A New Israeli Film about Sexual Abuse

All I Can Do, directed by Shiri Nevo Fridental, is a new feature film which was screened this past week at the Jerusalem Film Festival.  It is about sisterhood, about the #MeToo movement, about women’s stories of sexual abuse, and about one woman working to try to make a difference.

The story is about a man accused of sexually abusing a 12-year-old girl, who was babysitting for his children.  Re’ut is a prosecutor in the Israeli justice system, who gets handed the new case. Now, more than 10 years after the events, the plaintiff, Efrat, has decided to come forward.  She is not your most normative young woman – sporting tatooes, spouting some foul language, and obviously emotionally damaged by the abuse that she experienced as an adolescent.  Despite her hardened exterior, she is quite fragile -- suicidal, vulnerable, and needy.  It’s hard to prosecute a case with no evidence, and only one plaintiff. But Re’ut is committed to getting justice for Efrat, no matter what it costs her professionally and emotionally.  

It turns out that Re'ut also has a story of abuse in her family.  She comes from a family of Russian immigrant women.  She was brought to Israel at the age of 7 by her mother and her grandmother and she has a special relationship with her grandmother.  But her mother, who herself suffered abuse from the hands of her husband back in Russia, is somewhat temperamental and they don’t have the best relationship. 

These are women’s stories.