a film by udi aloni

A FI LM BY U D I ALO N I
synopsis
S y no p sis
Palestinian rapper Kareem and his singer girlfriend Manar struggle, love and
m a k e m u s i c i n t h e i r c r i m e - r i d d e n g h e t t o a n d Te l A v i v ‘ s h i p - h o p c l u b s c e n e . . .
S c r e e n p l a y b y r e a l - l i f e r a p p e r Ta m e r N a f a r ( w h o s t a r s a s K a r e e m ) a n d
Oren Moverman (TH E M E S S E N G E R, TI M E O UT O F M I N D).
A social drama with kick-ass music directed by Udi Aloni
(ART/VIOLENCE, FORGIVENESS).
Kareem leads an aimless life between odd jobs and
hanging out with his buddies. He lives with his parents in a crime-ridden ghetto of the mixed Jewish-Arab city of Lyd, some 20 minutes from Tel Aviv. Most
of his childhood friends have turned to selling drugs
through “ATMs” – transaction holes in the walls of
dilapidated buildings.
Kareem‘s loving musician parents are constantly
worrying about his life choices and they try hard to
guide their son on the right path. Kareem is devastated when his father is killed in a car crash. The family tragedy brings him closer to his singer girlfriend,
Manar, and motivates him to do something more with
his life.
Kareem and his group have been performing at
small neighborhood gigs and family birthday parties.
When they finally get a chance to perform in a Tel
Aviv hip-hop club, Kareem‘s star potential is quickly
noticed. The “first Arab rapper” is asked to appear
on a TV news program. As Kareem‘s talent develops,
so does his political consciousness, and the group‘s
lyrics become more defiant. Although he raps “I‘m
not political,” Kareem and the group use music to
express their tough life as Palestinian youth.
But the road to success is never easy... Kareem and
his group face a violent confrontation with nationalistic Jewish rappers. Their friend Talal, already mixed
up with a dangerous drug lord, could lose his home
because of government-imposed gentrification.
Kareem‘s biggest blow could be not having Manar
onstage with him for his most important gig yet. Her
cousins threaten to harm them if she performs publicly with him, an act which they consider a disgrace
to the family honor. The time has come for Kareem
to either surrender to conservative tradition or stand
up for the woman he loves, the artist he respects...
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TA M E R ‘ S LY D
C O M M E NTS FR O M D I R E CTO R U D I ALO N I
J U NCTION 4 8
TA M E R N A F A R A S K A R E E M
The Israeli city of Lod is the Palestinian city of Lyd, which once sat on the main
railway junction. In 1948, tens of thousands of Palestinians were exiled from Lyd
in order to resettle the town with Jews. It became a mixed Palestinian-Jewish city
located 20 minutes away Tel Aviv. Our protagonist, the first Arab hip-hop artist,
lives in the ghetto of Lyd. In one of his lyrics, he writes: Damn this land. Damn
Junction 48. The Palestinian citizens of Israel are often referred to as 48ers.
JUNCTION 48 is the story of Kareem, Manar, and their particular community:
the 48ers. But it‘s also a universal story, the story of young Arab Muslims around
the world who are searching for a unique language of universality.
JUNCTION 48 is a fiction film that was inspired by the real-life experiences of
leading actor and co-writer Tamer Nafar, who started the Arab hip-hop scene in
2000. I met Tamer two years later, when he appeared in my documentary film
LOCAL ANGEL with his rap group DAM. It was the beginning of a wonderful
friendship. After that, he appeared in two other films of mine, FORGIVENESS
and ART/VIOLENCE. Outside of the realm of film, we‘ve collaborated on many
social-political projects, through which our friendship has grown even further.
In a way, against all odds, we created a binational community with its own
art and culture, a community that opens the possibility of togetherness while
acknowledging the separation in our region. On one of the long nights we spent
sitting and talking, Tamer told me his life story from a more personal perspective,
and we realized that we were ready to make a feature film. When Tamer started
to suggest names of possible actors, I already knew that only charismatic Tamer
could play Kareem. I mentioned the project to my good friend, brilliant filmmaker
Oren Moverman and he was immediately enthusiastic and offered his support. I
never dreamed he would actually become a co-writer. Once Oren and executive
producer James Schamus both committed, I knew that nothing could stop us
from making this dream come true.
