Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is the third film in a series by sibling directors Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz following the titular Israeli woman (Ronit) as she navigates the turbulent waters of her failing marriage to her husband, Elisha (Simon Abkarian). It takes place entirely in an Israeli courtroom over five years, chronicling the tragically protracted process of Viviane filing for divorce and being rejected over and over again. Per Israeli law, the only person with the power to grant her freedom is Elisha himself, who isn’t willing to oblige, holding her captive in the truest sense. An enraging demonstration of the powerlessness of women in the rabbinical court system, Gett will force you to stop in your tracks and think hard about this unjust, outlandish law that exists in Israel to this day. With hope, the film will reach enough people and change the course of Israeli women’s history forever.

While on a visit in San Francisco last fall, we spoke with co-director Shlomi Elkabetz about his hopes of the film making real change, Israeli and American reactions to the film, his love of American cinema, configuring the courtroom to create different atmospheres, shooting the film entirely in POV shots, and much more.

What have Americans’ reactions to the film been so far?
These are my first days in America with this film. I did present it at TIFF, and I got reactions from Americans when I presented it at Cannes, but today is going to be the U.S. premiere. A lot of people say it’s really infuriating.

What kind of reaction are you anticipating?
You know…I lived here for quite a while. I know part of American culture, but I’m not extremely familiar with it, even though I lived here for six years. It was 20 years ago. I’ve changed, my awareness changed, the subject matter I’m dealing with changed, so it’s really like my first time. When directing and writing the film, I said to myself, “This is is the most American script I’ve ever written.”

How so?
The way I constructed the drama in the film is extremely methodized. She says, “I want to get a divorce.” He says, “No.” And that’s it. It’s very simple in that sense, and some great American films have one simple shot about something, and you can [stretch] it for three hours…and it works! [laughs] Great directors did it, and it’s something that represents, for me, good American filmmaking. European filmmaking is about a lot of thoughts. It’s more reflective. In this movie, there’s nothing reflective. It’s very simple. The rule is simple: if he doesn’t say yes to the divorce, she doesn’t get it. Now, let’s play on it.

If you look at courtroom dramas like La passion de Jeanne d’Arc by Carl Dreyer, or The Trial of Joan of Arc by [Robert] Bresson, you see that these films are structured in a [particular] way of filming and thinking, but Gett is more influenced by American court drama scenes and films that were made in the ’40s and ’50s that are gone now, but used to be very strong. When finishing the script, that was my first thought, and I was actually very happy about it.

So that wasn’t you’re intent from the beginning.
No. Primarily, I’m a part of the European filmmaking community. I never thought I would be able to write something that simple. I love American cinema. That’s what I was watching as a kid–I wasn’t watching Godard when I was eight years old. [laughs] What they showed on TV and in the cinemas near my house in the North of Israel were American films. That was my primary filmmaking education. I grew to love European cinema, but I was really excited when I finished the script and it was so American! It’s a tragic-comedy suspense film, like the Israeli Kramer vs. Kramer. But the way it’s constructed is completely against everything American cinema is trying to do today. [laughs]

When we started making the film, my primary decision was to not shoot an establishing shot in the film and [instead] only shoot from the different points of view of the characters, which gave me the opportunity to cut the film, which I didn’t do in the other ones. I had many options of how to cut the film within the scenes, so I could actually re-tell the whole story in the editing room. I had 110 hours of material, which is extreme for me, but it gave me an immense tool to recreate the suspense in the room from scene to scene.

I was very curious what American audiences would think of this film. The base of the film is very strange to American audiences. Why can’t this woman decide [whether she leaves the marriage or not]? To grasp the idea of not being able to move on when you want is crazy. Can they grasp it at all? Maybe they’ll think it’s a film about something that happened 4,000 years ago, which is the age of this law. But slowly, I thought that through viewing the film people would learn the law, and now I’m really curious to see how they’ll react.

Are people in Israel infuriated by the film?
Yes. When you get married there, you don’t think about divorce. You think about the guy you love, the woman I want to spend my life with. The dress, the suit, the food, the music, the party, the kids…the whole idea of conjoining. People who’ve never been divorced are completely unaware of the upcoming events that might shock their life one day, so they’re shocked.

