Zrubavel

Paterfamilias Gite Zrubavel is a proud, dignified man employed as a street sweeper in his Ethiopian immigrant enclave in Israel. Although the prestige and influence he knew in Africa have waned, Gite is determined to see his children succeed beyond him. Son Gili’s flirtation with petty crime and the life of the streets, however, threatens to undermine his father’s hard-won efforts to see him literally rise as a fighter pilot. And Gite’s plans for highly eligible daughter Almaz go unheeded as she pursues a taboo romance with her first cousin. Even beloved grandson Yitzhak—child to remaining daughter Hana and her rigidly devout husband—breaks free of parental expectations in styling himself Israel’s “Spike Lee,” using as a career launcher a school assignment to film the daily rhythms of his socially and economically beset but buoyant neighborhood. Yitzhak’s film-within-the-film in fact neatly registers Ethiopian Israeli writer-director Shmuel Beru’s own inspiration, while helping his appealingly low-key, sure and vital debut capture an authentically fresh angle on the generational/cultural divide separating tradition-minded fathers and their rapidly assimilating children. Guided by firm stylistic choices, natural performances and an insider’s feel for the subject, this first-ever Ethiopian Israeli dramatic feature puts both its filmmaker and a seldom-seen African Israeli milieu on the cinematic map.