Documentary Film about Ada Karmi at the Jerusalem Film Festival

These are difficult times in Israel, but life is going on, the best that it can, and the Jerusalem Film Festival is being held this week, as planned.  I am enjoying the films, the guests, and the special events.  The opening event in Sultan’s Pool was thrilling, with more than 5,000 people in attendance. 

The first film that I chose to write about is Ada – My Mother the Architect, by Yael Melamede, a portrait of one woman, Ada Karmi Melamede.  Ada Karmi’s father and brother were both prominent architects in Israel, and she herself is a household name, one of the most prominent and award-winning architects. 

As a young married woman and mother, she moved to New York with her family, where they lived for many years, and she taught architecture for 14 years at Columbia University.  When she was denied tenure there, she made the decision to move back to Israel and work together with her brother, designing monuments and iconic buildings within the public sphere of the country.  Together they designed the magnificent Supreme Court building in Jerusalem which opened in the early 1990s.  Since that time, she has been creating and working in Israel.

If Ada Karmi had been a man, no one would blink an eye at the fact that she left her husband and three adolescent children behind, when she returned to Israel.  But this seems to be an unusual move for a woman.  Her daughter, the filmmaker, tries not to judge her, but rather asks her questions about why she left them and how she relates to motherhood. 

The film is made against the backdrop of the terrible coup that the rightwing government was attempting to enact against the justice system during the year 2023. 

Yael Melamede studied both architecture and film.  Her previous documentary credits include 1341 Frames of Love and War (2022), the Steven Spielberg six-part series Why We Hate (2019), When I Walk (News & Documentary Emmy Award Winner, 2015), (DIS)Honesty – The Truth About Lies (her debut film, 2015), Inocente (Academy Award Winner, Best documentary Short, 2013).

Ada – My Mother the Architect (82 minutes) is an extraordinary documentary film, produced by Hila Medalia and distributed by Medalia Films.