Certain characters in the film don’t know how to react to the news. They’re very confused.
Right. People over there who have been divorced are repelled by the film, because it brings them back to a very bad experience. The most interesting thing about the film in Israel is that…[pauses]. People never talk about divorce. There are thousands of women in Israel who are waiting to get a divorce, but somehow, society has managed to push them aside. They’re women, to begin with, so it’s easy. But somehow, divorce was never a part of the discord, the dialogue of the state. What’s happening now in Israel that’s fascinating to me is that people are extremely active [about the issue now]. People are writing, putting up posts. Newspapers write about it every day. The Minister of Justice wrote a huge post on Facebook, [as did] a few parliament members. Some very important journalists are using Facebook to [raise] awareness of the subject, and the Minister of Justice is sending people to see the film!

That’s wonderful.
It’s huge for me. It’s like…something is happening. I think people are struck by the film. One of the reasons is that, in Israel, you can go to see a murder trial, any criminal trial, but you can’t enter a divorce trial. They happen behind closed doors. This film is like a key to these doors, and when people enter this court, what they see is shocking. Even though they know the law, they understand how easy it is to do to what they’re doing to Viviane. It’s easy: the husband just has to say no.

When we worked on the character of Elisha, [Simon] said, “When I say no, I’ll look at her or do something with it.” I said, “No, no. You have to do nothing. All you have to do is remain where you are and say no. What you’re saying is enough.” The ease of how he says no is what shocks people.

How has the conversation about the morality of this law been avoided for so long?
It’s very complex. I think that part of the definition of being Israeli is driven by religion, you know? When Israel was established, it was as a Jewish home for Jewish people. Which means, you have to be Jewish to be Israeli. That’s the definition of the place. How do you determine who’s Jewish? You must control birth, marriage, divorce, and death. Through these four stations you must go through the religious authority. That’s one of the reasons why the law hasn’t changed. It’s a way of controlling the population. You have to remember that only 12 or 13 years ago, we took out of our identity cards the religious denomination of the citizens. Until then, it said whether you were Muslim or Jewish…it’s a process. But it’s happening, and eventually…[pauses]. I tend to be optimistic about it. I think the law will change. If the film were to change something, I would be high in the sky. I’m happy if the film changes the awareness of people, but I’ll be so, so happy if it changes the course of women’s history in Israel. That would be a real victory.

The film very well could change history. How much do you think about that?
I think about it a lot. We won the Ophir prize, at the Academy Awards of Israel. It was a very tense evening. We got the prize, and everybody wanted to win. When Ronit and I went onstage and spoke, she said, “This is a great prize, a hug from you to us. But more than that, it’s a victory for the spirit of women.” She’s right about that. The idea of this film changing the law in Israel at some point is something I’m really excited about. In my dreams, I see the minister from Israel going to see his colleague from Switzerland, who’s just seen the film with his wife. [laughs] And the Swiss Minister says, “I didn’t know Israel was so tough on its women!” and then the Israeli minister goes back home and tells all his colleagues. I see it working from inside and outside. The way I see it, our job as filmmakers, especially in Israel, is to make films to entertain, reflect the society, and change history.

Let’s rewind a bit, to the making of the film. Like you said, the film’s premise is simple, because the husband having the absolute power to say no is dramatic enough on its own. The movie is almost two hours long, has this simple premise, and takes place in one room. It’s so minimalistic. So the last, critical piece of the puzzle is filmmaking, your cinematic technique. To make those two hours in that one room so compelling requires sound technique, and you pulled it off incredibly well.
When we decided to write this film, we didn’t believe we would fill up 85-90 pages of script. What’s going to happen in this one room for 90-100 minutes? Writing is miraculous; we wrote the script, and it was a miracle. We went to this room, and we brought in the cameras, the lights, and we said, “What now?” We have nowhere to go! But then you ask yourself, what are my tools as a director? Slowly, beat by beat, you realize you have so many options in one room.

One of the first things I did was make a light script. I didn’t want the light to be from inside the courtroom, so I created, like, 17 different atmospheres of light that come from outside. I’d ask for each scene, “What kind of day is it outside? Is it winter? Summer? Is it morning? Noon? Cloudy?” All of these questions about how it was outside. Then, we tried to create specific light for each kind of day. To light the room from outside, which creates conflict with the neon light in the court, you can start to create different moods and atmospheres. It’s the same with the sounds. “Who’s standing outside the door? What’s happening outside? Who’s coming up the stairs? What car is passing by? Is there traffic?” I built a whole scenario of sounds that was then implanted into the film in a very specific way.

