Zrubavel
at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Film screenings:
Saturday, July 25, 2009 - San Francisco
Sunday, August 2, 2009 - Palo Alto
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - Berkeley
Sunday, August 9, 2009 - San Rafael
Paterfamilias Gite Zrubavel is a proud, dignified man employed as a street sweeper in his Ethiopian immigrant enclave in Israel. Although the prestige and influence he knew in Africa have waned, Gite is determined to see his children succeed beyond him. Son Gili’s flirtation with petty crime and the life of the streets, however, threatens to undermine his father’s hard-won efforts to see him literally rise as a fighter pilot. And Gite’s plans for highly eligible daughter Almaz go unheeded as she pursues a taboo romance with her first cousin. Even beloved grandson Yitzhak—child to remaining daughter Hana and her rigidly devout husband—breaks free of parental expectations in styling himself Israel’s Spike Lee, using as a career launcher a school assignment to film the daily rhythms of his socially and economically beset but buoyant neighborhood. Yitzhak’s film-within-the-film in fact neatly registers Ethiopian Israeli writer-director Shmuel Beru’s own inspiration, while helping his appealingly low-key, sure and vital debut capture an authentically fresh angle on the generational/cultural divide separating tradition-minded fathers and their rapidly assimilating children. Guided by firm stylistic choices, natural performances and an insider’s feel for the subject, this first-ever Ethiopian Israeli dramatic feature puts both its filmmaker and a seldom-seen African Israeli milieu on the cinematic map.
—Robert Avila
Directed by Shmuel Beru
2008 | Israel, USA | color | 72 min
Get more details and online tickets.
Saturday, July 25, 2009 - 4:19 pm
Castro Theatre
429 Castro Street, San Francisco - map
Sunday, August 2, 2009 - 7:15 pm
CineArts @ Palo Alto Square
3000 El Camino Real, Palo Alto - map
Wednesday, August 5, 2009 - 2:15 pm
Roda Theatre at the Berkeley Rep
2025 Addison Street, Berkeley - map
Sunday, August 9, 2009 - 4:00 pm
Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center
1118 4th St., San Rafael - map
Co-presented by Be'chol Lashon (In Every Tongue), a Global Jewish Community.
