On Sunday, February 12, 2012 Cinema Art Bethesda will present the Israeli film, Ajami. The film is 124 minutes long and is in Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles.
Synopsis
A powerful crime drama set on the streets of Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood — a melting pot of cultures and conflicting views among Jews, Muslims and Christians — and told through the eyes of a cross-section of the city’s inhabitants: a young Israeli (Shahir Kabaha) fighting a criminal vendetta against his family, a palestinian refugee (Ibrahmim Frege) working illegally to finance a life-saving surgery, a Jewish police detective (Eran Naim) obsessed with finding his missing brother, and and affluent Palestinian (Scandar Copti) dreaming of a future with his Jewish girlfriend. As their stories intersect — and the film’s narrative shifts back and forth in time — we witness a dramatic collision of different worlds and the tragic consequences of enemies living as neighbors.
(text directly from official site)
Selected Awards and Accolades
Winner: Best Director, Editing, Film, Music & Screenplay
Award of the Israeli Film Academy
Winner – Golden Camera – Special Mention
Cannes Film Festival
Wolgin Award for Best Full-Length Feature
Jerusalem Film Festival
Selected Reviews
The New York Times
– A. O. Scott
The Israeli movie “Ajami,” one of the five Oscar nominees for best foreign-language film, takes its name from a rough neighborhood in Jaffa, a mostly Arab city just south of Tel Aviv. This particular urban conflict zone may be unfamiliar to most American viewers, but it bears a definite kinship to mean streets we know very well, at least from movies and television. Crime is endemic, bonds of family and friendship can be both sustaining and fatal, and the urge to escape is no match for the gravitational pull of the place itself. The population includes innocent, imperiled children; restless young guys in love with beautiful, unattainable women; honorable thieves; dirty cops; and powerful men who dwell on both sides of the law. The possibility of violence hovers over even apparently benign encounters. Guns are drawn, blood is shed, and the drive to do the right thing usually ends in tragedy. We could almost be in the Los Angeles of “Colors” or “Boyz N the Hood,” the Baltimore of “The Wire” or the Rio de Janeiro of “City of God.” But every city has its own lures and snares, and the universal race for money, love and power is always run on a local course. The petty machinations of the police, drug dealers and influence peddlers in “Ajami” unfold in a context of political conflict and communal mistrust.
Variety
– Jay Weissberg
Rarely has the tinderbox nature of the Middle East been so accurately lensed, on such an intimate scale, as in Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s powerful “Ajami.” Working with an impressive non-pro cast, the debuting multi-hyphenate helmers, Shani (Israeli) and Copti (Palestinian), start with a revenge killing and then show the repercussions furiously fanning out, to tragic results. Time shifts may overcomplicate the narrative for some, but the pay-off packs a major punch and fest travel is assured. Euro arthouse — Ad Vitam bought French rights for 2010 release — and bi-coastal Stateside play should create a buzz.
Washington Post
– Ann Ann Hornaday
“Ajami,” nominated for a foreign-language film Oscar, was written and made over several years, a laborious process that sometimes shows in an excess of plotty contrivance. But one gets the sense that it conveys complicated, often contradictory truths about its time and place. “Ajami” ultimately presents viewers with an irony as unresolved as the very conflicts it dramatizes: While its themes of revenge, mutual resentment and grim fatalism offer little hope for a ready solutions, the movie itself testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.
Trailer available on official site or watch embedded YouTube video below.