There’s a lot of dialogue in the film. The courtroom is like a little theater. Someone gets up, says what he has to say, sits down, and that’s it. The show is over. The dialogue was very easy to shoot. The next thing I did was shoot a silent film, meaning only shooting point-of-view shots. I never took a director’s shot in this film, no establishing shots. Only POV shots. The camera is always in the place of somebody who’s looking at someone else. So I was shooting how the [characters] looked at each other. I started to stretch the space. The minute I shoot you talking to somebody else, I start to stretch you. You’re talking to someone else, but you know I’m looking at you, so you’re stretched in between my camera and the other actor. Then, I add another point of view, so that stretches you to another direction. Then I stretch you again, until you’re spread all over the room. Then, in the editing room, I reconstruct the space according to the different looks, hoping to recreate the suspense.

One of my favorite things about the film is how it engages the imagination, since so many events take place off-camera, outside the courtroom. We only hear about them, and we must piece together a picture in our mind, but that mental picture is actually quite vivid.
We kind of defined it in the script before shooting. Some scenes were interior scenes, and some were exterior scenes. We wrote it right on the script. Some scenes were meant to be imagined completely outside of the court, and some were meant to stay in the court. Every time we cut from one scene to another, there’s a thousandth of a second where we expect to be out [of the courtroom]. We expect to be free. And the minute we expect to be out there, we imagine the exterior. Imagine somebody puts you in a room, and it’s a surprise; you didn’t know they were bringing you there. At a certain moment, somebody says, “You can open the door.” Of course, at the moment before you open the door, you imagine what’s behind the door. You imagine the exterior that you think is out there. You open the door, and it’s another room. But for that moment, you were completely free.

Viviane is playing with us. We say it’s The Trial of Viviane Amsalem. Does that mean that Viviane is on trial, being judged by all these men?

Or is it her trial…
…and everybody is coming to be judged by her?

A Palestinian and son of a Hamas leader, Mosab Hassan Yousef was raised deeply entrenched in the Middle Eastern conflict. In his early twenties, he was captured and interrogated by Gonen Ben Yitzhak, a “handler” working for the Shin Bet, Israel’s internal intelligence agency. Mosab was convinced to work for the Shin Bet undercover, and did so from 1997 to 2007, providing the agency with intel that helped them stop several terrorist attacks. Together, Mosab and Gonen saved the lives of many.

Eventually, Mosab revealed to his father and the Palestinians that he had been an undercover agent, consequently forcing him to move to the United States and start anew. He converted to Christianity and took shelter in his new home, away from Palestine where he would surely be under grave danger should he return. He wrote a bestselling book, “Son of Hamas”, in which he shared his extraordinary experience as an undercover agent. He was threatened with deportation from the US, however, when claims that his book supported “terrorist organizations” surfaced.

His political asylum threatened, Mosab seemed doomed to return to the Middle East. After years of not speaking, Gonen came to the aid of Mosab, revealing his own identity (a criminal offense in Israel) to testify on his friend’s behalf. Mosab resides in the US to this day, thanks to a friendship forged in the most unimaginable of circumstances.

Filmmaker Nadav Schirman‘s The Green Prince is a documentary not about the Middle Eastern conflict, but about Mosab and Gonen’s unlikely, unbreakable friendship. It’s a doc that feels like pulse-pounding thriller, covering the many close calls, double-crosses, and thwarted terrorist attacks the duo experienced together.

The day after their surprise appearance at a screening of the film at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival a few months ago, we spoke to Nadav, Mosab, and Gonen about the audience’s reaction to their surprise appearance, Nadav’s great responsibility to respect his subjects and the audience, making a doc feel like a Hollywood thriller, Gonen putting his life on the line for Mosab, how the absurdity of undercover work can make you laugh, and much more.

The Green Prince opens this Friday in San Francisco and is playing in select cities.

Mosab Hassan Yousef

What was the audience’s reaction to your surprise appearance at the screening?
Nadav: It was amazing. I think the organizers expected a lot of tumult and polarized political views in light of the current situation [in the Middle East], so there was a lot of security and anticipation. And yet, when the film was over, all we got were standing ovations and a lot of love. The film seemed to unite people rather than divide them.Was that your intent when making the film? To bring people together?
Nadav: I’m a storyteller, my intent was to tell the story. I was touched and gripped by the story because of the hope that it conveys. It’s very rare for us–especially [in the Middle East]–to feel hope. We have a variety of feelings, but hope is not one of them. When I was acquainted with the story and met Mosab and Gonen in person, I felt that hope, the same as when somebody is pinching you. It was very tangible. That’s what compelled me to start the project. I’m very happy that I happened to channel that emotion into an audience.

