Festivals & Awards:
Jury's statement: TISF 2023: Best Independent Short Film Award:
"The poetic vision and the unique form of the film, which combines the documentary and the fiction while reliably integrating the main actress in the cinematic landscape, succeeds in conveying the contrast between the experience of the mystery and the religious myth and the lack of faith and hope in the life of the heroine"
Director's Statement:
"Cold Water" is a cinematic experiment, combining a documentary technique with a narrative one. The film was shot at The Baptism Site “Bethany beyond the Jordan”, located in the Jordan Valley, north of the Dead Sea. Located in the heart of the desert and in the heart of a closed military area. A place where people come to connect with the spiritual and the sublime. This site is the source of inspiration for my film.
In the center of this Pilgrims' site, I placed Galit, a guard, a tough woman, on the job, faded and grounded, whose whole job is to maintain order. The contrast between the lively faces of the pilgrims and the tired faces of the guard create drama and built-in tension. Then appears a child, a 9 years-old boy, and it is not clear throughout the film whether he is real or the fruit of her imagination or her desire for connection, and even motherhood. Emerging into Galit's closed world, something in her is shaken and begins to open up. This is a story about the divergence, otherness and bubbliness of a woman in a male work environment who chatters non-stop through her walkie-talkie. It seems that for many years she has lived this way and looks at the world uniformly and the same. Like her regular lunch - every day is similar to the one before it and the one after it. But this child is a variable in the plot of her tight-knit life like her long braid that seems to give her a sense of control. The appearance of this boy is like cool water in the desert of her soul, as well as her persistent attempts to look for the parents of the lost child. The ones that aren't sure really exist. It does not succeed and in the end she has to take responsibility and protect the lost soul of a child and her own soul.