Tamer has been living in the impoverished and mixed Palestinian-Jewish city of
Lyd since the day he was born. There is a scene in the movie where his mother,
who has a spiritual awakening and becomes a Quranic healer, cures an adolescent from a traditional Jewish family. This scene, far from being an impossibility,
represents what used to be the very real multicultural relationships among the
working classes in Lyd.
H I P-HO P IS ART AN D VIOLE NCE
I feel that hip-hop, in a way, is art/violence. It‘s not art instead of violence, nor
is it violence instead of art. Instead, it‘s the existence of rage and resistance
within art itself. A few years ago, I was working in The Freedom Theatre of Jenin
Refugee Camp, as seen in my film ART/VIOLENCE (Cinema Fairbindet Prize at
the 2013 Berlin Film Festival). In Jenin, my dear friend, the late Juliano Mer
Khamis, used to teach his students that high quality art is a form of resistance,
and resistance is a form of high quality art. Similarly, in my books and in my
lectures, I often deal with the relationship between art, politics and theory. Each
one of the three is a means to the others and an end in itself. I feel that the
music and lyrics in JUNCTION 48, which we created to tell the story of the new
generation of the 48ers, exemplify the interrelationships of these three elements.
the sets
TH E SETS
TH E M U S E U M O F C O EXI STE N C E
Our sets were a hybrid of authentic locations in Lyd and an old Palestinian house
in Jaffa, which we converted into a studio. Salim Shehada, the most preeminent Palestinian art designer, constructed the house that is later demolished
from scratch. He also converted different rooms of the house into a Communist
gathering place (for the parents‘ musical performance), a concert space (for the
hip-hop performances), a drug-dealing base, and even a police station.
The Museum of Coexistence project in JUNCTION 48 doesn‘t actually exist in
Lyd. And yet similar sites exist in almost every mixed city in Israel. Tel Aviv University is sitting on the ruins of the Palestinian village Sheikh Mones. In the village of Ein Hod, Israel built a museum for Dada art inside of a Palestinian house,
the owners of which were evicted and now live in an unrecognized community
three kilometers away. Perhaps the most fitting example is the actual Museum
of Tolerance in Jerusalem, which was built on top of the ancient Mamilla Graveyard of an exiled Palestinian community. It‘s painful for me to see that so many
progressive institutes in my Jewish-Israeli community are really sitting on a razed
past.
the museum
SAMAR QUPTY AS MANAR
Samar Qupty is a graduate of the Tel Aviv University film school. Originally, she
came to work as assistant director while I mentored her own script. But the more
she learned about the character Manar, the more she identified with her, and
she insisted that I audition her for the role. From the first audition, it was clear
that she had star qualities. Because the other actresses auditioning were also
extremely talented, it took a month to figure out that there was a perfect match
between her and Tamer. I should add that the whole process of the casting was
among people I have known for many years. Some of them I‘ve known as colleagues, like the mother Salwa Naqara, and some I‘ve known as students, like
Ayed Fadel and Mariam Abu Khaled. We expanded the cast as a true community
for the coming future.
A FREE SUBJECT
The character of pretty young Manar is extremely important in our story, but the
story of the Palestinian woman is very complex. If we look at the 70s, and we
have role models like Leila Khaled, we see that women used to be more empowered than they are today, and part of the reason for this is the ongoing occupation
and oppression from the outside that doesn‘t give space for women to fight for
their own freedom and identities inside of their own communities. Manar is an
example of many young Palestinian women, as she has had to confront a reactionary movement in her own society and to recreate herself as a free subject. In
Beckett‘s Waiting for Godot, Gogo tells Didi, „they took our rights.“ Didi laughs
and says, „we gave them up.“ Manar‘s logic is the reverse; she refuses to receive
her freedom from her boyfriend, insisting to attain it on her own terms.
from
communist
to
leader
FROM COM M U N IST
TO H EALE R
The transformation of Kareem‘s mother from communist to Quranic healer is crucial to the film because it challenges the Western gaze that sees a
dichotomy between modernity and religion (Islam).
The West views the hijab (headdress) as a symbol
of patriarchy, only in order to deny and conceal
their own Western patriarchal values. But feminism
with hijab and without hijab can function equally.
In JUNCTION 48, we can see it in the sisterhood
between the old and new generations, portrayed
through the bond of Kareem‘s mother and Manar.
So while the Western audience would like to see
hip-hop as contradicting traditional values, we are
offering traditional values that have a split within
themselves. Before the accident as a secular leftist
and after as a traditional healer she remains a figure
that her son can rely on in times of crisis.