Mosab and Gonen, what does it feel like to watch the film with an audience?
Mosab: It’s not an easy thing to see your life experiences in a 100-minute time frame. This is not who we are, basically. It’s a part of our experience, captured on camera. You always have more to say. We know that it’s impossible to encapsulate a human experience in film, but I think Nadav and the film team did an amazing job to bring the story to life again and make it visible to many people. We’re very grateful. We try to continue to be non-attached to the story. Whether people treat us as heroes or traitors, this is not who we are. We’re just human beings who were stuck in this situation, and we found a way out. Our goal now is to tell the millions of people still stuck in that war, that captivity, to come out. I hope some people find it educational and inspiring.

You touched on something interesting there. After what you just said, I presume there moments when you’re watching the film with an audience where you feel a desire to explain your experience further.
Gonen: Yes, of course. First of all, Nadav had to put everything we said–hours and hours of interviews–into 100 minutes. He needed to put many things we said aside. The first time we watched it was at Sundance. I don’t remember everything I said when we shot the movie, but this is the way Nadav decided to tell the story. It’s the best way we could ever tell our story. I felt different feelings at the Doc Aviv festival in Israel. Before the screening, I saw some people I knew from the Shin Bet, and suddenly I felt different. When I watched the movie with people from the Shin Bet and my family, it was different. When I talk about things in the film that happened in the agency, now the Shin Bet people are going to think about that.

Nadav: Sundance was the first time Mosab and Gonen saw the film. I was under a great deal of trepidation, because I felt that these two gentlemen had entrusted me with their story, and it was a great sense of responsibility. As Mosab said, you cannot encapsulate somebody’s experiences in a 100-minute film. The life experiences of Mosab and Gonen are mind-blowing. You get a glimpse of it in the film, but it’s much bigger than fiction. Hollywood heroes do not live what these two gentlemen live. There was a great responsibility there.

I think that’s the big difference between fiction filmmaking and documentary filmmaking: In fiction filmmaking, you’re only responsible to the audience, the studio, the financiers…you’ve got to make a great, entertaining film. But you’re pretty much free. Here, we had the responsibility of making the story very captivating and entertaining, but I personally felt a great responsibility towards Mosab and Gonen to be truthful. I felt a channel to the story, and perhaps channels that they were not aware of. It was a great load to carry, and I was very happy when they were pleased with the film at Sundance.

Gonen Ben Yitzhak

The film’s a documentary, but it has many elements of a Hollywood narrative film. What impressed me was that you were only working with two characters.
Nadav: That was a big challenge. We shot footage of other people who gave context to the story, but while editing the film, we realized that this is a story about a relationship, so let’s try to focus on that. Simon Chinn, one of my partners who had produced Searching For Sugarman and Man On Wire, together with John Battsek, they’re pioneers or shepherds of this non-fiction movement that’s taking over non-fiction films. Simon called this film a “two-hander” when we decided to tell the story as gripping as a thriller with just two characters. That became a part of the artistic challenge.

Again, I felt a great sense of responsibility on one hand to Mosab and Gonen, but on the other hand towards the audience, because this is a cinema film. People are going to go and pay money for a ticket, for parking, for babysitters. It costs $50, $60, $100 to see a film. If somebody’s going to pay that amount of money to see a film, you want them to not only be touched, you want them to be entertained.

It was a big team [making this film], and I think what happened was that people were so touched by the story that the whole team put their heart and soul in it. I remember sometimes we would ask Mosab or Gonen questions, and the answers were pouring out of them. I would look left and right and see the sound man and the assistant cameraman crying. I was like, okay, we’re on to something here.

Gonen, you’re used to being in the role of the handler. But in this experience, you were not the handler; someone else was. Did that take some adjustment?
Gonen: Yeah. Because I was working so many years as a handler, I was aware of the fact that I’m now switching places. From one side, I knew that I wasn’t the handler; I was the source. When I first med Nadav, it took time to trust him. But when I knew he was the one to make this project successful, I just forgot it. I went with the project and opened up to him. But in the beginning, I did have the feeling of, “Now someone else is handling the situation.” It was strange.

