This will probably come as a shock to some, but it really shouldn't. The US film industry specializes in anti-American flicks. The Israeli film industry is if anything even worse. But Scott Jacobs at JooTube dives into the dumpster that is the Israel Film Festival and comes up with all the predictable left-wing "Israel is a racist fascist society" stuff.
Concomitantly this weekend, the 30th Israel Film Festival opens in Los Angeles. Here, the organizers have a 10-day (repeated in NYC) opportunity to present arguments by showing films (dramatic and documentary) which contradict Israel's opponents and win-over the uninformed, but curious, public.
That's the argument that BDS'ers make when they go after Israeli film festivals. But the content is often far from patriotic.
Israel is racist? Check.
A case in point is documentarian Maya Zinshtein's "Forever Pure" in which she examines Jewish-nationalist fans' reaction to the addition of two Muslim players to the Jerusalem capital's soccer team.
There is even, more predictably, an adaptation of extremist leftist Amos Oz's rantings at the hands Natalie Portman who wishes Jews would just shot up about the Holocaust.
Then there's....
A.K.A. NADIA - Nadia is a 20 year old Arab girl who has a secret love affair with Nimer, a PLO activist. They move to England, where Nimer is caught by the authorities and Nadia is left alone
THE AMBASSADOR’S WIFE - After the murder of her diplomat husband, Yerusalem, an Eritrean woman is forced to flee Paris and now finds herself an illegal refugee in a decrepit area of Tel Aviv.
THE MUTE'S HOUSE - Abandoned by its Palestinian owners, the deserted building in Hebron is known to Israeli soldiers as “The Mute’s House”—its only occupants are a deaf woman, Sahar, and her eight-year-old son Yousef. The family’s unique story, a touching counterpoint to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is told through the eyes of the young and charismatic Yousef as he goes about his daily routine in the heart of a city torn apart by hatred and violence.
There are plenty of selections that are generic indie-artsy stuff, and the schedule doesn't appear nearly as bad as in previous years, but that's not much of a defense.
The Mute's House looks particularly egregious.
Eight-year-old Yousef and his deaf mother Sahar are the last Palestinian residents of an otherwise deserted building in the Israeli part of the city of Hebron. Their island within the Jewish quarter is called “The Mute’s House” by Israeli soldiers, even though Sahar isn’t mute at all. Travel agencies have included the property in their tours. Yousef makes good use of his privilege to cross the border when he goes to school. Through the tour guides’ explanations, we learn the story of Yousef and Sahar, who bravely withstand all the threats and bullying. None of Yousef’s Palestinian classmates can come to his house, and filmmaker Tamar Kay isn’t allowed to cross the border to film the Palestinian quarter with Yousef. Despite his disability – Yousef was born with one arm – he amuses himself with the chickens, goats and rabbits that forage among the ruined neighboring houses, and he plays the guitar and video games. The remarkable situation elegantly illustrates the absurdity of the endless conflict.
This is what's being exported.