A New Student Film -- Carmen

As part of the program committee of the Gesher Multi-Cultural Film Fund, I have just had the opportunity to watch a very special short film called Carmen, directed by Yahli Maoz (18 minutes). The film was screened as the opening event at the 2025 International Student Film Festival which just took place in Tel Aviv.  It is about a woman named Carmen, from the Philippines, who is the caregiver for a resident of a moshav in the center of Israel, Ein Vered.

Walking down a street in their rural area, Carmen finds her employer's cat, who has been hit by a car.  She hesitates telling her employer and instead takes the cat and buries her under a bush and decides to keep the cat’s death a secret. But Carmen is a religious woman and she feels bad telling a lie. There is a beautiful scene in which Carmen goes to her singing group, which meets outdoors in someone’s yard, and is made up of people of Philippine background and some of the elderly people that they care for.  Carmen leads them in singing Amazing Grace in her mother tongue.

I love student films which provide us with a small window into the world of what is important to the next generation of young filmmakers.

 

Migrant Workers

Last week, I attended LIMMUD U.K.,  which was held this year in Birmingham.  It was a first time for me and I found it quite exciting!  Bringing together more than 2,500 individuals of all ages, LIMMUD offers study on multiple subjects dealing with Jewish life in the contemporary period.  I presented sessions on Israeli film, introduced film screenings, and participated in various panels.  But more importantly, I was also a participant, going from session to session, learning and listening.  It was an extraordinary experience!

I was honored to participate in a panel discussion following the screening of a new feature film, Transit, directed by Hannah Espia.  This is a new film from the Philippines about Philippine migrant workers in Tel Aviv.  The screening was arranged by U.K. Jewish Film Festival. 

This is the first feature film by Philippine filmmaker, Hannah Espia. The film was the Philippines' submission to the Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film, 2014.

The film deals with a new draconian measure implemented by the Israeli government -- the deportation of the children of migrant workers.  As a result of this new policy, the workers must struggle to protect their children.  In the film, we meet Janet who works cleaning houses.  She is living on an expired visa, and has to worry about her teenage daughter, Yael, who is half Israeli, but according to Janet, that doesn't change her existential identity.  She also worries about Joshua, a 4-year-old little boy who she takes care of.  Joshua is the son of a relative of hers, Moises, who works as a live-in caretaker for an elderly but lovely man.  Joshua's mom has married an Israeli man and she has moved on with her life.  Soon arrives another member of the family, Tina, who is a cousin.  

There are three cinematic techniques that make this an interesting and at the same time a film which is difficult to watch -- language, time and perspective.  The film is slow-moving and tender, but there is too much broken Hebrew which is stilted and grates on the viewer, especially if the viewer speaks Hebrew.  This is a realistic and also sad view of the Hebrew spoken by migrant workers.  Just as our grandparents were immigrant parents and spoke a broken English or a broken Hebrew, so too, these migrant workers "break their teeth" on a language which comes naturally to their children. 

The film is interesting from the point of view of how it treats "time".  It is multi-dimensional when it comes to time!  This is the part of the film that is most extraordinary.  As the perspective or point-of-view changes when each of the characters tells his or her story, then some key scenes are replayed, providing more insight into the characters, as we learn more about their struggles. Many people in the audience were bothered by the repetition, but I found it to be a fascinating technique.

There is something kitsch about the token Israeli "views" in the film -- the Kotel, Old Jaffa, a local Church, a bar mitzvah and a Sefer Torah.  But, overall, it presents a fascinating story of life in Israel for these illegal migrant workers who choose to come to Tel Aviv, the difficult circumstances notwithstanding, and who talk freely about the hardships of life back in the Philippines.

The other panelists discussed some of their experiences in working with foreign workers in both South Tel Aviv and in Jerusalem.  

Transit by Hannah Espia (feature film, 93 minutes) is available from Electric Entertainment. 

