The Ethiopian ‘Spike Lee’

Above: The film shows the story of Almaz (above) and her
family. An Ethiopian immigrant dreams of becoming
the Spike Lee of Israel and decides to video document
his community. “Much of the story is told through
the lens of his personal video camera as he travels
his neighborhood filming everyone and everything
from the mundane to the criminal.”
(Amharic and Hebrew w/English subtitles).

Events News
July 2, 2009

New York – Zrubavel, the first domestic film about Ethiopians in Israel, which screened in New York at the 6th Annual Sheba Film Festival in May 2009, will open in theaters today.

Even after three decades, all that most Israelis know about this population of more than 110,000 is what they read in newspaper reports: problems of integration, juvenile delinquency, domestic violence – or, more rarely, one successful Ethiopian immigrant who becomes a doctor, a pilot or a famous singer or actor. But what do we really know about the Ethiopian Jews of Israel – their values, their traditions, their language, their music, their food, their dreams, their problems and how they deal with them, their feelings?.

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