Life in a Development Town

A new Israeli feature film, Sand Flakes, directed by Gitit Kabiri and Yahel Kabiri, a mother and son team, is about life in a development town.  It also offers a portrait of a compelling family, its vulnerabilities, its sadness, and its joy. 

David is a teenager, living in Dimona, a development town in the south which is windy, sandy and desolate.  His mother is suffering from MS and his father, who works at the Dead Sea Works, is dreaming of leaving and moving to Tel Aviv.  

David is a bright kid who enjoys reading and writing stories. He is a devoted son and big brother. His closest friends seem to be kids that he meets through an on-line chat room where they share the stories they have written.  In a beautifully-written literary style, David writes about his own family’s story, but he hides under a false identity and pretends to be a kid from a wealthy suburb outside of Tel Aviv.

The film offers a compelling look at adolescence, at coping with a physical handicap within the family unit, and the pressures of a development town kid who is trying to fit into Israeli society in general.  

Sand Flakes is distributed by Go2Films.