The subject of migrant workers is an important issue within Israeli society today and it has been dealt with in many important Israeli feature films, such as  --

• ·         Noodle by Ayelet Menachemi
• ·         Foreign Sister by Dan Wolman
• ·         Manpower by Noam Kaplan
• ·         The Human Resources Manager by Eran Riklis, based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua

And two major Israeli documentaries --

• ·         The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return  by David Ofek 
• ·         Strangers no More by Karen Goodman

Manpower by Noam Kaplan

Manpower (directed by Noam Kaplan) is a biting and tough film about four different stories which intersect in South Tel Aviv where thousands of African political refugees and migrant workers live.  This is a film about the difficulties of everyday life, about financial problems, loneliness, about getting along in a society that is not so welcoming, about frustration and despair.  Israeli society doesn't treat these workers well, their status is problematic and the situation is complex.  

There have been many excellent Israeli films about migrant workers, which deal with how they are treated within our society, such as --

The Human Resources Manager (Eran Riklis)

Foreign Sister (Dan Wolman)
James' Journey to Jerusalem (Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
Noodle (Ayelet Menachemi)
Janem Janem (Haim Bouzaglo)

This film is perhaps less fictionalized than the others and shows the bare reality of living as a foreign worker in Tel Aviv and how the Israeli authorities deal with this sensitive problem.  Loaded with irony, this is a film about belonging, emigration, and uprootedness.

 

Emigration and loneliness: There is the Jewish cab driver whose son, Philippine daughter-in-law and Israeli-born grandchild have decided to better their lives by emigrating. 

Frustrations: There is the policeman who comes back from a police trip to Buchenwald and is assigned to round up African foreign workers living in Israel.  It's not so easy to raise a family on a cop's salary. 

Uprootedness: There is the Nigerian man with his wife and child, a leader within the African community, who works cleaning houses despite humiliation and fear of deportation.

Belonging: And there is the teenager who works at Aroma, born in Israel to a mother from the Philippines, desperately hoping to join a combat unit  in the IDF in order to fit into Israeli society. 

Manpower portrays the despair and denigration of these families trying to live their lives and of the cops who are themselves victims in so many ways.  You feel for the characters, all of whom are real people living in South Tel Aviv.

Strangers No More

Big News!

Strangers No More directed by Karen Goodman and Kirk Simon was the winner last night of an Academy Award for best Documentary (short subject). The film presents the difficulties and triumphs of youngsters -- children of asylum-seekers and foreign workers -- at a school in South Tel Aviv.

Click here for a Jerusalem Post article about a screening of the film that took place at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque a few months ago.

The Human Resources Manager

I was recently invited by Lilith Magazine to contribute postings on their film blog.

Please read my posting about Eran Riklis' new film, The Human Resources Manager, which is definitely the most important Israeli film of the year!

It is a film about the transformation of an Israeli self-centered workaholic into a man of caring and compassion as he tries to make atonement for how we treat migrant workers.

Based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua.

check out my posting at the Lilith Magazine site

The Human Resources Manager

Last night, the big winner of the Israeli Oscars (Ophir Prizes) was The Human Resources Manager, directed by Eran Riklis. The film won awards for best film, best scriptwriter and best director. The winner of the Ophir Prize for best film automatically becomes the Israeli entry to the American Academy Awards. The film was also the big winner at Locarno this year.

Riklis is a local filmmaker who has made himself a reputation internationally with Cup Final, Syrian Bride and The Lemon Tree. This time his film is a literary adaptation, based on a novel by A.B. Yehoshua (called Woman of Jerusalem), script by Noah Stollman (who also wrote the script for Someone to Run With).

The film, which tells the story of a form of personal atonement for how we treat foreign workers in our midst, will open to the Israeli public after the holiday of Succot.

Refugees

According to Time Magazine (July 5, 2010), there are 15 million refugees living in limbo in the world today. According to the UN, the number is as high as 38 million. These people are seeking asylum, looking for a secure place to live with their families. In recent years, thousands of asylum seekers from Darfur in the Sudan, Ivory Coast, Eritrea, and the Congo have entered Israel, stealing across the Egyptian border during the night. This wave of refugees began in 2007 when dozens were killed at demonstrations in Cairo. Desperate and scared, the refugees began to move out of Egypt, looking for a safe haven, crossing the desert on foot, fleeing to Israel, even as the Egyptians were shooting at their backs to prevent them from crossing the border.

