Jellyfish

Israel, 2007, 78 min, 35 MM
In Hebrew with English subtitles

DIR: Etgar Keret, Shira Gefen

Co-directed by popular Israeli novelist and short-story writer Etgar Keret and his wife, screenwriter Shira Geffen, this entertaining, memorably unsettling film introduces us to three women at a Tel Aviv wedding. Batiya (Sarah Adler) has lost a boyfriend and works the wedding in a dead-end waitress job. Joy (Ma-nenita De Latorre), a Filipina domestic, tends an aged woman while longing to be with her own child thousands of miles away. And bride Keren (Noa Knoller) breaks her ankle setting up a tragicomically disastrous honeymoon. Each of the three brings us into their own unique world of missed attempts at communication, stifled longing for family and sudden reversals of fortune. Keret and Geffen, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for their film (which was nominated for 10 Israeli Oscars), establish a deadpan comic tone that is subtly modified with unexpected bolts of pain and magic, in a manner reminiscent of Kieslowski at his best.

This screening is part of the American Film Institute (AFI) Film Festival 2007.   For details on the festival and tickets visit www.afi.com