TH E JACUZZI SCE N E
natio
nalist
rappers
N AT I O N A L I S T R A PP E R S
Both actors who play Jewish rappers in JUNCTION 48 are also real rappers, but
their characters and names in the movie are fictional. Michael Moshonov (RPG),
is one of the most preeminent actors in contemporary Israeli cinema. The other
rapper, Babylon (67 Carat), is pretty much playing himself. Some Israeli rappers
have used music as propaganda for Jewish nationalism; indeed, one of the leading voices of the extreme right-wing in Israel today is a hip-hop singer.
One problem in contemporary Israeli cinema and society is the invention of the phenomenon known as „shooting and crying.“ In many Israeli
films that deal with the occupation or with war, the soldier protagonist,
who is portrayed as having high moral values, commits a sort of crime,
only later to repent so that the audience can forgive him. This ritual
can function on the condition that the Israeli soldier is the subject and
the Arab/enemy is an object for the soldier‘s psychological narrative. In
contrast, the jacuzzi scene in JUNCTION 48 depicts a person who is
not a soldier and who has no heroic facade. In his monologue, we
experience the removal of the liberal mask from the „shooting and crying“ narrative. Indeed, unlike the image of the suffering soldier who
seeks moral redemption, in the contemporary Israeli blogosphere, there
are tens of thousands of Israelis calling for pure violence without any
shame. For this reason, when the talented Michael Moshonov delivers
his monologue in the jacuzzi, I shivered behind the monitor.
the jacuzzi scene
my mother
D E D I C AT E D T O S H U L A M I T A L O N I
TH E REVOLUTION
I dedicate JUNCTION 48 to my dear mother who I lost two years ago. Shulamit
Aloni was an amazing woman who fought all her life to make Israel and Palestine
a better place to live in. Everything I know about the struggle for justice and human rights, I learned from her. She single-handedly made homosexuality legal in
Israel. She brought the feminist discourse to the front. She fought for Palestinian
rights like no other Zionist before her. I wish with all my heart that she could
have seen JUNCTION 48. I hope this film will help keep her legacy alive.
In the last year, I have been developing a project in relation to refugees and
Joseph Beuys in Berlin. At the same time, I‘m carrying the burden and the
love of Israel-Palestine wherever I go. Not one person has asked me why even
in this time of despair I’m still so active promoting justice, equality, and peace
between those two peoples whom I love so much. All I can answer is what the
philosopher Alain Badiou once wrote me, after I lost a comrade: “The revolution
is always a surprise, never a result.”
the revolution
udi aloni
U D I A LO N I (d i r e cto r)
Udi Aloni (born 1959) is an Israeli and American director and writer whose work
frequently explores the interrelationships between art, theory, and activism. His
films have been presented in the Berlinale and other major film festivals. His
past awards include the Berlinale‘s CINEMA Fairbindet Prize. Aloni‘s visual art
has been presented in leading museums and galleries, including the Metropolitan in New York and the Israel Museum in Jerusalem. His most recent book is
What Does a Jew Want? On Binationalism and Other Specters (Columbia University Press, 2011). His recent stage work was Anti-Oedipus at the Schillertag
Mannheim 2015.
In recent years, Aloni has mentored young actors from one of the harshest refugee camps in Palestine, helping them reach the world stage.
Selected Filmography:
2016 JUNCTION 48
2013 ART/VIOLENCE (documentary feature)
Winner of the CINEMA Fairbindet Prize (Berlinale), the Open Eyes Award (Medfilm Festival Rome), Juliano Prize (Cinema South Festival)
2009 KASHMIR: JOURNEY TO FREEDOM (documentary feature)
Berlinale Panorama Dokumente 2009
2006 FORGIVENESS
Winner of the Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival
2004 INNOCENT CRIMINALS (music video)
For Palestinian Rap group DAM
2002 LOCAL ANGEL (documentary feature)
Screened at the Berlinale Panorama Dokumente 2003
1996 LEFT (documentary short)
Part of the Re-U-Man interactive presentation
at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art
with cinematographer Amnon Zalait
with co-writer and executive producer Oren Moverman
Tamer N afar
tamer
(as Kareem & co-writer)
nafar
as
kareen
Palestinian rap artist Tamer Nafar serves as a role model for young Arabs across
the globe – a generation searching for new meanings, both political and personal. He is credited with reinventing hip-hop in its purest form: rage without
hate, social-political awareness without empty materialism, and large audiences
without selling out. He imported the style of hip-hop into his Arab Muslim ghetto
and exported it back to the world with an Arabic flavor.
