Esther

The story of Queen Esther, who in the Old Testament rescued the Jews from imminent slaughter by her husband King Ashasuerus, is made vividly relevant to the present-day cycle of vengefulness between Israel and its enemies. Amos Gitai’s debut feature, which draws upon his mother Efratia’s own Biblical scholarship, is filmed as a series of ritualized tableaux amid the ruins of Wadi Salib, the contested Arab neighborhood of Haifa.