Director: Yael Kipper & Ronen Zaretzky (”Super Women”,”Child Mother”, ”Portrait”) / Israel 2021

Genre: Hybrid Film / Docu-Fiction
Category: Human Rights, Immigration, Society
Script: Yael Kipper, Ronen Zaretzky

Production: Turtles Films: Yael Kipper & Ronen Zaretzky, produced for Channel 8 – Hot Cable Communication, Israel

Supported by: The Makor Foundation for Israeli Films, The Gesher Multicultural Film Fund and The Avi Chai Foundation, Israel

Cast: Omri David, Hitham Omari, Lily Simone Ivgy, Tamara Galoz-Eilay, Reuven Abergel.
Language: Hebrew, Maghrebi Arabic, French.

Subtitles: English
Length: 84 minutes

A docu-fiction film that deals with the employment solution that the young state of Israel offered to the new immigrants who came to it after its establishment. The film describes the realities of immigrant lives, the intersection of cultures and the personal, familial, and national change that was imposed upon them and that still resonates today.    

The events on which the plot axis is based occurred in 1961 in the Galilee Mountains. There, like many other places in young Israel, immigrants from North Africa were sent to do workfare jobs. The work mainly consisted of digging pits intended for planting tree seedlings that will grow to become forests. The aim was to provide immigrants with livelihood and employment, but things got complicated. The film describes the realities of immigrant lives, the intersection of cultures and the personal, familial, and national change that was imposed upon them and that still resonates today.