ProSemiteUndercover

[Mazal]

It's hard to imagine a more improbable success story: Two guys from different religions with no moviemaking experience decide to make a film about a crime-ridden neighborhood. They have no money and decide to do the entire film with nonprofessional actors who will improvise their dialogue (based on a story written by the two) in two languages (Arabic and Hebrew). They come up with a complicated story line, multiple characters, and choose to tell the story in a nonchronological fashion. It takes so long to make and uses up so much of their time and resources that they both have to live with relatives while they work on it.

And then, when they finish it, it wins prizes and praise all over the world. The film gets multiple distribution deals, including in 12 European markets and the US.

If you haven't already heard, this is the story of the making of the film, Ajami, and of its directors, Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew, and Scandar Copti, an Israeli-Arab Christian (who also appears in a key role, looking like a hipster with his dark goatee). Perhaps the most improbable part of this whole adventure is that the two have managed to stay friends throughout, in spite of pressures that have torn apart many partnerships. In fact, the experience has deepened their friendship, and each spent a sizable portion of his interview with me singing his codirector's praises.

"To make a movie on such sensitive subjects" - including crime, Arab-Jewish relations and tensions within different sectors of the Arab community - "you need to have two directors, one from each community," explains Shani, 36. "We needed to stand behind every decision together... It got to be such a close partnership where we knew each other so well. We worked together for seven years and talked about everything together. It got to be so we would know what the other would say before he opened his mouth."

"We kept each other going," agrees Copti.

Jerusalem Post Online

Although this is from the ostracized and stigmatized Jpost, it is a worthwhile article.
Note: I am no longer in the habit of posting here, due to my own feelings that the board has a unsavory taint, and also that I have been subject to personal attacks, that I feel are unwarranted. However, this is an important article about a film that was shown at the Toronto festival, an even that was subject to boycotting be some pro-Palestinian activists, and is actually a documentary that has won prizes, and is an amazing story in itself. Therefore, I put my feelings aside in posting this in the hopes that others might take the chance to experience this Jewish-Arab Israeli film production.

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