.  It portrays both couples as victims of the political situation, obsessed with similar thoughts about getting pregnant and having a family, and chasing after the dove while trying to get it to the competition in Jerusalem before it is too late. 

It was clever to use the dove (the harbinger of peace) as the element that brings the two couples together. 

You can’t miss the irony and absurdity when the dove isn’t permitted to cross the checkpoint and return to Israel because it doesn’t have a permit!

Information on the availability of Bella (feature film, 75 minutes) can be obtained from Hussein Akbaraly at LOSANGE FILMS h.akbaraly@filmsdulosange.fr