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Arab Labor
Created by Sayed Kashua, a 32-year-old Israeli-born Palestinian journalist, Arab Labor (translated from the Hebrew “Avoda Aravit” which colloquially implies second-rate work) focuses on Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen in search of his identity as he seeks high status in the society into which he was born but where his car is searched everyday when he drives from his neighborhood to his job at a newspaper in Jerusalem.
Mirror Image
In a pastoral house on the Israeli countryside live the filmmaker’s grandfather, grandmother, and a big crystal mirror that was taken from a Palestinian house during the Nakba – the depopulation of hundreds of thousand of Palestinians during and after the establishment of the state of Israel in the 1948 war. The story of the mirror is not a secret, but it remains untold. The filmmaker asks why is it that Jewish Israelis cannot address the mirror and others remnants of the Nakba, even when they are placed in the center of their lives? In this short conversation, the filmmaker and her grandparents negotiate the ways to tell the untold, staging an allegory for the position the Nakba takes in the realities of Israeli Jews.
Invisibles
Newly discharged from the Israeli Army, Ra’ed, a Bedouin from an unrecognizable village in the Negev desert, is determined to save his family’s failing herd of sheep, about to be sold. He plans to live off the herd by starting a roadside Bedouin hospitality restaurant.
The Green Prince
A Palestinian in Ramallah, Mosab Hassan Yousef grows up angry and ready to fight Israel. Arrested for smuggling guns at the age of 17, he’s interrogated by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, and sent to prison. But shocked by Hamas’s ruthless tactics in the prison and the organization’s escalating campaign of suicide bombings outside, Mosab agrees to spy for Israel. For him, there is no greater shame. For his Shin Bet handler, Gonen, there is no greater prize: “operating” the oldest son of a founding member of Hamas.
Sweets
The struggle between an Israeli corporation and an Arab entrepreneur for control of the candy market serves as an allegory for Jewish-Arab relations in Israel and its status in the international community.
5 Broken Cameras
Emad, who lives in the Palestinian village of Bil’in, buys his first camera when his son Gibreel is born, and puts it to use beyond creating family memories. When the government attempts to build a barrier across villagers’ lands, Emad films the resistance and is caught up in a storm of arrests and night raids. One camera after another is shot or smashed. And with each camera, a new chapter of Emad’s story unfolds.
Live and Become
The year is 1984, and thousands of Africans from 26 different countries are struck by famine and flee to camps in Sudan. Israel and the United States begin a joint initiative to airlift thousands of Ethiopian Jews to Israel. Desperate to save her son from starvation and death, a Christian Ethiopian mother convinces her son to declare himself Jewish. Considered an orphan, the boy is adopted by a French Sephardi family that lives in Tel-Aviv. He grows up with the fear that his secrets and lies will be exposed: he is neither a Jew nor an orphan—only a little boy far from home.
For more information visit the Israel Film Center
Arab Labor – Season 1 Episode 1 “The Car”
Created by Sayed Kashua, a 32-year-old Israeli-born Palestinian journalist, Arab Labor (translated from the Hebrew “Avoda Aravit” which colloquially implies second-rate work) focuses on Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen in search of his identity as he seeks high status in the society into which he was born but where his car is searched everyday when he drives from his neighborhood to his job at a newspaper in Jerusalem.
Episode 1: Amjad is stopped regularly on the road for a security check by police and does not understand why, because he thinks he looks like an average Israeli. Meir tells him that it is because the Subaru he drives is considered an Arab car. Amjad decides to trade in his Subaru and gets into trouble with the owners of the chop shop. Meanwhile, Amjad the journalist has to explain in the media why Arabs are involved in more traffic accidents.
For more information visit the Israel Film Center
Arab Labor – Season 1 Episode 2: “The Sheep”
Created by Sayed Kashua, a 32-year-old Israeli-born Palestinian journalist, Arab Labor (translated from the Hebrew “Avoda Aravit” which colloquially implies second-rate work) focuses on Amjad, a Palestinian journalist and Israeli citizen in search of his identity as he seeks high status in the society into which he was born but where his car is searched everyday when he drives from his neighborhood to his job at a newspaper in Jerusalem.
Episode 2: Amjad moves from the news desk to the magazine. The editor asks him for a colorful, sexy piece. Amjad is not sure what to write and deliberates over what to do, until he hears from his father about a very special sheep who understands what the soldiers say. Amjad makes up an interview with the sheep, and becomes a hot item on all of the local and international television networks. As he becomes famous for a false article, can he get himself out of this bind?
For more information visit the Israel Film Center
