The Sea, directed by Shai Carmeli Pollak, wins the Ophir Award

The Sea, directed by Shai Carmeli Pollak and produced by Baher Agbaria, previously reviewed on this blog, was the big winner of the Ophir Award last week, which means the film will represent Israel at the Academy Awards competition.  In addition, the star of the film, 13-year-old Muhammad Gazawi, won the Ophir Award for best actor.

The choice of the film, which is mostly in Arabic, and is about a 12-year-old boy dreaming about being able to visit the Mediterranean Sea, angered the powers-that-be in Israel.  Claiming that the film defames Israel and the IDF, the Ministry of Culture and Sports has declared the suspension of funding for the Ophir film awards in the future.

The Sea is a road movie, and as the boy travels from his village near Ramallah towards the sea, it clearly shows the dissonance between the reality of life on the occupied West Bank and normal life in Tel Aviv.  Perhaps just opening the eyes of Israeli viewers to this contrast would be an enormous achievement. As reported in Ha’aretz today, the filmmaker stated, “I don’t expect the film to change minds, but maybe it can open a window, a crack, a glimpse into another perspective.”

 

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 or through the distributor at Go2Films. 

 

The Sea - a Palestinian and Jewish collaboration

The Sea, directed by Shai Carmeli Pollack, is a film about the Occupation, about the walls that we put up between us, and about how they impact the simple dreams of a child.  The film was produced as a collaboration, between a Jewish director and a Palestinian producer. 

Khaled lives in a village in the West Bank, not far from Ramallah.  At the end of the school year, his class is going on a bus trip to the Mediterranean Sea.  All of the children are excited for this, since going to the beach is not a usual event for them.  On the way, they have to pass through a checkpoint in order to enter Israel. 

Khaled’s name does not appear on the list of those approved to pass through the checkpoint and he is sent back to the village.  Extremely disappointed, he decides to set out on his own. He wakes up in the middle of the night and sneaks out of the house to smuggle himself into Israel.  He experiences many encounters with Jews and Arabs alike who help him along the way. 

Worried about his son, his father, who works without a permit inside Israel, leaves the construction site where he is working, to go find his son, even though the risks of being caught without a permit are troubling. Both father and son encounter some wonderful people along the way.

Some films about the Occupation are hard-hitting, filled with violence and difficult to endure.  This one is different. It provides beautiful insight into a family, especially the life of a 12-year-old boy, and how difficult life can be for Palestinians living in the West Bank. I especially liked the character of Khaled’s grandmother, who has taken upon herself the difficult task of raising the four children since Khaled’s mother died of cancer two years earlier and the father is working to support them at a job inside Israel.

At the Jerusalem Film Festival premiere screening, which was filled with family and friends of the cast and crew, about half Palestinian and half Jewish, the film director said poignantly: “The making of this film, Arabs and Jews working together on the set, gives me a lot of hope.”  It is good to have some hope in these difficult days in Israel!

The Sea (93 minutes) provides a wonderful story. The film is available from the producer at Majdal Films, baheir@gmail.com

Shai Carmeli-Pollack also made Bil'in My Love (2006), one of the best documentaries about Israeli activists helping in the fight against the placement of the Separation Wall separating Palestinians from their lands. I never forgot one hard-hitting line from that film.  Standing on a hilltop at Bil'in in the West Bank, looking out at the horizon where you can catch a glimpse of Tel Aviv in the distance, someone says, You can see Tel Aviv from Bil'in, but you don't see Bil'in from Tel Aviv.  Wow. That was so true.  No one see or cares. 

 

A documentary film about Home Evictions in East Jerusalem opens at the Jerusalem Film Festival

The Jerusalem Fim Festival opened a few days ago, and I am watching films galore!

A new film about the cruelty of the Occupation is Bissan Tibi’s documentary, One Street in Silwan.

Batn Al-Hawa is a normal street in Silwan, which is a Palestinian village in East Jerusalem outside the Old City Walls, where the government of Israel is harassing and displacing local residents on a regular basis. According to Israeli law, Jews may apply to reclaim property lost during the 1948 war.  (Palestinians are not permitted the same rights.) Thus, settler groups are using this to obtain properties all over East Jerusalem, moving into Arab neighborhoods, taking over homes that Palestinian families have occupied for more than 75 years. And the courts are supporting this.

