‘PREMIERE: Dancing Arabs - Eran Riklis’

Israel, early nineties. Eyad, a boy who is growing up in a Palestinian village, is the only Palestinian to be accepted at a reputed Israeli school. He makes friends with Jonatan and falls in love with a Jewish girl named Naomi. But at the same time he struggles with the language, the culture and his own identity. Who is he: is he a Palestinian or a Jew? In order to be accepted as a peer, to be allowed to work and to love, he obviously has to make a personal sacrifice. Dancing Arabs is a subtle, humane film which shows how two communities would be able to live together if only they left the past behind them. Tension slowly builds from light-hearted and good-humoured to tragic. In the familiar funny and nostalgic style Eran Riklis (The Syrian Bride, Lemon Tree) like no other knows how to make the absurdity of the situation in the Middle-East palpable. According to the director, the films is like a slow traditional dance, a dance through life. Either we are on the dance floor alone, or amidst loved ones.