Out-of-Competition – Special Screening: “Jaffa” by Keren Yedaya
Keren Yedaya presents her second feature film, "Jaffa"
Winner of the Camera d’Or for Or, Keren Yedaya is back in Cannes with her latest film, Jaffa , being shown in a Special Screening. “I began thinking about JAFFA when I finished the script for OR,” said the director. “I felt the need to do a political film about Israel and Palestine. But I was searching for a much wider audience than the one usually attracted to these “political films”. This desire came out of a genuine belief that you can create a piece of subversive art that doesn’t give up on that wide audience.”
Jaffa, the city of oranges, is a city of paradoxes. It epitomizes, despite itself, the difficult dialogue between the Israelis and the Palestinians, as well as the rich and complex culture which the two communities hold in common. No inhabitant of Jaffa is merely an Arab or an Israeli. Indeed each resident of this beautiful seaside city belongs to a mixed community, either because they live side by side with the opposite camp or because in spite of their differences they share common values. Even if the two sides became more radicalized after the new clashes and the latest Intifada, Jaffa stands out as an extraordinarily cosmopolitan city.
Reuven’s garage is a family business. His daughter Mali and his son Meir, as well as
Toufik and Hassan, a young Palestinian and his father, work there for Reuven. No one suspects that Mali and Toufik have been in love for years. As the two lovers are secretly making their wedding arrangements, tension builds between Meir and Toufik…
“It took me a year to decide where I wanted to find the story I wanted to tell.
It seemed more interesting to me to speak about the situation in Israel and
not in the territories that are better known as the “Occupied Territories”,
Gaza, Jenin, etc… There, the Palestinian struggle for independence is much
clearer compared to the one inside Israel… One much more complicated
and less known to the world. The Palestinians that live here (“Israeli Arabs”)
are indeed Israeli citizens but they are still deprived of some rights, for
example, the right to study Palestinian history in schools. By shooting in
Jaffa, I am trying to show that the story of Israel and Palestine cannot be
solved with a separation fence.”
Jaffa is sceened at 5pm in the Soixantième theater.
