Would You Have Sex with an Arab?

Would You Have Sex with an Arab?
Directed by	Yolande Zauberman
Produced by	Yves Chanvillard, Nadim Cheikhroucha, Orly Dahan, Natacha Delmon Casanova, Jean-Luc Ormieres
Written by	Yolande Zauberman, Sélim Nassib
Distributed by	Urban Distribution
Release date	September 12, 2012
Running time	85 min
Language	French, Hebrew, Arabic, English

Would You Have Sex with an Arab? is a feature-length documentary film by French director Yolande Zauberman. It was released in France on 12 September 2012 and is 85 minutes long and in full color.

Shot in Israel, the film is an orchestration of interviews with people who all answer the same questions posed by the author – "Would you have sex with an Arab?" and "Would you have sex with an Israeli Jew?". Most, if not all of the scenes are shot at night in dance clubs, bars, cafes, public spaces, and personal homes in Tel Aviv, Israel. Interviews are conducted in French, Hebrew, Arabic, and English. The film is currently available with both French and English subtitles.

Zauberman has said that she chose Tel Aviv as the site of her documentary because the city feels “guilty of nothing” and “has a certain blindness to it.” Zauberman said that in the past she sometimes “felt the incapacity to understand, to realize what happens in the rest of the country,” in Tel Aviv and “that is why there is a very special way of looking at Arabic [sic] people” in the city. Tel Aviv is Israel’s most socially progressive city, famous for its non-stop club scene. It is one of the most LGBT friendly cities in the world and has actively branded itself as a worldwide destination for gay and queer tourism.

The film explores personal attitudes towards “the other” in the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict through an almost ethnographic study of attitudes on sex and intimate relationships among the Tel Avivim. This film can be seen as a relatively new body of work where Israeli Jews experiencing the occupation advocate for certain Palestinian causes, notably in regard to social justice and human rights issues. These works comment on the status of Palestinians living in Israel and the occupied territories, and aim to shed light on the systematic discrimination and social injustices done toward the Palestinian people as a result of the actions and policies of the Israeli government. (5 Broken Cameras (2011), The Gatekeepers (2012))

Zaumberman personally conducted interviews accompanied by two production crew carrying a light, a microphone, and an unobtrusive handheld camera. The crew spoke English, French, Hebrew and Arabic and thus were able to communicate with many of those interviewed in their native tongues; however, the majority of the interviews are conducted in English and Hebrew.

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