There are two heroes in the film.  One is Dareen, an adolescent girl, whose family is fighting the possible eviction from their home. She doesn’t talk much, but we watch as she plays with her cousin and her friends in the street, her relations with her brothers unfold, and we go on tour of the street with her father, who provides visitors with a rudimentary tour and a meal in his home. 

The other main character is the street itself – the security cameras, colorful street art, children’s games - some which are extremely violent, soldiers patrolling, settlers passing by.  In the midst of this Arab neighborhood, there is one site that houses a group of settlers and another that has become a synagogue.  There is graffiti that has been blackened out, some violence, and plenty of bad feeling. 

Although focusing your camera on a child makes for a film lacking in depth, it also provides a lot of pathos and insight into the tensions and fears of the Palestinian citizens who are suffering the dispossession that is being meted out by the occupying forces.

One Street in Silwan (documentary, 53 minutes) is a debut film for Bissan Tibi. Watch the trailer here.

The film is available from Anna Somershaf at supershaf@gmail.com

 

 

No Other Land - Academy Award winner for best feature-length documentary

Although No Other Land won the Academy Award for best documentary feature-length film, it is almost impossible to view it in Israel.  I took advantage of the fact that I was visiting in New York and went to the Film Forum on W. Houston St. to see the film last week.

No Other Land (documentary, 2024, 95 minutes) was directed by two Palestinian filmmakers: Basel Adra and Hamdan Ballal, and two Jewish Israeli filmmakers: Yuval Avraham and Rachel Szor. This is a hard-hitting award-winning film about the oppressive and cruel nature of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank.  The story takes place in Masafer Yatta, an area of 20 hamlets spread around the South Hebron Hills in the West Bank, not far from the Jewish settlement of Sussiya.

The film opens with Basel, one of the film directors, a Palestinian activist in his mid-20s, remembering back to when he was about 5-years-old and his father, Nasser, also an activist, was arrested for the first time.  Basel’s father owns a gas station, which is really just one gas pump, and he supports his family from the cars that stop by and fill up. 

They are battling the Israeli military for rights to stay on their land, where they have lived for more than one hundred years.  The Israeli army has decided to prevent the Palestinians of the area from living here, claiming that they need this area for an active military training zone, and they are enforcing a systematic destruction of entire villages.  Periodically, enormous bulldozers arrive to destroy homes. Imagine the trauma for the children standing by watching as their homes are demolished. These people are not primitive cave-dwellers, but after a village is destroyed, we see that the families have no other choice but to retreat and set up home in nearby caves.

Yuval is an Israeli journalist who grew up in Beersheba. He comes to cover the story, becomes emotionally involved in what’s happening and builds a strong attachment to the place, the people, and a real friendship with Basel.

The major part of the film tells the story of Basel’s activism, rooted in his father’s activism, how he uses social media, organizes protests, and tries so hard to protect their homes and villages.

Because the Palestinians persevere and continually rebuild, the military comes to confiscate their tools and their generator.  A scuffle ensues and Harun is shot.  The mother of Harun is a particularly compelling character who is forced to care for her paralyzed son. Her raw pain is palatable as she gives voice to her hope that her son will die peacefully and no longer suffer.

As things escalate, the military also begins to destroy the local school, pours concrete into a water well, and cuts irrigation infrastructure.  Eventually the nearby settlers from Sussiya join in the fray and arrive on a regular basis to terrorize the local population.

Even though the film refrains from telling many of the personal stories of the people suffering under this military oppression, it is still a harrowing story to watch.  Not exactly a fun night out! Perhaps continuing to deny the cruelty of the occupation and settler violence would be easier.  After viewing this film, I feel that it may mobilize more people to help Basel and the people of Masafer Yatta obtain the basic human rights of living on their own land with access to schools and water.

