Event

Almost Friends & A Composer

Almost Friends
Israel, 2014, 60 minutes
Director: Nitzan Ofir

A school program aims at fostering friendships between Israeli Jewish and Arab youngsters. Only 50 miles separates the two schools, but a vast national, cultural and ideological abyss also separates the students. Two young girls meet and experience a chemistry that seems to bridge the gap. This film is a deft and succinct presentation of the basis of continuing conflict among Jews and Arabs on a small scale and personal level, but with politics as the subtext.

Preceded by
A Composer

Daniel Kötter's single take film A Composer documents a car ride with Lebanese composer Zad Moultaka as he tells a 10-year-old-story about the time he was threatened for using the word "Israel" in one of his compositions. The tension builds as he drives both somewhere and nowhere and tells the tale of secret police, intimidation, and artistic censorship. The claustrophobia of the car and its endless turns mirror the encroaching doom of the story.