Was that uncomfortable?
Gonen: It was.

Nadav: What struck me was how similar the job of a film director is to the job of a handler. Basically, handlers create the setting for the source to trust them and go along with things and sometimes go against their own interests. That’s what film directors do all the time. I think, ultimately, you’re successful if the source believes in the cause.

Gonen: When we did all kinds of operations [in the Shin Bet], we needed to build a set–a story–and people were meant to believe it. It was like a movie. As a handler, I built a story for everyone to believe. It was also a very relieving process for me to step forward and tell my story. This was my first opportunity to tell my story to someone. It was always a secret. Legally, I was not supposed to tell anybody. When I told my story to Nadav, I didn’t get commision to tell it, but I felt a very heavy weight was sitting in my heart and I needed to tell the story. Nadav wasn’t just the director/handler, he was also my shrink. [laughs]

Mosab, your friendship with Gonen is out of this world, something most of us will never experience. Did you ever think the story of your friendship would be told to the world?
Mosab: I can’t forget the moment when I received an email from Gonen for the first time after I left the agency. We did not speak for a few years. We were one of the best teams in the agency, fighting terrorism. That was an amazing relationship. For me, it existed only within the agency. Outside of the agency, I didn’t know his real name, his address, his phone number–I didn’t know anything about him. When I left the agency, I left without anything. For me, he did not exist anymore.

When he heard I was struggling in the United States of America and he saw me on the front page of the news, he couldn’t stay silent. He emailed me, and I was really encouraged. The content of the email was his real name, how many children he has, and what he was doing in real life. He left the agency as well and was studying to become a lawyer. That was the first time we connected outside of the agency, on a new basis. This is something profound, something you can’t find. I understand the danger he was in. For him to expose his real identity to a source means going to an Israeli prison for eight years. This is what it took to make that email connection. He took a great risk, and that sustained me and gave me support. I knew that if I told the world my story and our experiences, no one would believe. But when there is an insider witness, it would make more sense. I can’t imagine my journey without his support and sacrifice.

There’s a scene I wanted to ask you about, Mosab, where your father is about to be arrested by the Israelis, and your arrest is going to be faked. You’re laughing. You’re laughing about having dinner with your family before this happens. What were you thinking as you recounted that experience?
Mosab: Working for the intelligence world, you start to differentiate between what is real and what is not real. You see the level of deception. You see the distorted perception of people, governments, media–this brings you to a point where you have no choice but to laugh. Basically, you see how many people are deluded and deceived and how many people aren’t willing to stand up for the truth. You know deep in your heart if you go out and tell the truth, you’ll get killed or persecuted. What else can you do but laugh?

Nadav, we talked a bit about how the film plays like a thriller. What does creating that kind of high suspense and urgency in a documentary entail?
Nadav: I never went to film school, and my whole approach to filmmaking is very intuitive. My film school was these two quotes Billy Wilder had put forward. One was, “Grab the audience by the throat and never let go,” and the other was, “Let the audience add up 2 and 2. They will love you forever.” These were the guidelines of making the film. I love thrillers, and I love suspense. Small screens, big screens–we’re surrounded by screens all the time. iPhones, tablets, TV’s–It becomes challenging to captivate an audience. The challenge was to captivate. From the moment the movie starts, you want the audience to be invested in the story completely. This is a story that has all the ingredients of drama which lead to catharsis. As a storyteller, this is what we live for. We’re here to generate emotions, a purge of emotions.

Nadav Schirman

The aesthetics of the chamber in which Mosab and Gonen are interviewed is so cold and hopeless. I did not expect the film to end up in such a beautiful place. Was that strategic on your part?
Nadav: Very much so. There are three ways to gather intelligence: Visual intelligence, which is using drones and cameras where the human appears as a blip on the screen, devoid of humanity. Then, there’s signal intelligence–tapping in to phone calls and email conversations–which is used a lot today by the NSA. Again, there’s not humanity to this. The last one is human intelligence, and this is what Mosab and Gonen were engaged in. As a filmmaker, what I found interesting was that we had all three levels present in the film.