At the Academy Awards, the filmmakers Basel Adra, a Palestinian, and Yuval Avraham, an Israeli, spoke: “My hope to my daughter, that she will not have to live the same life I am living now,” Adra said. And from Avraham: “We made this film, Palestinians and Israelis, because together our voices are stronger, we see each other,” adding, “There is a different path… can’t you see that our future is intertwined. There is no other way.”

Watch the trailer here.

 

 

 

Prizewinning film, The Future, by Noam Kaplan

 The Future, written and directed by Noam Kaplan, was a prizewinner at the Tribeca Fim Festival, June 2023. 

Noam Kaplan’s previous feature film, Manpower, was about migrant workers living in South Tel Aviv. Check out what I wrote about it on this blog.

His new film, The Future, is a provocative film about women, about the Occupation, and about our future, here in Israel-Palestine.

A Palestinian young woman named Yaffa has been arrested for the assassination of the Minister of Space and Tourism. In fact, in the opening scene, Yaffa (played by a Palestinian actress named Samar Qupty) is brought by a police investigator to re-enact the scene in which she shot and killed the minister.  Later, the Security Services bring her to the clinic of Nurit (played by Reymonde Amsallem), a futuristic profiler who can supposedly identify potential terrorists and thereby prevent terrorist incidents. Since Nurit didn’t succeed in foretelling Yaffa’s attack on the minister, she is meant to interrogate her in order to better understand what went wrong. 

In her series of meetings with Yaffa, she tries to delve into what kind of relationship she had with her mother, what kind of childhood she had, what motivated her to acquire a gun and to decide to assassinate the minister.  At the same time, she is learning a lot about herself, about her relationship with her own mother and about her desire to have a child.

All of this is told on the background of the entire country waiting to learn of the success of an Israeli spaceship named “The Hope” on its way to the moon. 

Highly critical of the Occupation, The Future offers a shocking look at our future.  Can there be any hope? The film is available from GumFilms.

 

The Story of Human Rights Defender Leah Tsemel

Advocate, directed by Rachel Leah Jones and Philippe Bellaiche, is a documentary look at the human rights lawyer, Leah Tsemel, who has been defending Palestinians since she became a lawyer back in the 1960s.  She defends armed activists and non-violent activists, men and women, children and adults.  

When asked why she defends terrorists, Tsemel explains that it is not clear to her that they are terrorists. She sees them rather as freedom fighters.  In fact, it’s not a question of whether you condone the actions of the people that she defends, but rather if you can understand what motivates them, especially as they live under the strict regime of the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and the morass of the legal system of the Civil Administration.

In this film, we meet Tsemel’s husband and grown children, talking about her work.  Tsemel admits that she has only won one case in all of her years of practicing law – the landmark case that she brought to the Supreme Court against the use of torture in the interrogation of suspects.  This was a big success for her and also for Israeli democracy.  

In another case, she defends a 13-year-old Palestinian boy who, together with his 15-year-old cousin, went wielding knives to a Jewish neighborhood.  The cousin was killed on the spot.  The 13-year-old, a child who hadn’t hurt anyone and who clearly stated in his interrogation that he only intended to frighten, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for what he had done.  The shocking part is that we all know that if Jewish hooligans, even adults, were caught running around an Arab village with lethal weapons, they would be sent home with a reprimand.  This imbalance in the way Arabs and Jews are treated in the occupied territories and in the Israeli judicial system is quite shocking.

In another scene, Tsemel is seen with her friend of many years Hanan Ashrawi. They are both young mothers. Hanan tells the camera, and the viewer who can bear to hear this, that imprisonment of family members is the plight of every Palestinian family. This is perhaps the strongest line in the film.

The film Advocate is an extremely cogent and powerful documentary story of a human rights lawyer who is fighting for justice for all of us. The film is 108 minutes.

Tel Aviv on Fire

Tel Aviv on Fire, directed by Sameh Zoabi, opened this week in Israeli movie theaters.  It has already garnered awards both in Israel and abroad. The film is a superb satire about the absurdity of the Occupation, the humiliation of the checkpoints, and the chutzpah of some of the Israelis who try to make decisions for the Palestinians about what is best for them, especially IDF officers at the checkpoints.

