Oriental

Directed by Avi Nesher

In the aftermath of the collapse of the Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations at Camp David in 2000, Avi Nesher filmed a series of conversations with Israeli and Palestinian politicians concerning the dark core of the conflict. Simultaneously Nesher documented with his cinematographer David Gurfinkel the Russian-Israeli belly dancer Elina Pechersky during her preparations for an ambitious performance together with five Palestinian-Israeli musicians. Nesher weaves the two strands into one cinematic narrative, juxtaposing history and mythology, reality and imagination, questioning the unbearable communication failure between the "major" and the "minor" conflicts between Palestinian and Israeli cultures.