Going into this process, we knew Gonen and Mosab were masters of deceit. They could manipulate their answers to a great extent, so my role as a director was to “handle” them, as Gonen would say, to put them off-balance and give them the possibility of examining their narrative in a very different way. Mosab had written a book, and he was a very eloquent teller of his own story. Our role was to have him invest in his story in a very different way. I was more interested in the emotional aspects of the story and wanted him to lead us to the darkest corners of his own narrative. As a filmmaker, I was going to use the set, which was very imposing; 30-foot-high walls make you feel very small. We used the Errol Morris Interrotron, which was essential in truth-telling. I told Mosab, “Allow me to push you. Allow me to taunt you.” Sometimes Mosab stormed off the set and got really angry. It was tough, but he’d come back and sit in that chair, which was really hard.

This isn’t a political film at all. It’s a story we can all relate to, a friendship forged from strife. Screening the film in the US, what have been some of the most surprising ways you’ve seen the film touch people?
Nadav: When we screened the film in Park City, I was approached by some bankers from Texas. They said, “We know nothing about the conflict and aren’t particularly interested, but we were very touched by your film.” They were saying that the movie had inspired them to follow their own moral compass. I asked what they meant, and they said, “Every Monday morning, we have staff meetings at the bank.” Usually, the head of the bank outlines the operations for the week or the month. “As workers at the bank, we have two choices: If we disagree with the MO that is being presented, we can either speak up and risk losing our job, or we can lower heads and go with the flow.” They said the movie inspired them to speak up for what they believed in. That was very surprising. It transcended the story itself.

Gonen: There’s a negative approach from the Shin Bet when it comes to me. I got an invitation from a senior personnel who isn’t at Shin Bet anymore but at another organization in Israel. I was invited to a closed screening in Israel, and he told me, “In the agency some people think negatively of what you did, and some people think positively, but in general, people see the humanity of the story, even in the Shin Bet.” For me, this was very, very surprising.

Mosab: This is a story that took place in the Middle East, but it’s definitely a universal story. I think it’s a very important human journey, and not because it’s my journey. Again, I believe many people struggle in their own captivities, and I see on many people’s faces–young and old, men and women–some hope and inspiration to fight for something. It’s worth it to fight for something, even if you have to lose your identity, friends, or even your entire family. You stand for truth, for who we are. I see this already happening, and that’s the core of the message. I’m very happy.

It’s an exciting time right now in the wonderful world of crowdfunding. I mean, it doesn’t get much more bonkers than a potato salad Kickstarter which, as of this writing, has raked in a mind-numbing $71,540, right? I know how enticing it must be to throw your hard-earned dollars at a random guy’s lunch, but let’s be real for a second: Wouldn’t you, our loyal Way Too Indie readers, rather donate some extra bucks to, oh say…an independent film?!

From director Angela Tabora and producer Erin Lim (pictured), The Nomadic Family Project follows a family who unstuck themselves from societal conventions to chase a dream. Kobi and Gabi Klaf and their children Dahnya, Orazi, and Solai packed up and left their home in Israel to explore the world, meeting locals, climbing mountains, and educating themselves the old fashioned way. The project has already had a successful first Kickstarter campaign and has now started up a second to fund the remaining filming and post-production so that the film can wrap up and make it to a film festival near you. The doc looks very promising, and exactly the kind of project that needs the support of indie lovers like us!

For more info, check out the film’s Kickstarter page.

For more ways to keep track of the project, follow them on: Youtube, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram

From the film’s press release:

About The Nomadic Family Project

In September of 2012 Angela returned from a four month trip exploring Southeast Asia. When she returned home, she told Erin about a family she met in Siem Reap, Cambodia. The family, who is from Israel, had been traveling the world for the past two years and were planning to travel for another two. Father Kobi, Mother Gabi, and their three children Dahnya, Orazi and Solai (all under the age of 10 at the time) had been to America, Panama, South America, and Southeast Asia. They were able to travel for weeks/months at a time by bartering and working in local villages, and the three children were home schooled when they weren’t attending local schools. More importantly, Dahnya, Orazi and Solai were able to venture outside of the comfort of the classroom to experience the world first-hand. After spending three weeks with the family, Angela knew she wanted to tell their story. It was decided that Angela and Erin would join the family on 16 day trek in the Himalaya’s to the 10th highest peak in the world – the Annapurna circuit. 

Soon, the family will return home to Israel, and Angela and Erin want to meet them there to learn what their travels have taught Kobi and Gabi about parenting, and how have Dahnya, Orazi and Solai have changed by being “students of the world”? 

