On a small bench on the sidewalk just outside their homes, four elderly Yemenite women meet daily. Their modest immigrant neighborhood, a bit outdated, is like a time capsule. They still share recipes; gossip; aches, pains and troubles; and many stoic silences. If they keep their homes closed to a menacing world, the bench is where they open their mouths and hearts and minds. The bench is like a raft; a lifeboat in the seemingly un-navigable waters of modern alienation and postmodern puzzlement. Captured in the best tradition of engaged cinema verité, filmmaker Ilan Yagoda (Laureate, Israel’s 2012 “Cinema Arts Award”)-their real life neighbor, neither Yemeni nor female nor old-doesn’t “give them voice” so much as he gives us the eyes and ears with which to sense how life might feel on the social, political and cultural margins.