Working for his uncle on a Palestinian soap opera, Salem has to drive regularly from Jerusalem to Ramallah to be on the set as a Hebrew dialogue consultant.  The soap opera is set on the background of the Six Day War of 1967 and is apparently popular with both Jewish Israeli and Palestinian Israeli audiences. The story is about a Palestinian woman terrorist/freedom fighter (depends on your point of view) who is assigned to seduce an Israeli general.

As Salem advances to become a scriptwriter for the TV series, we watch as he takes the story from real life and adapts it cleverly for the TV screen.  There is some romance – both in the story of the soap opera and in Salem’s own life. Yet, the strongest parts of the film can be found in the political commentary (some of it not-so-subtle, in fact quite sharp and biting), especially in the comments of the uncle about the ongoing Occupation which controls so much of Palestinian daily life in East Jerusalem and the West Bank. In addition, the film has a brilliant ending, which I will not reveal here, but leaves the viewer with the realization that the struggle by Palestinians against the Occupation will continue until it is over.

The actors in this film are all excellent, especially the lead Palestinian actor, Kais Nashif, who plays his role as someone who is seemingly aimless and easily led by others. Things get a bit out of hand when Salem turns to the commanding officer at the checkpoint -- where he finds himself humiliated on a daily basis – for advice on the character of the 1967 Israeli general.  As a result, we find Salem caught between the checkpoint officer’s view of things and his uncle’s need for underlying messages supporting the Palestinian struggle.

The filmmaker, Sameh Zoabi, is a Palestinian Israeli, who grew up in Iksal, an Arab village in the Galilee, and lives both in the USA and Israel. In a feature article by Nirit Anderman about him which appeared in the Haaretz magazine in Hebrew and in the English Haaretz this week, he shared some of his thoughts about making this film.  When asked about his responsibility to his people as a director and screenwriter, he responded, “I try to create from a very personal place… We have a greater responsibility than Jewish Israelis because our narrative is not so well known.”

Foxtrot by Samuel Maoz

Israel’s Minister of Culture, Miri Regev, has been trying desperately to censor Israeli films and filmmakers.  Her latest attempt included heavy criticism of Samuel Maoz’s new award-winning film, Foxtrot, which she admits she hasn’t seen!  Due to the controversy over the film, I decided to go see it right away, in order to show support for it and also to see it before it is removed from Israeli screens. 

Foxtrot is a serious, strangely compelling and fascinating film, well-worth seeing!   And just today we heard the news that the film is the winner of the Silver Lion award at the Venice Film Festival!

The film is about bereavement, military service, the humiliation imposed on Palestinians at the checkpoints, the boredom and tension that the young soldiers who man the checkpoints have to deal with, and how the occupation is eating away at our soul.  Foxtrot portrays a family tragedy in a society in which tragedy is so randomly distributed among the population, as we see in the opening sequence. 

Michael Feldman is an architect (played by Lior Ashkenazi) married to a wonderful wife, with two great kids, a beautiful apartment, and a bit of a chip on his shoulder.  His son, Yonatan, is serving in a small unit (whose call name on the military radio is “foxtrot”) somewhere on the moonscape of the West Bank where they are manning a lonely and somewhat surrealistic checkpoint. 

The film is filled with metaphors and symbols.  For example, the unit’s pre-fab hut is crookedly falling into the mire of the lunar terrain, something that one of the soldiers is measuring every night, desperately worried that one day they will all disappear into the muck.  For a long time, a camel has symbolized the majestic yet lumbering and lazy Middle Eastern Arab – here it ultimately brings about our undoing. And the enormous bulldozer, which everyone associates with one of the major tools of the occupation since it is used to destroy Palestinian homes, is the instrument of a major military cover-up of tragic events at a checkpoint.  The film also offers a Holocaust allegory which highlights the terrible feelings of survivor's guilt in the second generation (the generation of the soldier's father). And the foxtrot itself -- you dance around and around but always return to the same spot.
    

This is not an easy film to watch.  It is hard-hitting and stylized, using a lot of shots from above, a perspective which makes the viewer stand back and take note.  But it is also brilliant in many ways, using the cinematic medium to portray and criticize, something that the filmmaker should be credited for and not censored! In a democratic society, this type of film which looks critically at our contemporary reality is important for raising public awareness and potentially bringing about political change.  

