Social and political commentaries; tales of love, loss and redemption; stories of history, friendship and unlikely alliances: 2013 sees the AICE Israeli Film Festival celebrating its first decade in Australia with one of its strongest programs yet.
We have five double passes to see A Bottle in the Gaza Sea at 10th AICE Israeli Film Festival in Adelaide on Saturday, 17 August, 8.30pm at Palace Nova Eastend Cinema.
Tal (Agathe Bonitzer) is the 17-year-old daughter of recent French immigrants to Israel who live in Jerusalem. Following a bomb attack on a local café, she asks a friend of her brother to throw a bottle into the sea near Gaza with a message asking for an explanation.
Naim (Mahmoud Shalabi, The Other Son), a sensitive but aimless 20-year-old Palestinian living in Gaza with his mother (Hiam Abbass – Lemon Tree, The Visitor), discovers the bottle and tries to answer Tal’s question by initiating an email correspondence. Their mutual suspicion soon develops into a tender friendship.
While Agathe adapts to her new life, learning new customs and traditions as well as forging relationships at school, Naim delivers t-shirts and, inspired by his new pen-friend, begins to learn French in the hope of obtaining a scholarship to travel to France.
Only 60 miles separate the two, yet they live worlds apart. But the film is fuelled neither by anger nor extremism. Instead, the two youngsters are forced to acknowledge the impossibly complex situation and eventually impact on each other in ways neither could have expected.
The 10th AICE Israeli Film Festival runs in Adelaide from Thursday 15 – Wednesday 21 August. Visit their website for details.
To win: Name one of the actors cast away in our 2013 Hive Fund film The Boy Castaways (here’s a hint). Email your answer, along with your full name and contact phone number to [email protected] by 5pm, Friday 16 August.