FROM ISRAEL
JELLYFISH (Meduzot)
Winner: Camera d'Or, Cannes International Film Festival
Jellyfish (Meduzot) is a magical film that surprises and unsettles in the most delicate of ways. Connections and relationships come into focus against a backdrop of memory and, perhaps, imagination. Poignant, often witty and exceedingly cinematic, Jellyfish tells the story of three very different Tel Aviv women whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a bride whose wedding party accident ruins her chance at a dream Caribbean honeymoon. Attending the event with an employer is Joy, a non Hebrew-speaking domestic worker who has guiltily left her son behind in her native Philippines. As this distaff trio separately wends their way through Israel’s most cosmopolitan city, they struggle with issues of communication, affection and destiny—but at times find uneasy refuge in its tranquil seas.
Israel, 2007, 78 min., In Hebrew with English subtitles • Directors: Shira Geffen & Etgar Keret • Writer: Shira Geffen • Cast: Sarah Adler, Nikol Leidman, Gera Sandler, Noa Knoller, Ma-nenita De Latorre, Ilanit Ben Yaakov
|