Foxtrot is the story of a society that is exhausted from bereavement -- smoking marijuana or simply engaging in denial are some of the major ways of coping, according to this filmmaker.  It is a brilliant and provocative film which offers a shocking and effective cinematic criticism of the military establishment.

Samuel Maoz previously directed the prize-winning film, Lebanon, about a tank unit during the early days of the War in Lebanon in 1982 and is based on Maoz's own combat experiences during that war (previously reviewed on this blog).  

Foxtrot is available from The Match Factory and Sony. 

West of the Jordan by Amos Gitai

Amos Gitai is a prolific filmmaker – his filmography includes many award-winning feature films and also documentaries.  His latest film, which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this past week, West of the Jordan River, is about the Occupation.  Framing the film with an interview with Yitzhak Rabin which provides a look at his strategy and his vision of moving forward with peace, Gitai sets out to interview a wide array of personages who are involved either politically or on a human rights level with issues dealing with the Occupation. 

He travels with Ha’aretz journalist Gideon Levy to a tent of mourning in Hebron, he visits a Bedouin school near Kfar Adumim, and he attends meetings of the Parents Circle.  The resulting film unfurls a fascinating mosaic of a reality which simply must not continue!  According to a few of the people interviewed if the reality is not changed soon, the ongoing growth of the settlements and the terrible moral issues will cause a destructive future reality. 

Amos Gitai says he was looking to make a visual diary.  But the film is more of a mix of interviews, many of them shot in a studio, combined with visits to many places in the West Bank, and some in the Gaza Strip.   We speak with Yuli Novack of Breaking the Silence who questions the moral price of the occupation and warns that we are losing the democratic nature of the state. 

Even though the film is mostly about anti-Occupation activists, Gitai tries somewhat to be evenhanded -- not all of the interviewees are leftwing – there is a government minister who talks about the historic right of Israel to the land and Ben-Dror Yemini, a journalist from Yediot Achronot, who firmly believes that the Arabs don’t want peace and reconciliation. 

Together with Gideon Levy we learn that a 15-year-old boy has been killed by soldiers.  The Palestinians in the tent of mourning ask that Israel ends the Occupation and stops the killing of children – perhaps the greatest crime of all.

The scenes of women activists were most compelling for me.  We visit a woman’s group of the Parents Circle (Bereaved Parents for Peace) where we meet Roby and Bushra, both of whom have lost sons in the conflict.  Roby, one of the main activists of the group, and Bushra made a connection over their pain.  We also visit a meeting of B’Tselem, an organization which documents human rights violations, in which a group of Muslim women are being trained to go out with video cameras to document what is happening on a regular basis.  One woman says the camera “gives me strength.”  Another says, “Now they are afraid of us and they back away.”  Some of the footage shot by volunteers of B’Tselem of the soldiers’ treatment of local Palestinians is just shocking.

The film concludes with a backgammon tournament in which both Israelis and Palestinians are participating.  Is a shared Middle Eastern cultural background going to be enough?  How do we mobilize the masses of Israelis to stop the merry-go-round of apathy and in-action and to stand up and say “enough”!

West of the Jordan River (documentary, 94 minutes) is available from Sophie Dulac Distribution, or contact the Israeli production company d.elstner@docandfilm.com

Omar by Hany Abu-Assad

Hany Abu-Assad's newest film, Omar (2013), is a hard-hitting and powerful feature film.  His previous films, Paradise Now (feature film nominated for an Academy Award, 2005) and Ford Transit  (faux documentary, 2002), are also about the hardships of the Occupation.  All three of these films are Palestinian productions.  Even though Abu-Assad lives in Holland, the film Omar was almost completely funded by Palestinian businessmen and the major crew members were all Palestinian.  

Omar is a love story.  It is also the story of the struggles and insanity of life under the Israeli Occupation.  According to the filmmaker, Hany Abu-Assad, who spoke at the premiere screening at the Jerusalem Cinematheque: 

My only focus was to make a movie about the love story, friendship and trust.  

