FIG TREE

ETZ TE'ENA

By Aalam-Warqe DAVIDIAN

ISRAEL CINEMA PROJECT - RABINOVICH FOUNDATION - as FIN

First film - Completed 2018


Festivals
& Awards

Jerusalem FF 2014
1st Prize, Jerusalem Int'l Film Lab, 2014
Toronto - TIFF 2018
DISCOVERY
Haifa Int'l Film Festival 2018
Competition
    • Year of production
    • 2018
    • Genres
    • First film, Drama, Historical
    • Countries
    • ISRAEL, GERMANY, FRANCE, ETHIOPIA
    • Budget
    • 1 - 3 M$
    • Duration
    • 93 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Aalam-Warqe DAVIDIAN
    • Writer(s)
    • Aalam-Warqe DAVIDIAN
    • Producer(s)
    • Saar YOGEV (BLACK SHEEP FILM PRODUCTIONS LTD.), Naomi LEVARI (BLACK SHEEP FILM PRODUCTIONS LTD.), Felix EISELE (Av Medien Penrose GmbH), Sandrine BRAUER (EN COMPAGNIE DES LAMAS)
    • Synopsis
    • It is high noon on January 25th 1991, during the latter part of the Ethiopian Civil War, four months before the fall of Addis Ababa by the rebel coalition. Mina, a girl of 14, is standing on the banks of the River Awash and fighting as hard as she can to untie a rope from the neck of a soldier without legs, hanging from an ancient fig tree.
      Mina lives in a secluded area on the outskirts of Addis Ababa. Not far from her house, down the valley, flows a stream whose matted vegetation banks are occasionally visited by people who wish to end their lives. Despite the despair felt at the raging war, and the frequent kidnapping of boys her age on "collection days", Mina becomes accustomed to zigzaging between the demands of reality during war time and her desire to live and breathe her days of youth.
      Rata (19), Mina’s older brother, who has returned from the battlefield without his right arm, continues to demonstrate forced loyalty as a soldier in the municipal civic service but secretly is weaving a plan to implement a right reserved only for Jews; the right to leave, move away from the war, and immigrate to the land of Israel.
      Mina, who cannot think of leaving her Christian boyfriend Eli, begins to weave opposing plans: she will make love to Eli in order to bind him to her womb and force her family to accept him as her husband in order to preserve her honor, thus enabling him to come with them to Israel.
      Despite her plans, a group of soldiers, wrapped in the gloom of the night, break in and drag Eli into a speeding pickup truck. Mina suspects her brother is involved and is determined to save Eli. She takes Rata’s rifle from the house and shoots one of the soldiers realizing too late that her actions might bring a death sentence on both Eli and her family..
      The following moments are crucial. The soldiers who have already left are bound to notice something is wrong. Rata forces Mina to escape with him and find shelter at the Israeli Embassy hoping that they will be safe there. But Mina, who won’t leave Eli behind, sneaks out, and runs deep into the dark of night and fades into the gloom of war.
    • Partners & financing
    • Rabinovitz Film Fund- Production Grant
      Gesher-Avi Hai Production grant
      Jerusalem Int'l Film Lab 2014-1st prize - production Award
      Israel Film Fund-Development Grant
      Gesher Multi cultural Fund-Development Grant
      MFG
      World Cinema Fund
      The Post Republc
      Aux Cinema Du Monde -CNC
    • Beginning of shooting
    • Apr 10, 2017
    • End of shooting
    • May 18, 2017