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IMDbPro

Ajami

  • 20092009
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 2h 4m
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
6.2K
YOUR RATING
Ajami (2009)
Ajami Trailer - Five stories about the everyday life in Ajami - a religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv.
Play trailer1:42
1 Video
18 Photos
  • Crime
  • Drama
Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.
IMDb RATING
7.3/10
6.2K
YOUR RATING
  • Directors
    • Scandar Copti
    • Yaron Shani
  • Writers
    • Scandar Copti
    • Yaron Shani
  • Stars
    • Fouad Habash
    • Nisrin Siksik
    • Elias Saba
Top credits
  • Directors
    • Scandar Copti
    • Yaron Shani
  • Writers
    • Scandar Copti
    • Yaron Shani
  • Stars
    • Fouad Habash
    • Nisrin Siksik
    • Elias Saba
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 36User reviews
    • 99Critic reviews
    • 82Metascore
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Nominated for 1 Oscar
      • 15 wins & 10 nominations total

    Videos1

    Ajami
    Trailer 1:42
    Ajami

    Photos18

    Ajami (2009)
    Ajami (2009)
    Shahir Kabaha in Ajami (2009)
    Ajami (2009)
    Ajami (2009)
    Ranin Karim in Ajami (2009)
    Shahir Kabaha and Ranin Karim in Ajami (2009)
    Shahir Kabaha and Fouad Habash in Ajami (2009)
    Shahir Kabaha in Ajami (2009)
    Ajami (2009)
    Scandar Copti in Ajami (2009)
    Ajami (2009)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Fouad Habash
    • Nasrias Nasri
    Nisrin Siksik
    • Ilhamas Ilham
    • (as Nisrine Rihan)
    Elias Saba
    • Shataas Shata
    Youssef Sahwani
    • Abu-Liasas Abu-Lias
    Abu George Shibli
    • Sidoas Sido
    Ibrahim Frege
    • Malekas Malek
    Scandar Copti
    Scandar Copti
    • Binjas Binj
    Shahir Kabaha
    Shahir Kabaha
    • Omaras Omar
    Hilal Kaboub
    Hilal Kaboub
    • Ananas Anan
    • (as Hilal Kabob)
    Ranin Karim
    Ranin Karim
    • Hadiras Hadir
    Eran Naim
    Eran Naim
    • Dando Ben Davidas Dando Ben David
    Sigal Harel
    • Dando's sisteras Dando's sister
    Tamar Yerushalmi
    Tamar Yerushalmi
    • Dando's motheras Dando's mother
    Moshe Yerushalmi
    • Dando's fatheras Dando's father
    Dana Abed
    • Hasnaas Hasna
    Ghassan Ashkar
    Tony Copti
    • Abed Salemas Abed Salem
    • Directors
      • Scandar Copti
      • Yaron Shani
    • Writers
      • Scandar Copti
      • Yaron Shani
    • All cast & crew
    • See more cast details at IMDbPro

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    Storyline

    Edit

    Did you know

    Edit
    • Trivia
      The scene where the cops drive around and someone tries to sell them stolen red shoes, was not staged. They were actually shooting in the car and were interrupted by that man. As the actors used to be actual cops, they reacted like they would, and later the filmmakers decided to keep that scene.
    • Quotes

      Dando Ben David: A guy was murdered in Jaffe. The whole department worked 24 hours nonstop. I haven't slept, because the kids drove me nuts. Bless their hearts.

    • Connections
      Featured in The 82nd Annual Academy Awards (2010)

    User reviews36

    Review
    Top review
    9/10
    Israel's mean streets
    Ajami is a first film by the team of Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab (with a Christian family name), and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew. It gained recognition at Cannes and in Israel; and is nominated for the Best Foreign Oscar. Using locally recruited non-actors, shooting in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, which has become a mostly Arab ghetto outpost of Tel Aviv, 'Ajami' is full of improvisation and hand-held camera work that give it an intense feeling of immediacy -- and seethes with action disturbing enough to leave you feeling bruised. Israeli cinema is remarkable for a tiny country; it's a pity more Arabs outside Israel can't see this film. Despite the myriad hostilities and misunderstandings 'Ajami' depicts -- between Palestinians from the territories and Israeli Arabs; Arab Christians and Arab Muslims; Israelis and Arabs; rich and poor; old and young -- there is hope in the fact that an Arab and a Jew could team up for such passionate film-making.

