Ahed’s Knee

Nadav Lapid

Attending a screening of his film in an Israeli desert town, director Y. meets an employee of the Ministry of Culture. She wants him to sign a list of government-approved subjects to discuss. Astonishing, uncompromising and urgent drama about artistic freedom in today’s Israel by Nadav Lapid.

Y. is a Israeli filmmaker in his mid-forties. He is preparing an experimental film about 16-year-old Palestine activist Ahed Tamimi, who went to jail for slapping an Israeli soldier. The project, called The Knee of Ahed Tamimi, is inspired by a comment of a Knesset member that he wanted a bullet in Tamimi’s kneecap.

Y. interrupts this project to visit a screening of one of his films in a small desert town. There he is welcomed by Yahalom. She works for the Ministry of Culture and is a big fan of Y. However, Yahalom wants Y. to fill in a list of topics he will talk about at the event – only state-sanctioned topics are allowed. While Y. thinks up a plan to sabotage this stifling of his artistic freedom, his mother is dying from cancer. It causes him to mourn his country and his mother at the same time.

Credits

Director
Nadav Lapid
Producer
Judith Lou Levy
Year
2021
Country of production
France, Israel, Germany
Type
Fiction
Duration
109 minutes
Spoken language
Hebrew
Subtitles
EN
Production company
Les Films du Bal
World Sales
Kinology