The Geneva Convention of 1951 states that refugees must not be sent back from where they have come. This is no simple matter for Israel since Israel is a country born of refugees from war torn Europe and refugees from Arab lands.

The film Refugees (directed by Shai Carmeli Polak) tells tragic stories – one woman's children have died because of sickness. One man is separated form his wife and family. In Tel Aviv the refugees live in the Levinsky area, near the Old Central Bus station, where there are shelters that have been set up by non-profit groups that are offering services to the new refugees.

Israeli government policy is not decided on how to deal with these refugees. Some of them are being caught at the border and sent back (a policy called "hot return"); large numbers are being kept in lock up at Ktziot Prison (as an attempt at discouraging others to come); many are finding work in the Tel Aviv area; only those from Darfur are receiving "refugee" status.

This cogent and heart-wrenching documentary asks difficult questions. On the one hand, Israelis and the Israeli government are trying to be sensitive to the pain of these people. But what is Israel to do when thousands – Christians and Muslims – are entering the country? Does Israel have a special responsibility due to the fact that Israel is a country made up of refugees? What about the fact that Israelis are trafficking in arms in Africa, thereby providing the means for the violence from which these refugees are fleeing?

A solution to this worldwide problem has yet to be found.

Refugees (2008) is available in two versions – 52 min. or 67 min. – from Ruth Diskin Films.

Rebuilding your Life in a New Land

Yesterday at the Jerusalem Film Festival, I went to see a Belgian film, Illegal (directed by Olivier Masset-Depasse) about a woman from Russia who is treated badly by the local police because she is an illegal worker. This was a compelling story about a mother and her teenage son and the trials that they undergo in trying to become accepted in their new surroundings. For some reason, this is a subject that has been really bothering me in recent years – as it becomes more and more of a human issue all over Europe, the United States, and certainly here in Israel.

The Israeli features of recent years that deal with foreign workers or visitors and the influence that they have had on us (all of which have been reviewed on this blog) include:

Foreign Sister (Dan Wolman)
James' Journey to Jerusalem (Ra'anan Alexandrowicz)
Noodle (Ayelet Menachemi)
Janem Janem (Haim Bouzaglo)

and documentaries:
The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return (David Ofek)
Children by Remote Control (Nachum Landau)

A Palestinian film that deals with this subject of migration and trying to rebuild your life in a new country is My Father from Haifa by Palestinian-Danish filmmaker, Omar Shargawi. The film, which was screened this week at the Jerusalem Film Festival, is a particularly sensitive and personal look at a father-son relationship and at their journey to the childhood home of the filmmaker's father.

Omar Shargawi, won an award at the Rotterdam Film Festival (2008) with his debut film, a feature about the Arab community in Copenhagen, Go in Peace, Jamil.

Another film about Palestinians who have found their place abroad is Amreeka, directed by Cherien Dabis, about a mother and son who emigrate to Illinois to be with relatives. The film is about finding a place to call home, where we feel comfortable, where we can have friends, where our children will find happiness and educational opportunity.

Janem Janem ("My Soul, My Soul")

Similar to the film's disturbing image of the ripped and worn Israeli flag, the hero of Janem Janem (2006), an Israeli high school teacher of history and Zionism, is completely worn out, wondering what it's all about, asking himself what he is fighting for.

Similar to his earlier film, Marriage of Convenience, which explored issues of distrust between Arabs and Jews, veteran filmmaker Haim Bouzaglo has created a new film about the terrible treatment of migrant workers within Israeli society. In both films, the main character's name is Eldi.

The film opens with a hard-hitting beginning – two soldiers are listening to the radio at an army outpost and suddenly they are under fire. One soldier gets killed, the other begins shooting back wildly. Eldi, who has seen some difficult army service, is a 40 year-old teacher who falls into a crisis of meaning and identity. Fed up with everything, he decides to stop teaching -- he calls it a "strike" – and leaves his wife to go on a journey. At the last minute, he decides that he can't get on the plane and he gets back on line to re-enter the country, getting mixed into a group of Romanian and Turkish workers entering Israel, each with his own personal dream.

