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Directed by Israeli filmmakers Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor (
Strangers, SFJFF Opening Night 2008), this road trip comedy explores challenges of faith across generations. In modern-day Israel, an aging father and his middle-aged son have grown bitterly estranged over their beliefs. The father, Avraham (Makram Khoury,
A Syrian Bride) is a Holocaust survivor from Greece, an amateur magician and virulent atheist who eats pork on the Sabbath with gusto. His son, Yehuda (Zohar Shtrauss,
Eyes Wide Open) is his polar opposite, a Hasidic rapper who supports his equally devout wife and their rapidly growing family through his religious music in Jerusalem. Circumstances throw them together on a journey back to Greece, where Avraham searches for the man who saved him from the Germans during World War II and taught him magic tricks. The trip quickly takes unexpected turns as father and son confront all manner of roadblocks, from a beautiful Greek prostitute to a gang of neo-Nazis amid the chaos of the country’s financial collapse. As they weave their way along the Adriatic coast, each one threatening to abandon the other, their arguing is punctured by unexpected moments of affection and humor. While the stunning coastal scenery and lively original score help cast a spell, it is Khoury’s and Shtrauss’s understated performances that give the film its real magic.
-Emily Kaiser Thelin
Northern California Premiere
Co-sponsored by Deborah Blank and by the Israel Center of the Jewish Community Federation and Endowment Fund