Full Description
Michal, a 14-year-old competitive swimmer, is distracted by conflicts in her family. A decade earlier, her father left to become a ba'al t'shuvah, pursuing an ultra-orthodox life. Michal lives with her mother, a new-age, secular Jew who sells beads, tells fortunes, and enjoys the company of a younger man. The funeral of Michal's paternal grandmother brings the family into contact-and immediate conflict-spurring the girl to reconnect with her father, who was once a competitive swimmer like herself. Swimming through life-navigating her relationship with a popular girl Efrat, her main swimming competitor, and fending off the affections of Dror, her eager artist/boyfriend-Michal tries to find a place for herself amidst the conflicting pulls of her father's new orthodox family, the swim team, her mother's world and her own desires. Charismatic, fiercely independent and needy, Michal's character draws the viewer into a personal world that uses one girl's story to illuminate the cultural conflicts besetting Israel today.