In a compelling way, the film shows the humanity and camaraderie between the workers --seen in direct contrast to the harsh reality of life in Israel which catches up with them at every turn. There are terrible living conditions, humiliations, regular abuse of the foreign women, pressured work on a construction site and police round-ups.

This is not an easy film. It is hard-hitting and critical. What has happened to the Zionism of the high school teacher? Where is the Israel of our dreams? Instead the Israeli flag, flying in the breeze, is ripped and worn.

The film was produced in 2006, as the violence of the second intifada was just drawing to an end. Certainly in the mind of the Israeli film-going public at that time was the fact that terrorist bombings occurred in the area of south Tel Aviv where these migrant workers were living, linking forever the destiny of these people to the destiny of the entire country.

Janem Janem is available from Dragoman Films

Noodle

Two days ago, I spoke at Congregation Shaarey Shalom in Hingham, Mass., at the beginning of an Israel film series. This opening event featured an interactive program which offered the screening and analysis of film clips on contemporary issues of Israeli society through film, followed by dinner, and a screening of the film Noodle, directed by Ayelet Menachemi. I have written before about Noodle on this blog.

Noodle is a warm and fuzzy film which takes place on the background of the large number of illegal foreign workers who began to appear in Israel about 10 years ago, with the beginning of the Palestinian uprising (intifada). The storyline deals with two inter-connected subjects -- about a bereaved woman learning to love again and about how she can make a difference by doing tikun olam (repairing the world).

I offered comments that the director, Ayelet Menachemi, had shared with the audience at Beit Avi Chai when she was our guest there. The audience loved the film and was very appreciative!

Global Concerns

Today, I was asked by a journalist if there is a link to the fact that Israelis are making films about the war in Lebanon while Americans are making films about the war in Iraq. Obviously, our issues and concerns are interlinked. Just as Americans and Europeans are aware of the issues in the Middle East, so too, Israelis follow closely developments in Iraq. That does not mean that our anti-war films are actually films condemning the war in Iraq. Rather, it means that filmmakers in Israel have a heightened consciousness about the futility of war because of the reality here, and also because of what goes on in Iraq.

We can see a similar link concerning films dealing with migrant workers. I've been attending the Haifa International Film Festival this week. While I always make it my top priority to go and see new Israeli films when I'm at this festival, I also try to catch as many international films as possible. In one day, I saw three different yet equally compelling feature films – one Israeli, one Italian/Romanian and one French -- all dealing with issues of foreign workers!

Ricky (Francois Ozon, France/Italy, 2009) is the story of a love affair between a French woman and a Spanish immigrant factory worker, and how their relationship is tested when they have a child with special needs. Black Sea (Federico Bondi, Italy/ Romania/ France, 2008) is the story of Angela, a Romanian woman who works as a companion/care-taker for a bitter widow in Florence, and the strong mother-daughter bond that is slowly created between them. While Angela takes care of the older woman physically, the woman handles Angela's emotional needs.

Very different from both of these films is the new Israeli film, Bena (Niv Klainer, 2009), which is about a complex and intimate father-son relationship that changes radically when Bena, a Thai worker, becomes part of the equation. The father, in his loneliness, is attracted to this quiet, restrained and modest woman, and his son, in a violent attack, takes what his father wants. Surprisingly, the film makes a parallel between the foreign worker and the schizophrenic son, both of whom are virtually locked up at home, unable to break out of their small and circumscribed realities. If they do break out somehow, they would inevitably be institutionalized – the boy in a hospital and the foreign worker in a prison. The film is a tour-de-force for both Shmulik Vilozhny (as the father) and Michael Moshonov (as the son).

Bena is available from Transfax Films, sales@transfax.co.il

Additional quality Israeli films of recent years that deal with issues of foreign workers include: Noodle (Ayelet Menahemi, 2007), Foreign Sister (Dan Wolman, 2000) and James' Journey to Jerusalem (Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, 2003).

