Kedma | |
---|---|
Directed by | Amos Gitai |
Produced by |
Marin Karmitz Amos Gitai |
Written by |
Mordechai Goldhecht Amos Gitai |
Starring |
Andrei Kashkar Helena Yaralova Yussuf Abu-Warda Moni Moshonov Juliano Mer-Khamis |
Music by |
David Darling Manfred Eicher |
Cinematography | Giorgos Arvanitis |
Edited by | Kobi Netanel |
Distributed by | Celluloid Dreams |
Release date
|
May 22, 2002 |
Running time
|
100 minutes |
Country | Israel |
Language |
Hebrew Arabic French German Polish Russian Yiddish |
Kedma is a 2002 Israeli film directed by Amos Gitai and starring Andrei Kashkar and Helena Yaralova. It was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.
The film is a historical tragedy set during the opening stages of Israel's 1948 War of Independence. The film follows the fate of a group of refugees from the Holocaust who are illegally brought to Israel by the Palmach. When they arrive, they are chased by British soldiers. Once they escape, they are immediately drafted into the war, and take part in a grueling battle against Arab irregulars. The film centers on two long monologues, one by an Arab peasant who pledges to oppose the Jews forever; and one by an emotionally demolished refugee who laments the seemingly endless suffering of his people. Gitai intended the film to be a more realistic answer to the romanticized depiction of the war in Otto Preminger's Exodus. The final shot of Kedma is identical to the final shot of Preminger's film.