15th Annual Jewish Film Fest Kicks off with Oscar-Nominated Ajami

Tomorrow night, the 15th annual Seattle Jewish Film Festival opens, with more than 20 films screening at several venues around town. But the big, big movie in the festival is this Friday at SIFF, where Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti’s Ajami plays at 8 p.m.

One of this year’s best foreign feature Oscar nominees, Ajami has attracted stunning reviews. Set in a neighborhood of the same name in the ancient port city of Jaffa (part of greater Tel Aviv today), the film tells a series of interwoven stories about Jews and Palestinians grappling with the complexities of crime, poverty, and gentrification against the backdrop of the continuing violence between their peoples. The film’s achievement–and it’s supposed to be a doozy–was pretty well summed up by The New York Times‘s Ethan Bronner, who wrote in January that:

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Perhaps the most remarkable thing about the movie, however, is what it does to viewers. In a conflict where each side lives and breathes its own victimhood, feeling the hurt of the other is a challenge. Ajami meets it. When a Palestinian youth turns to drug selling to help pay for his mother’s surgery, Jewish filmgoers here have wept. When the family of a kidnapped Israeli soldier breaks down over his murder by Palestinians, Palestinians in the theater have had tears in their eyes.

Pre-sales for the Friday SIFF showing are closed, but more tickets should be available at the door, and Ajami is being screened again on March 25 at the Washington State History Museum (tickets $11).