Directed by Danae Elon
Canada/Israel | Hebrew/Arabic/English w/ English subtitles | Documentary | 2015 | 87 min
Film Source: Filmoption International
Sponsor: Burlington-Bethlehem-Arad Sister City Program
Showtime: Saturday, October 29 | 6:45 p.m. | FH
Awards: Special Jury Prize – Haifa International Film Festival
Director Danae Elon will be in attendance.
Filmmaker Danae Elon, the daughter of writer Amos Elon, grew up in Jerusalem before relocating to New York City. In this film, she chronicles what happens when she and her husband, Philip, a French-Algerian Jew who never lived in Israel, move their family to Jerusalem. Shot over the course of three years, the film captures how the city’s tensions become internalized within the family, exposing divisions between past and present, hope and reality. Elon turns the camera on her three young boys as they ask endless questions and confront the reality around them. We learn to see the Palestinian-Israeli reality from their point of view and that of their friends. She sends them to the only school in the city that teaches Arab and Jewish children together, a respite from the conflict enveloping her surroundings. But can she keep her family together — and keep a cool head — in the political and cultural heat of Jerusalem? ~OY