These woods (85’), Yael Kipper & Rosen Zaretzky, Israel
The events on which the plot axis is based occurred in 1961 in the Galilee Mountains. There, like many other places in young Israel, immigrants from North Africa were sent to do workfare jobs. The work mainly consisted of digging pits intended for planting tree seedlings that will grow to become forests. The aim was to provide immigrants with livelihood and employment, but things got complicated. The film describes the realities of immigrant lives, the intersection of cultures and the personal, familial, and national change that was imposed upon them and that still resonates today.