Ajami
Directed by Yaron Shani, Scandar Copti
Nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar®, and winner of many
international film prizes, Ajami is a bold new crime drama set on the
margins of an Arab ghetto in the Israeli city of Jaffa that "could almost be
in the Los Angeles of 'Boyz N the Hood,' the Baltimore of 'The Wire' or the
Rio de Janeiro of 'City of God.'(New York Times)
Teeming with Palestinian illegal immigrants, Israeli Arabs, Christians
and Jews, Ajami is a cloistered urban neighborhood as treacherous and
potentially deadly as the front lines of Gaza. When a Bedouin extortionist
is gunned down in self defense, a teenager is mistakenly killed in
retribution, and an entire Arab family faces extinction. Under the same
roof, a young Palestinian risks his life and freedom to pay for treatment
that would save his dying mother. Out on the streets, a Jewish cop preys on
the local drug trade by
night while searching for his missing brother by day. Enemy, neighbor, or
both, everyone in Ajami runs the same risk of death, arrest and heartbreak.
Working with a cast of non-actors in the real streets, back alleys,
nightclubs and rooftops of Ajami itself, co-directors Yaron Shani and
Scandar Copti have crafted a "stunning" (New York Magazine) film that deftly
meshes characters and conflicts with unsentimental compassion,
uncompromising realism, and harrowing violence.
Reviews
"EMOTIONALLY MESMERIZING.." GRADE 'A' - Owen Gleiberman, ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY
"ONE OF THE YEAR'S TRUE STANDOUTS...A rich and absorbing drama...Just plain gripping...The right locale and the right subject, undertaken by the right directors." - Michael Phillips, CHICAGO TRIBUNE
"RIPPING DRAMA...VIVID, COMBUSTIBLE, DEEPLY HUMANE." - Joshua Rothkopf, TIME OUT NEW YORK