Madrasa (Episodic Spotlight)

Episodic Spotlight

From the pen of politically astute Palestinian Israeli writer Sayed Kashua (Arab Labor, The Writer) and Israeli Jewish director Guri Alfi (The Chef) comes Madrasa, a fast-paced comic TV series set at the Peace School for Bilingual Education in Jerusalem. Palestinian Israeli Khaled starts attending the school when his family moves from Haifa because his dad gets a job at Hadassah Medical Center. Shira, a Jewish Israeli student who is thinking about jumping ship for a larger “more normal” high school experience, falls hard for Khaled. Kashua and Alfi deftly portray how these young Arab and Jewish people communicate, while it’s their parents who future-trip about what their attractions and attendance at the school means. Kashua’s script effortlessly mixes the growing pains of adolescence against a backdrop of more serious conflicts that Israeli society is undergoing. Some Jewish students are leaving the school, but for many of the Arab students, it’s the best school available to them academically. From a young Arab woman who is afraid to tell her classmates she has decided to wear a headscarf to two boys who find common ground in their love of manga, Madrasa depicts teens of two cultures learning together with a delightful multilingual soundtrack.

SFJFF is pleased to present four episodes from the first season of this series.

United States Premiere

Gur Alfi was born on September 18, 1976 in Ramat Gan, Israel. Guri is an actor, writer, director and stand-up comedian. The son of famed Israeli storyteller Yossi Alfi and married to Hila, with who he is raising four daughters. While studying theater, Guri began performing at the Domino Gross comedy club. He then completed his military service with the Israel Defense Force’s Education Corps. Alfi traverses genres, geographic boundaries, and media with his prolific works in television, film, theater, and radio, remaining ever-relevant with fresh content for both veteran and new audiences. Most recently, he performed a U.S. stand-up comedy tour and produced an Israeli television special about his adventures in America. In 2018, he had a recurring role in the first and very successful season of the new Israeli television comedy-drama hit The New Black (Shababnikim in Hebrew), and directed the second and third seasons of comedy series My Successful Sisters, awarded the Television Academy’s Best Director.