Nominated for best foreign film last year, “Ajami” is the third Oscar nominated film from Israel in as many years. It is also the first Israeli film co-directed by an Israeli Arab and an Israeli Jew. This jarring drama set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa gained recognition at Cannes and in Israel; it will sadly never be seen in most of the Arab world. Using locally recruited non-actors and shot on location, with an improvised style and hand-held camera work, the intense and brutally honest film seethes with anger and is charged by jolts of action yet displays uncommon sensitivity to all its complex characters.

“Rarely has the tinderbox nature of the Middle East been so accurately lensed, on such an intimate scale…” Variety

“There is no finger-pointing here, and no group hugging either. Instead there is a sharp sense of just how deep and wide the schisms are, not just between Jews and Arabs but also between Christians and Muslims, rich and poor, farmers and city dwellers, men and women, young and old and so on.” - A.O. Scott, New York Times