Ajami (2009)

Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.

Directors:

Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani

Writers:

Scandar Copti, Yaron Shani

Stars:

Fouad Habash, Nisrin Siksik, Elias Saba

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 15 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Credited cast:
Fouad Habash	...	Nasri
Nisrin Siksik	...	Ilham (as Nisrine Rihan)
Elias Saba	...	Shata
Youssef Sahwani	...	Abu-Lias
Abu George Shibli	...	Sido
Ibrahim Frege	...	Malek
Scandar Copti	...	Binj
Shahir Kabaha	...	Omar
Hilal Kaboub	...	Anan (as Hilal Kabob)
Ranin Karim	...	Hadir
Eran Naim	...	Dando Ben David
Sigal Harel	...	Dando's sister
Tamar Yerushalmi	...	Dando's mother
Moshe Yerushalmi	...	Dando's father
Rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Ghassan Ashkar

Storyline

Ajami is an area of Jaffa where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians try to live together in an atmosphere that is -to say the least - electric. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from elimination by a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl, Hadir, but marrying her is far from obvious. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to trace his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians. Binj, Malek and Omar's Arab friend, suffers from being rejected by other members of his community for mixing with an Israeli girl. All of them will meet violence, most of the time ... with violence.

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Plot Keywords:

illegal gun purchase | jewess | arab | israeli | palestinian | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Details

Country:

Germany Israel

Language:

Arabic Hebrew

Release Date:

17 September 2009 (Israel)

Also Known As:

Adzami

Filming Locations:

Jaffa, Israel

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$35,792, 7 February 2010, Limited Release

Gross USA:

$621,240, 22 August 2010

Company Credits

Production Co:

Inosan productions,Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion GmbH,ARTE

Technical Specs

Runtime:

124 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital Dolby SR

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

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.

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Connections

Featured in The 82nd Annual Academy Awards (2010)

User Reviews

Even at 10/10, the film is still underrated

Ajami is a masterpiece, a film of the rare quality you look for when hitting the cinema. The achievements of this film are far greater than any shortcomings or glitches people may find.

As someone who's been to many of the exact locations (or similar) the film portrays, I was thrilled to see how well the film managed to connect these geographical dots together and create a very specific visual language.

Not often you see so many diverse landscapes and locations in one film without the diversity being annoying and decorative. In a Ajami's case, the wide selection of locations enhances the strong linkage: a small village near Nablus, the city of Tel-Aviv, a Bedouin encampment can be all linked by a single event.

By going in digging backwards into the events, it seems like only more questions arise, more events happen to be linked and the reality happens to be far different to what we expect.

This is the biggest quality of the film: It manages to open the eyes of those who thought their eyes were open already.