He went on to explain that the political reality was meant to be context.  The film shows how the political/national reality strongly affects the lives of individuals and the film's premise is that the terror of the occupation has caused these individuals to live with so much distrust, betrayal and paranoia  -- but ultimately, the real betrayal is not a political one but rather is connected to the love story. 

Omar, Tarek and Amjad are close friends.  Omar is in love with Tarek's sister, Nadia, and he climbs the separation wall, taking great risks, in order to visit her.   As a result of the humiliation and degradation of regular life in the West Bank, the three friends decide to commit an act of violent resistance.  When the filmmaker was asked whether his film supports the resistance to the occupation, he stated unequivocally that it is the primary message and that "injustice requires resistance."

Omar is played by Adam Bakri, one of the sons of Mohammed Bakri, and it is clear to see that he is as good looking and as compelling an actor as his father.  He plays a baker -- someone whose life is devoted to making bread, nurturing and satisfying a basic human need.  He is a tragic figure -- a moral, sensitive and beautiful human being who makes self-destructive choices in his life.

These are the major threads of the film -- Omar's love story, the senseless act of violence committed by him together with his friends, and the resulting savage beating and harassment that he receives by the Israeli Security Services (Shin Bet).

Many people are comparing this film to the Israeli thriller, Bethlehem (previously reviewed on this blog), which is about the relationship between a Shin Bet handler and his Palestinian collaborator.  The major difference is that since Omar is a film made from a Palestinian perspective, the main character, who is also being recruited by the Shin Bet to become a collaborator, never betrays his own sense of morality, never betrays any of his friends, and never collaborates in any way.

    

 The film includes much tension and violence -- on the part of the Shin Bet, the Israeli  soldiers, and also among the Palestinians themselves -- and therefore some might find it troubling.  However, the film, which has already won accolades around the world and is on the list for an Academy Award nomination, offers an important reflection of the tragic choices that regular people are being forced to make as part of their lives in the West Bank. 

Bethlehem by Yuval Adler - New Israeli feature film garners top prizes at Israeli Ophir Awards

The film Bethlehem by Yuval Adler just won six Israeli Ophir Awards including the two most important for best direction and best feature film.  The film was also the big winner at last week's Haifa Film Festival and a prize winner at the Venice Film festival last month (winner in the "Venice Days" section of the festival).  Certainly the best Israeli film of the year!

Adler is a very talented filmmaker.  He spent many years studying art, physics, math and then moved over to philosophy -- many of those years in New York City. Now he has turned his attention to filmmaking and his debut film,  Bethlehem, is a suspense-packed thriller.

The narrative is about a Palestinian teenager named Sanfur, whose older brother, Ibrahim, is the leader of a militant/terrorist/freedom fighting organization.  Sanfur is a collaborator, providing information to the Israelis, and the film is mostly about his intimate and complex relationship with Razi, his Israeli Secret Service (Shin Bet) handler.  

You are probably asking yourself -- is this another Israeli film about the conflict and the evils of the occupation? This is something else entirely, something out of a Nelson De Mille or John Le Carré novel  -- an extraordinary espionage thriller about the intimate and mutually dependent relationship between an informant and his handler.   The script -- by Adler and Ali Waked -- is superbly crafted, offering  great tension and drama, and lending enormous insight into the complexity of the issues surrounding so much of what goes on in the world of spying and counter-terrorism.  There is a wonderful array of characters -- certainly not stereotypes -- realistically portrayed with depth and emotion -- a tribute to both the script and the casting.  The pacing is superb -- never a dull moment.  The locations are realistic and authentic. 

Not portrayed as victims, the Palestinians in this film are seen as complex and varied -- there is the corruption of the leadership of the Palestinian Authority, the back-stabbing between different gangs of militants, and the string of collaborators who are recruited by Israeli Security Service handlers.  The handlers create a fascinating relationship with their informants. I was completely wrong in my assumptions that this relationship would include a lot of verbal abuse, some violence, and extreme exploitation.  As the director explained in a talk with the audience at a local Jerusalem screening last night (at the Lev Smadar cinema), the handler and the informant grow to be mutually dependent and to have a relationship of extreme intimacy.    They talk on their mobile phones very often, are available for each other at all hours of the day and night and we see how both are obsessed with this relationship.

