Fig Tree (2018)

The year is 1989 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. The power is in the hands of dictator Mengistu Haile Mariam, who recruits soldiers for his army from the streets. Mina, the sixteen-year-old Jewish girl, tries to survive in this surreal autocratic regime. Mina’s family plans to move to Israel, and she will then have to survive the parting with her boyfriend Eli. 

Fig Tree — an international co-production of four countries (Israel, Germany, France and Ethiopia), a precise reconstruction of historical events, a film fashionably shot with a handheld camera — resembles most progressive films from the programme of the Cannes Film Festival, which has in the last decades become committed to showcasing films of the third world countries. Aalam-warqe Davidian — this film is her directorial debut — made Mina resemble herself and used her own  memories about childhood in Ethiopia while working on the script. The film was nominated for the Ophir Awards, the Israeli Oscars. The fact that Israeli films can be take place even in Ethiopia is a testament to how truly global the film industry has become.