Israeli Cinema – A Showcase
12-14 April 2008

The UK Jewish Film Festival links up with the JCC and the Pears Foundation for a number of screenings and events in the UKJFF’s first Israeli Cinema Showcase.

Celebrating the achievements of Israeli cinema, this partnership will focus on films that reflect and engage with the diversity of Israeli society and the Israeli filmmaking scene, giving voice to minorities and under-represented communities.


        

Three Times Divorced

Sat 12/04/2008 - 21:00 Everyman Cinema Club

Director: Ibtisam Mara'ana
Israel 2007 75 mins
Language: Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

Khitam, a Gaza-born Palestinian woman, was married off in an arranged match to an Israeli Arab, followed him to Israel and bore him six children. When her husband divorces her and gains custody of their children, she suddenly finds herself fighting two heart-breaking battles: against the Islamic Sharia court to get her children back, and against the state of Israel, which considers her an illegal resident and denies her protection. Khitam’s only legal recourse is to appeal to the Sharia court because there are no secular divorce courts in Israel.

With remarkable access and an unflinching lens that never sensationalises, award-winning filmmaker Ibtisam Mara’ana captures Khitam’s astonishing courage as she faces an impossible situation with no country or court to protect her.

Director Ibtisam Mara’ana will attend the screening which will be followed by a Q&A

Recognized

Sun 13/04/2008 - 16:30 ICA

Director: Ori Kleiner
Israel & USA 2007 61 mins
Language: Hebrew and Arabic with English subtitles

Bedouin usually appear in the Israeli collective consciousness as either ‘ethnographic’ or ‘demographic’ issues. Their representation by means of various objects ‘coffee, camels, tents, carpets’ prevents most Israelis from seeing Bedouin as people with wishes and wills, frustrations and fears; as possessing not only a past, but also a future.

Filmed entirely on location in the Negev desert in the summer of 2006, Recognized is made up of documentary moments that trace the uprooted experiences of individuals struggling with their identity as Bedouins and with their status as equal citizens of the state.

Director Ori Kleiner will attend the screening which will be followed by a Q&A.

Ashes + On Hold + panel discussion

Sun 13/04/2008 - 18:00 ICA

Ashes

Director: Rima Essa
Israel 2001 35 mins
Language: Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

‘Raised by a mother engulfed in forgetfulness, and by a memory of a father of whom only dim recollections remain, here I am - a refugee, living 4 kilometres away from my homeland…’

The family of Rima Essa is from Bir’am, a Palestinian village which was destroyed in the war of 1948. Ashes is her cinematic attempt to come to terms with her feelings as an Israeli Arab, torn between memories and roots and the pressing need to find a suitable identity for herself as a young woman in Israel.


On Hold

Director: Rokaya Sabbah
Israel 2007 52 mins
Language: Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles

On Hold is the story of Director Rokaya Sabbah and her partner - a young Israeli Arab couple who decide to leave Israel for a better life in Spain. A quirky, complex and touching story that reveals the unique dilemma faced by many Israeli Arabs, caught between twin identities and mixed allegiances. The decision to stay or to go unearths the deep contradictions of life in Israel.

The film follows the young couple as they face the painful decision to leave the place they grew up in, the homeland of their ancestors. In an honest attempt to find solace for their conflicting feelings, they seek answers from the people around them: Rokaya’s Muslim family, her husband’s Christian family and their friends, Arabs and Jews, only to find out that this dilemma is far from being only theirs alone. Should they stay at home and fight for basic rights and for a decent life or should they follow their dreams and embark on the road to find another promised and more tolerant homeland?

Followed by a panel discussion. Inside-out: Filmmakers, filmmaking and the experience of minorities in Israel

To coincide with the screenings of Three Times Divorced, Recognized, Ashes, and On Hold, this event will be dedicated to the growing number of films by and about non-Jews in Israeli society. A post-screening discussion with filmmaker Rokaya Sabbah (On Hold), film scholar Yael Friedman, who is currently writing a PhD about Palestinian filmmaking in Israel, and Prof. David Newman, professor of Political Geography in the Department of Politics and Government at Ben-Gurion University.
Chaired by journalist and Foreign Editor of The JC, Daniella Peled.

+ DJ at the ICA bar until 10:30pm
Renowned DJ, Erran Baron Cohen will be spinning an Arab Jewish music fusion in the ICA bar. Erran Baron Cohen has composed music for a myriad of eclectic projects – encompassing orchestral scores, cutting edge dance and sound design. He is the founding member of ‘World Fusion Beat Scientists’ ‘Zohar’.