After the screening, people asked questions about Adler's politics.  He refused to answer, stating that the film spoke for itself.  Honestly, the film is not over-the-top in its political perspective.   Rather, it tries to give an authentic glimpse at what was going on (during the years of the Second Intifada) at the level of the street, how individuals were suffering and struggling to get through on a daily basis. 

According to Adler, who I also heard  speak on Israeli radio (as part of the publicity surrounding the opening of the film in Israeli movie theaters), the film portrays a complex reality that is also a cinematic experience.  This is a thriller, an action film, but at the same time, it gives you a glimpse into a world that takes place internationally, the world of spying and intelligence.  He described his research, meeting with Palestinians and Israelis.  Even though the filmmakers strived for authenticity and the film is based on reality to a great extent, Adler admits that "we had to create a balance with the action and dramatic elements."

Bethlehem has already been purchased for distribution in many countries around the world including USA, Japan, and many countries in Europe.  Put this film on your "must" list!  

 Check out the website of the film.  

Three New Israeli Feature Films Welcome the New Year

As the summer draws to a close and all the children return to school, three new Israeli feature films are being shown in the local movie theaters in Israel. 

About social issues --

·         The best of the three films is Youth, by Tom Shoval,  a film about brothers (played by non-professional actors) who are extremely close.  When their father loses his job and things get depressing at home, they decide to take matters into their own hands by kidnapping a girl from a wealthy family in order to extort money from her father.  Just imagine the despair that brings two brothers from a representative middle class family to take such an extreme step, even though they are really trying to do something good!  

The story is terribly troubling and quite disconcerting, perhaps reflective of a young generation of Israelis, brought up in good homes, yet grappling with heavy financial distress.  This is a film about where we are heading, if we don't worry about those experiencing such financial difficulty.  

According to the filmmaker, the story is based on his own growing up, during which time his father lost his job at Ma'ariv, years before the social protests of a few years ago.  Sharing a room with his brother, lying in bed at night, together they created film scripts as their revenge for things that happened to them as a family. 

The film won the best feature film award at the Jerusalem Film Festival last month.  These are the comments by the jury:   

   There are many ways to judge the greatness of a film. One way, for us, would be the way a work stays with us—how days afterwards, images or patches of dialogue will come back to us, showing that the film has now simply become part of our lives... We believe this is an enormously powerful work, one that captures and expresses an aching loneliness that goes far beyond the very particular story it narrates.

According to Uri Klein of Ha'aretz, the film is "intelligent and biting, directed with great talent."

About political issues --

·         Paradise Cruise, a drama by Matan Guggenheim, is a heavy-handed anti-war and anti-occupation statement which lacks clarity in its development.  The two main characters, who meet and explore a love relationship (with gratuitous nudity and sex scenes), are both post-trauma and the film abounds in the images and memories that surface as their affair develops.  She is a French woman who is mourning the death of her Palestinian lover and he is terribly troubled by his army experiences in the West Bank which have led to his personal despair and crisis. 

The title of the film does not refer to anything as enjoyable or relaxing as a cruise to paradise.  Rather, it is taken from a picture postcard -- an ironic comment about life in the West Bank -- where the only place of beauty is in front of a billboard in Ramallah, advertising tours to Hawaii -- where couples go to momentarily escape from their reality and get their photographs taken. 

A somewhat humorous thriller --

·         Big Bad Wolves (hebrew title: Who's Afraid of the Big Bad Wolf?), a comedy/thriller by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, about police brutality and the search for a serial killer/pedophile.  In an interview on Israeli radio, the filmmakers talked about the use of excessive violence -- which is new for Israeli cinema.  Up until now, I would have said that local cinema is unique in its lack of violence (except of course in war movies) and could be characterized by vulgarity rather than by the over-the-top blood and gore which is so often found in that strangely unique and popular American genre called comedy thrillers (best-known examples are Pulp Fiction and Fargo).  In this film, the ironic or humorous violence is main-streamed, so to speak, the action is fast-paced, there are plenty of opportunities to cover your eyes, and there's way too much spurting ketchup!