Orit Fouks Rotem puts Jewish-Arab relations under the lens with the subtlest of touches in this heartwarming film

Watching Orit Fouks Rotem’s uplifting Cinema Sabaya in the week in which Israel elected Benjamin Netanyahu back into power – with the help of Itamar Ben-Gvir’s extreme far-right party – was a bittersweet experience. The film takes place in the working-class city of Hadera in northern Israel, where a group of city council workers have signed up for a filmmaking workshop with a young director, Rona. The group, a mix of Arab and Jewish women, are given daily assignments to take home and the next day share the results with their classmates.

The rookie filmakers are a diverse bunch: there's a retiree and a young woman, both married and hijab adorned. Of the two secular Arabs, one is a human rights lawyer and the other lives at home with her parents. The Jewish women include a divorced Russian immigrant mother of two, a free-spirited woman who shares her home on a boat with a German Shepherd, a twice-married librarian and a woman whose husband is clinically depressed.

From the beginning there are inevitable tensions. The first session starts with one of the participants asking why the workshop is conducted in Hebrew, when half of those taking part are Arab. Because, her Arab colleagues explain patiently, the Arabs speak Hebrew and the Jews don’t speak Arabic. When one of the Jewish women admits this is the first time she has met any Arabs, she receives a withering reply: "Why, in a city full of Arab women, are they invisible to you?" As the weeks pass, the group's fledgling films offer a window into the hopes, dreams and challenges in their lives, often leading to intense – and sometimes heated – discussion with their fellow students.

At first the premise feels a little formulaic but Cinema Sabaya avoids becoming just another ‘feel-good film’ through its documentary approach and the almost improvisational feel of the acting. In fact, apart from Dana Ivgy, who plays Rona, and Amal Murkus, who is the civil rights lawyer, most of the actors had never acted before.

The film is based on a similar workshop that Fouks Rotem led in Acre city, but the reality of Israel's politics as a country is never addressed directly. Instead it permeates through the students’ assignments and discussions, resulting in a far more nuanced exploration of Jewish-Arab relations than might be expected.

“In cinema you can be more optimistic than in real life,” Fouks Rotem told JR in the Autumn 2022 issue (on p31). In a country which has just turned even more fiercely polarised, this small bubble of optimism is something to be cherished, even as its central message feels ever more unobtainable.

By Rebecca Taylor

Cinema Sabaya screens Thursday 17 November (Brighton) and Sunday 20 November (London). ukjewishfilm.org

UK Jewish Film Festival runs Thursday 10 – Wednesday 23 November in cinemas and Monday 21 – Sunday 27 November online.

Read more UKJFF 2022 reviews.