Dancing Arabs - A Borrowed Identity (2014)

Original title

ערבים רוקדים

Directed by

Eran Riklis

Genre

drama film

Country

Israel, Germany, France

Runtime

1h 44m

Rated

6

Rating

6.5 of 10 from 44 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

An Israeli-Palestinian teenager from a small town gets into an elite Jewish high school in Jerusalem. He falls in love with a Jewish classmate and forms a close bond with a disabled Jewish boy and his mother.

thoughtfulbittersweetintimatepoignantuneasyslow-pacedreflective

What happens

A Borrowed Identity (Arabic: العرب الراقصون; Hebrew: זהות שאולה) is a 2014 Israeli drama film directed by Eran Riklis. It is based on Sayed Kashua's book Dancing Arabs (2002). In Canada the film was released under the title Dancing Arabs, which was the film's English-language title at its world premiere (one reviewer noted that the title "will prove tricky in marketing campaigns"). The film was considered a flop in Israel, with only 48,000 views, despite an $11 million budget. The film tells the story of Eyad, an Israeli-Palestinian teenager from Tira who moves to Jerusalem to attend an elite Jewish high school, where he meets Naomi, a Jewish student, and falls in love with her. As part of his school-mandated community service, he meets Yonatan, who has muscular dystrophy, and his mother Edna. In May 2014, the film was selected to open the Jerusalem Film Festival. However, the beginning of the IDF's Operation Protective Edge in the Gaza Strip in July 2014 and the tense security situation at the time delayed the film's completion by an additional four months. Its title was also slightly changed, with the addition of a subtitle, "A Borrowed Identity", to avoid provocations. The film was also chosen for screening at the Locarno Film Festival in Switzerland. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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