Ethiopian-Israeli writer-director Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian makes a startlingly confident feature debut with this story of lives torn asunder by civil war. Her approach is unsentimental and focused on her heroine's plight. Set in Addis Ababa in 1989, Fig Tree follows a teen girl's harrowing coming-of-age. Mina is 16 years old. Her country has been at war her entire life. She lives with her brother and grandmother in a humble house with newsprint for wallpaper. The family is Jewish and is planning to flee Ethiopia for Israel, where Mina's mother awaits their reunion. But this plan leaves out the person Mina loves most, Eli, her Christian boyfriend, who lives in the woods in order to evade being drafted into Mengistu Haile Mariam's army. Mina hatches a scheme to save Eli, but everyone and everything seems set against her.
Fig Tree is Aäläm-Wärqe Davidian's directorial debut, and in 2018 earned her an Ophir nomination for Best Film from the Israeli Academy of Film and Television. The film was inspired by her own childhood growing up in Addis Abba.
"[A] fine drama whose seemingly casual progress only heightens its ultimate impact" - Variety