Israeli Forum of Documentary Filmmakers

At the award ceremony last week of the Forum of Documentary Filmmakers, The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return (David Ofek) won the award for best documentary of the year. In his remarks, David Ofek talked about how the story of Nicolai should teach us that others should be treated better in our society – foreign workers, new immigrants, everyone – because there is only a fine line between who is different and who is one of us. More details in a previous blog posting.

The award for the best feature length documentary went to Unmistaken Child (הגלגול ) directed by Nati Baratz (102 min.) which also won the prize for Best Documentary at the Haifa Film Festival (2008). The film is an intimate look at a Tibetan monk and is available from Alma Films alma@alma-films.com

Foreign Workers

Children by Remote Control by Nachum Landau is a fascinating and sensitive documentary look at foreign workers in a foreign land.

Landau watches up close a group of Thai workers and focuses on how they cope with leaving their children far behind. According to Israeli law, the foreign workers are not permitted to bring their children with them to Israel. Dreaming of a better life after they earn some money working in Israel, they leave their children behind and continue their ties with them through phone calls and letters. They are paying a heavy price for the right to work as a foreigner in Israel.

What motivates these people to be so far from their children whom they love? In order to answer this question, the filmmaker decides to accompany one of the Thai couples on their return trip home, in order to see for himself the problem from the other side. As he is traveling with this couple, he can feel the distance that has been created between the children and the parents. Quite openly, the teenagers say that they would rather have their parents than having the car and education that the money they are earning can buy.

We can only hope that time will heal the wounds.

The film is 51 minutes in length and is available from the filmmaker, Nachum Landau, at nachum@saad.org.il

The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return

A prize-winning film, The Tale of Nicolai and the Law of Return (2008), directed by David Ofek, tells about a Romanian young father who comes to Israel as a foreign worker. Although the film is a documentary – it stretches the definition of documentary filmmaking. The entire story is a retelling of a true story told by a voice-over narrator, which detracts from the authenticity of the story, but adds to the drama and irony.

As a foreign worker in Israel, Nicolai and his friends work for a company that exploits them, taking a large percentage of their wages in return for having brought them to Israel and providing them with work. Nicolai eventually decides to quit this job and take control of his own work situations and earnings, thereby losing his work permit and becoming an illegal worker. Along the way, he learns that Jews are permitted to come to live in Israel and receive full rights as citizens. Knowing that he has a Jewish grandmother, he sends his wife searching for documents to prove his Jewish roots. Meanwhile, he is arrested and deported. When Nicolai returns with his wife and two sons to live in Israel as new immigrants, he opens a small renovations company and the family settles down.

The voice-over narrator refers to the fact that the Law of Return, which was amended in the 1970's, actually uses the criteria of the Nuremberg laws. According to the Nazis, a Jew was someone who had at least one Jewish grandparent. Thus, in Israel today, a non-Jewish Romanian worker can be treated well, provided with spending money and free language lessons just because one of his grandparents was born Jewish.

The film expresses a criticism of how foreign workers are treated. It is also about the complexities of national identity, and can raise a heated discussion about the Law of Return. In the post-Holocaust reality of Israel, we continue to use a Holocaust definition of "Who is a Jew" for the purpose of aliyah. Isn't this an irony?

The film is available from Eden Productions, Ltd. –
www.edenproductions.co.il

Noodle by Ayelet Menachemi

Last night at Beit Avi Chai, a cultural center in downtown Jerusalem, we opened our series WOMEN MAKE MOVIES and screened the film Noodle (2007), which was followed by a fascinating discussion with the director, Ayelet Menachemi.

Winner of the Jury Grand Prize at the Montreal World Film Festival, the film stars Mili Avital and Anat Waxman, who are good friends in real life, and play sisters with a very intense and honest relationship. The film is a dramatic and sensitive story about an El Al flight attendant named Miri, whose Chinese housekeeper is suddenly deported, leaving her with the woman's 6-year-old little boy. It is also about Miri's relationship with her sister, and with her sister's estranged husband.