Tamer was born in 1979 in the city of Lyd, Israel. In 2000, he and his brother
Suhell and their friend Mahmoud Jrere became DAM, the first Palestinian Arab
rap group. Today, millions of fans worldwide follow DAM, which has released
two albums and multiple music videos. Their lyrics are influenced by the Palestinian situation and the struggle for equal rights.
“My long-time friend and director Udi Aloni helped me to break down the barriers to be able to relive parts of my life. It was so important for me to be part of
a movie that looks at Palestinians through a non-judgmental lens, a reminder
to ourselves that we do love, we do dance, we do have mothers...
We face a unique situation but our goal must be not to let it separate us from
humanity. Our mission with the movie JUNCTION 48 was to capture the spirit
of this lost generation, those who fight oppression with their minds and creativity. These young dreamers who are the passion behind the inevitable change,
those brave enough to know change starts from the inside.”
S amar Q u p t y
samar
(as Manar)
qupty
as
nanar
Samar Qupty shines in her first leading role as Manar in JUNCTION 48. The
26-year-old actress and filmmaker was born in Nazareth from a Palestinian family. She studied cinema and television at university while working in various
projects as assistant director, script supervisor, casting and acting. She wrote
and directed the short film HENNA about polygamy in the Arab word. She is
currently working on her first feature DUNA which treats another social taboo,
sexual abuse.
“What makes JUNCTION 48 such a special film is its ability to show a very particular reality without trying to pretty it up. It reveals a complicated and problematic reality, yet it remains a movie about hope, about a generation whose
strong will knows no limits. It‘s about me, my sister, my roommate, my friends.
It looks at us on the same eye level, not as super heroes nor losers. As a Palestinian woman who lives a daily double dose of oppression, I watch brave Manar
in awe, fighting for her dreams without fear. I commend JUNCTION 48 for its
contribution to women by breaking a taboo and talking about honor killing.”
MAIN CREW
A FI LM BY U D I ALO N I
2016 – Israel/Germany/USA – 96 minutes – digital surround 5.1 – 1:2.39 – in Arabic & Hebrew
MAI N CAST
Tamer N afar
S amar Q u p t y
S alw a N akkara
S aeed D assuki
A deeb S afadi
Tarik C o p ti
S ameh “ S az ” Z akout
M ichael M oshonov
E lan B ab y lon
M ar y am A bu K haled
A y ed F adel
H isham S uliman
M aisa A bd E lhadi
Kareem
Manar
Kareem‘s Mother
Talal
Yousef
Abu Abdallah (Talal‘s Father)
Amir
RPG
67 Carat
Maryam
Hussam
Sheikh
Talal‘s family lawyer
director
screenplay
director of photography
editors
original score
production designer
costumes
make-up
sound design
line producer
U di A loni
O ren M overman , Tamer N afar
A mnon Z alait
I saac S eha y ek , J ay R abino w itz A C E
Tamer N afar & I tamar Z ie g ler
S alim S h ‘ hade
D an y B ar S hay ( H a c o l D v a s h L t d . )
D orit C ohen
Gil T oren
M ick y R abinovitz
producers
executive producers
co-producers
D avid S ilber , L a w rence I n g lee
S tefan A rndt, U di A loni
M oshe E der y, L eon E der y
S usan Wrubel , Gideon Tadmor
M ichael M ailis , E yal R immon
J ames S chamus , O ren M overman
Yasmin Z aher , S uhel N afar
B en K orman , K atie H eid y
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Screenplay OREN MOVERMAN & TAMER NAFAR Director UDI ALONI Producers DAVID SILBER STEFAN ARNDT LAWRENCE INGLEE UDI ALONI Line Producer MICKY RABINOVITZ DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY AMNON ZALAIT Editors ISAAC SEHAYEK & JAY RABINOWITZ ACE
Original Score TAMER NAFAR & ITAMAR ZIEGLER Production Designer SALIM SH‘HADE Sound Design GIL TOREN Executive Producers MOSHE EDERY LEON EDERY GIDEON TADMOR EYAL RIMMON MICHAEL MAILIS SUSAN WRUBEL JAMES SCHAMUS OREN MOVERMAN
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