For more information about the Nomadic Family project, visit www.thenomadicfamilyproject.com

In the spring of 2013, The Nomadic Family Project successfully funded its first Kickstarter campaign and raised over $13,000, surpassing the initial goal of $10,000. Director Angela Tabora and producer Erin Lim were humbled by the generous donations from friends, family and strangers, and realized the idea behind the film had sparked something in their backers. “The idea behind The Nomadic Family Project is that you can live your dream no matter the circumstance. This family inspires anyone they come into contact with to pursue whatever aspirations they have” Angela said.

The first Kickstarter campaign funded pre-production, as well as the travel to Nepal and India and the Annapurna journey. Without the help of crowdfunding and sponsors like GoPro and the Plum Organics, project wouldn’t have happened. Now, The Nomadic Family Project needs funding to finish the story, to get to Israel to film the family’s journey back home after four years travelling the world, and capture how the family will adjust to “normal” life and what “normal” means to them now.  

A few shades darker than your average thriller, writer-director Hany Abu-Assad’s Omar, a nominee for the 2014 Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, explores the psychological trauma endured by the eponymous Palestinian twentysomething (Adam Bakri) and his childhood friends Amjad (Samer Bisharat) and Tarek (Eyad Hourani) as they struggle to survive in the violently, psychologically oppressive climate of Israeli-occupied Palestine. Though narratively uninspired and lacking strong performances to lead us through the tale, Abu-Assad’s pensive examination of the toxic environment in the Middle East is as riveting as it was in his lauded suicide bomber drama Paradise Now.

Omar is a brazen, handsome young man with a ferocious will; he scales the twenty foot wall standing between him and Tarek’s house with ease, only to be met at the top by Israeli gunfire, which grazes, but doesn’t phase him. He’s on his way to meet with Amjad and Tarek for their regular “freedom fighter” training, which includes sniper rifle target practice and planning an attack on an Israeli army base over cups of tea. Serving them the tea is Tarek’s beautiful sister Nadia (Leem Lubany), who slips Omar a love note on his saucer as they play eyes. (Amjad’s clearly interested in Nadia too, though his tiny frame suggests he shouldn’t be serious competition for Omar.)

The trio carries out their covert assault at night, and they successfully pick off an Israeli soldier from atop afar (Amjad pulls the trigger). The next day, Omar is caught (following a conventionally choreographed foot chase) and imprisoned by the Israelis and forced to choose between a lifetime in prison and freedom, providing he brings them Tarek (who they believe shot the soldier) on a silver platter. He’s got a month to deliver his friend to the enemy, and the rest of the film follows Omar as he scrambles to placate the suspicions of his people (why was he released so quickly?), win Nadia’s hand in marriage, smoke out the real rat in his inner circle, and keep himself out of prison. It’s an impossible juggling act, but Omar’s nimble of foot and wit and driven by the hope of a future with Nadia.

Doom and danger dominate Omar’s life, as his role in the Palestinian cause takes precedence over his love for Nadia whether he likes it or not. Tarek will only agree to endorse he and Nadia’s marriage after they carry out an ambush on the Israelis. Omar obliges. The ambush is botched (this is surely the work of the rat), and the film rinse-and-repeats–Omar is caught, sent to prison, and set free again, gifted with one last shot at retrieving Tarek by prison warden Rami (Waleed Zuaiter), who we can sense is taking a liking to Omar. The film ends with a bang, a startling flash of violence that is the film’s most resonant moment.

Like many filmmakers depicting the volatile climate of the Middle East, Abu-Assad is evasive in his moralistic statements about the conflict itself, so as not to incur a backlash from either side. What he instead chooses to focus on is the tragedy that the fog of death will forever lie between these young men and their friendship, hopes, and dreams. Omar’s connection to the Israelis instills mistrust and paranoia in the group, and Amjad carries with him a secret about Nadia that could cause their group to implode.

The cast (with the exception of Zuaiter) is non-professional, and it shows. Bakri and Bisharat in particular wear perpetually blank faces, even in the most intense scenes, and it hurts the film. Zuaiter, Hourani, and Lubani’s efforts are more than respectable, but their parts are secondary. Abu-Assad is a storyteller of symbolism; a shot of an older, depleted Omar struggling desperately to scuttle up the wall from the beginning of the movie, is a powerful visual indication of just how far our hero has fallen.

Omar trailer