    'Ajami' interweaves multiple story-lines with a documentary feel using a large cast and, to make matters more complicated but also underline interconnections, it's divided into chapters that are not quite in chronological order so some events are seen again, from a different angle the second time. Most of the scenes are in Arabic but some are in Hebrew or a mixture of Hebrew and Arabic. All the location inter-titles and the end credits are rigorously both Hebrew and Arabic -- a practice not uncommon in Israeli cinema, but especially resonant here.

    The action begins with a drive-by shooting -- of the wrong person. A young boy, Nasri (Fouad Habash), who narrates the film, his soft voice giving it a kind of clarity and delicacy, is present when his cousin is shot while working on a car in the street. The hit man meant to get Nasri's brother Omar (Shahir Kabaha), as revenge for Nasri's uncle's killing of an extortionist. Omar is now clearly in mortal danger.

    The neighborhood leader and restaurant owner Abu Elias (Youssef Sahwani) arranges a deal-brokering among village elders at a bedouin camp where men bid back and forth as to how much protection or payoff money is required for Omar to stay alive. Omar can't possibly raise the sum finally arrived upon, but he's indentured at Abu Elias' restaurant; and there, Omar turns out to be in love with his boss' daughter Hadir (Ranin Karim), a serious no-no, since her family is Christian and Omar's is Muslim. Next there arrives a bright-eyed and innocent teenager, Malek (Ibrahim Frege) who sneaks in from the occupied territories and is an illegal worker in the restaurant, an Arab exploited by an Arab, the harsh Abu Elias. Malek also has an impossible financial burden, needing to raise many thousands to pay for a bone marrow transplant for his seriously ill mother.

    Eventually both Omar and Malek are drawn into trying to deal dope to raise money, against the strong objections of Nasri, and totally against the wishes of Abu Elias, who wishes to appear to function within the law, even if he doesn't.

    Meanwhile there are the Israeli and near-Israeli parts of the story. Dishonest Israeli cop Dando (Eran Naim) appears both as a bastard, when persecuting the boys who're clumsily attempting to sell cocaine, and a softy, when it comes to the disappearance of his younger brother from the army, perhaps captured by Palestinians, an event that devastates his family (these are the all-Hebrew scenes). The Arab co-director Copti himself plays Binj, a Palestinian who speaks fluent Hebrew and has a non-Arabic speaking Jewish girlfriend. He is pressured by his Arab friends for this, and his life turns tragic when he holds drugs for the others after his brother has stabbed a Jewish neighbor in an argument over noisy animals, and the cops manhandle him, with Dando on hand in his bad-cop role. This sequence about Binj seems to dramatize the futility of cross-over dreams in this harsh world. (The problems faced by Arabs living in a Hebrew-speaking Israeli environment has also been dealt with in the hit Israeli sitcom "Arab Work.")

    It doesn't necessarily seem as though Dando is more dangerous, in a sense, for the young Palestinians than the brutish Abu Elias, who threatens to break Omar's bones if he continues his courtship of Hadir. Partly it is the elders who appear as the villains, more threatening here than Israeli checkpoint guards.

    One has to grapple with all these plot elements to follow 'Ajami.' The intersections get complicated, and the film is a bit under-edited at two full hours, but there is a wealth of cultural material that gets across along with the insistent problems and an overwhelming sense of hopelessness for young Arabs. There is great warmth among friends and family members of all stripes. But even fun moments seem framed in scariness, like a birthday celebration for Malek which he's sent to by threatening him that the "government" (الحكومة, i.e. police) is after him. Even the birthday present they give Malek, an electrified tennis racket, has an edge of menace. 'Ajami' doesn't stop for a breath or a moment of happiness: it succeeds in convincing you that isn't possible.

    Further proof of that impossibility came early this month (February 2010) and life imitated art when Scandar Copti's brother Tony, a supporting actor in the film, was arrested after Israeli police accused some Ajami teenagers of hiding drugs who said they were only burying a dog. This led to a brawl in which Tony Copti and another brother were arrested and hauled off to the police station for questioning, according to a 'Haaretz' article.
    helpful•28
    8
    • Chris Knipp
    • Feb 21, 2010

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • September 17, 2009 (Israel)
    • Countries of origin
      • Germany
      • Israel
      • United Kingdom
    • Languages
      • Arabic
      • Hebrew
    • Also known as
      • 遠離阿雅米
    • Filming locations
      • Jaffa, Israel
    • Production companies
      • Inosan productions
      • Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion GmbH
      • ARTE
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Budget
      • $1,000,000 (estimated)
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $622,403
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $35,792
      • Feb 7, 2010
    • Gross worldwide
      • $1,331,651
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

    Edit
    • Runtime
      2 hours 4 minutes
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby Digital
      • Dolby SR
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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