This is a well-scripted (co-scripted by Menachemi and Shemi Zarhin who directed Aviva My Love, which is also about sisters) yet humorous story about the issues of foreign workers, about bereavement, about the bond between sisters, and about learning to love again. Miri learns to love this little Chinese boy, and she is moved to give him back to his mother, especially because she loves him – even if she has to take risks to do it. The film has many dramatic moments, including the scene in which we realize that Miri no longer thinks of the little boy as an alien or a foreigner, but she has become attached to him as a human being. This is a turning point in the film. Miri is twice widowed, having lost both husbands in the wars, and only through the love of this little child does she take the big step of being able to love again. But in addition to the dramatic moments, the film has a lot of sarcasm between the sisters, and humor and emotion with the little boy.

The audience was enthusiastic about the film, and enjoyed the discussion with Menachemi. She discussed how difficult it was to find the right little boy to play the part of Noodle. They worked with a casting agency in Hong Kong who had a list of about 2,000 boys. However, they recognized the right boy immediately! He was 7 1/2 years old at the time of the shooting, and they had to work with him through a translator. In a particularly touching scene when he talks to his mother who is far away in Beijing, his voice cracks and he cries. It was a triumph of acting. In trying to help him to get into the right mood, the translater told him a story of a friend of hers who died in a car crash. But it didn't help him. So, completely by himself, he wove a story about not being able to see his own mother, and it helped him to do the scene. He was so proud when he got it right. When Menachemi tried to get him to admit that he really did a great job, he said that his mother always taught him not to develop too much pride.

When asked whether the story of the film was based on a true story, Menachemi talked about different fragments from her own life experiences. When the immigration issue became very heavy in Israel during the early part of this decade, and the immigration police had a quota of people to deport each year, she became interested in stories of deportation. This story didn't actually happen, but stories like it did. She went to the immigration people to ask if this story was possible and they helped her. In addition, she traveled in China about 15 years ago, and it left a huge impression on her. "No one speaks real English there – you have to find other ways to communicate and have to use emotional intelligence to get along. I felt this was how our boy must have felt without language." Finally, she met an El Al flight attendant who had lost 2 husbands in war. All of these elements come together in the film.

This is a story of one woman who can make a difference. Sometimes we shirk our responsibilities by denying the capacity of each and every one of us to do tikun olam. Here is an amazing woman who takes a risk to make the world a better place. According to Menachemi, taking a risk and reuniting the boy with his mother was a redemptive act.

The film is available from: israelifilms@gmail.com

"James' Journey to Jerusalem" directed by Ra'anan Alexandrowicz in 2003

A particularly compelling satire of contemporary Israeli society, James Journey to Jerusalem tells of a Christian pilgrim from Nigeria who is forced to work as a migrant worker and quickly learns the ins and outs of getting along.

At a talk at Beit Avi Chai (http://www.bac.org.il/) in Jerusalem, June 19, 2008, the filmmaker spoke eloquently about the subject matter of his film. "This is not a film about migrant workers per se. Rather, this is a film about money and materialism and what it has done to us. James is the Zionist dream and we can see what has become of him/it as the result of money. "

Alexandrowicz talked about the Sallah character (Aryeh Elias) who has told his children not to be a "friar" a "sucker" or someone of whom others take advantage, and both his real son, Shimi, and his adopted son, James, tell him, we were only doing what you told us to do! They have become so tough because they wouldn't let anyone think that they were suckers. Alexandrowicz also said that the State of Israel itself, after hundreds of years of Jewish persecution, is a statement that the Jews are not to be taken advantage of any longer.

In talking about the parallel to the Sallah figure (from the classic film Sallah, directed by Ephraim Kishon), who has been corrupted by money, he showed a clip from Sallah, in which Sallah is trying desperately to get a shikun (an apartment in a housing project) for his family, and he tells his son that we have been denied an apartment, "it's because we're newcomers", and he says that when he's in charge, he's going to treat the new immigrants the way he's been treated. That's what everyone does, they treat the newcomers badly, in the case of James, those who were once new immigrants themselves, treat the migrant workers badly.

At the end of the film, as James is arrested and sent off to prison in Jerusalem, he begs the police to stop the car and let him take a picture. What is the view in the background? The shikunim (housing projects) of Kiryat Yovel – a reference back to the shikunim of Sallah's dreams.