Ahed's Knee (2021)

The complex Israeli context in conversation about this film begins with its title. Ahed is the name of the Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi, who was accused of assaulting Israeli soldiers who came to her house after a protest when she was only 17 years old (she is now 20). The Israeli propaganda later described her actions as an attempt to stage a police misconduct incident, and she was sentenced to eight months in prison. But this is not what Nadav Lapid (who won the Golden Bear Award at the Berlin International Film Festival for his film Synonyms) made Ahed’s Knee about — neither did he win the Jury Prize in Cannes 2021 for the on-screen depiction of Tamimi’s actions. According to the plot, some director (another alter ego of Nadav Lapid, who makes all films about himself, or almost about himself) reads an unpleasant comment about that incident online, in which an angry anonym demands that Tamimi be shot in the knee. The protagonist is so outraged that he decides to make a film about it — but this idea comes to his mind during a Ministry of Culture sponsored trip to a remote settlement where he will have to present and discuss his previous work with the locals.