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IMDbPro

Dancing in Jaffa

  • 20132013
  • Not RatedNot Rated
  • 1h 30m
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
297
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
142,198
40,540
Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together.
Play trailer2:01
1 Video
8 Photos
DocumentaryDramaFamily
Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together.Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together.Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together.
IMDb RATING
6.8/10
297
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
142,198
40,540
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Hilla Medalia
    • Writers
      • Philip Shane
      • Hilla Medalia
    • Stars
      • Pierre Dulaine
      • Yvonne Marceau
      • Alaa Bubali
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Hilla Medalia
    • Writers
      • Philip Shane
      • Hilla Medalia
    • Stars
      • Pierre Dulaine
      • Yvonne Marceau
      • Alaa Bubali
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 6User reviews
    • 34Critic reviews
    • 74Metascore
    • Awards
      • 2 wins & 1 nomination

    Videos1

    Theatrical Trailer
    Trailer 2:01
    Theatrical Trailer

    Photos8

    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)
    Dancing in Jaffa (2013)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Pierre Dulaine
    • Self
    Yvonne Marceau
    • Self
    Alaa Bubali
    • Self
    Lois Dana
    • Self
    Noor Gabai
    • Self
    Rachel Gueta
    • Self
    Oren Halaly
    • Self - Judge
    Ajyal School
    • School
    Al-Ukhuwa School
    • School
    Hashmonaim School
    • School
    Open Democratic School
    • School
    Weizmann School
    • School
    Tal Talmon
    • Self - Judge
    Lana Zreik
    Lana Zreik
    • Self - Judge
    • Director
      • Hilla Medalia
    • Writers
      • Philip Shane
      • Hilla Medalia
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Soundtracks
      I Got Rhythm
      Written by George Gershwin and Ira Gershwin

      Performed by Ross Mitchell His Band & Singers

      Courtesy of The Dance and Listen Label

      Published by WB Music Corp (ASCAP)

    User reviews6

    Review
    Top review
    6/10
    Bringing together "enemies" in dance
    Hilla Medalia is an award-winning 36-year-old Israeli documentary filmmaker whose 2007 To Die in Jerusalem brought together in dialogue (by satellite) the mothers of two teenage girls paired on a 'Newsweek' cover, a Palestinian suicide bomber and an Israeli girl killed by her bomb. Her new film is about a less grim effort by famous ballroom teacher Pierre Dulaine to bring Jewissh and Palestinian kids together on the dance floor, and we see some little friendships and personalities bloom in his modest "peace process."

    Jaffa, once a Palestinian town, is now a poor, mixed suburb of Tel Aviv. The intense 2009 joint Israeli- Arab feature film 'Ajami' focused on a rough part of Jaffa. In 'Dancing in Jaffa,' Hilla Medalia follows Pierre Dulaine as he goes back to Jaffa, where he was born in 1944, son of an Irish father and Palestinian mother. (In the film he never mentions that his mother was also half French, which explains "Pierre.") He has not been back since his family was driven out when he was a child. He comes to introduce to Palestinian-Israeli, Jewish-Israeli, and mixed schools in Jaffa his Dancing Classrooms, a social development program for fifth- graders that uses ballroom dancing "as a vehicle to change the lives of the children and their families" (Wikipedia). This time the primary "change" is the somewhat radical one of pairing Jewish and Arab girls and boys as dance partners.

    In teaching gawky eleven-year-olds to dance, the pixieish Dulaine emphasizes etiquette, dignity, and respect from the get-go. He has to give up on one school because they boys won't dance. The more extreme Muslim males won't touch girls, or at first refuse. Things don't go that well at first, and for a while Pierre brings over from the States his (dancing, not life) partner of 35 years, Yvonne Marceau. Their dancing together for the kids inspires them: you can see the boys' eyes light up; they are charmed.

    Medalia follows several of the kids more closely, notably Noor, a plump, dark Palestinian girl whose grief over the death of her father makes her sullen, depressed, and sometimes violent. Alaa is a small boy who lives in a shack with his poor fisherman father. Alaa, dark and all smiles, and Brenda, a curly-haired Jewish girl fathered out of a sperm bank, become partners for the upcoming dance contest, and their jaunt on Alaa's father's little rowboat heralds a budding friendship. But the real miracle is Noor, who shows rhythm and grace from the start, and whose selection for the competition is part of a reawakening and new happiness that you can't help being a little amazed by. Ah, fifth graders: this is the age when kids are most open and malleable.

    The film shows other things, like Dulaine approaching his family's original residence and beating a hasty retreat when the current occupants are not just unfriendly but apparently downright hostile. Dulaine mostly speaks English, but he also speaks Arabic to the kids who understand Arabic. For Hebrew, he has an interpreter or the teachers translate for him. The schools he visits are Israeli-Palestinian, Israeli-Jewish, and mixed Palestinian-Jewish. There are seven different dances in the lessons and final contest, though merengue and rumba seem to predominate. At the final contest, all the parents are as excited as you'd expect. Each dance couple pairs a Palestinian and a Jew. And nobody seems to mind. At least for the moment, Dulaine has achieved reconciliation and crossed barriers that earlier, seemed uncrossable.

    All this will be vaguely familiar, because you've probably seen a couple of other movies Pierre Dulaine inspired, the 2006 musical drama 'Take the Lead,' starring Antonio Banderas as Dulaine, and 'Mad Hot Ballroom,' a heartwarming and popular 2005 documentary about New York fifth graders who learn dance and take part in a dance contest. However, Dancing in Jaffa prefers not to mention these, and alludes only vaguely to Pierre Dulaine's fame as a ballroom dancer when he partnered with Yvonne Marceau at Jacob's Pillow, on Broadway, and in London, or his having been on the faculties of the School of American Ballet, Alvin Ailey American Dance Theater, and the Juilliard School. This movie isn't about that. It's about little Jewish and Palestinian Israeli kids being polite and friendly and wiggling their hips gracefully together. 'Dancing in Jaffa,' a fairly simple and minimal film, isn't as priceless and cute or as proficiently made as Mad Hot Ballroom. But the gaps it bridges are, of course, more significant.

    'Dancing in Jaffa,' 84 mins., in Arabic, English, and Hebrew with English subtitles debuted in NYC in January 2013, and was included in the Tribeca and Sydney festivals. It has been picked up by Sundance Selects. Screened for this review as part of the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (July 26-Aug. 10, 2013).
    helpful•12
    0
    • Chris Knipp
    • Jul 20, 2013

    Details

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    • Release date
      • May 2013 (Israel)
    • Countries of origin
      • United States
      • Israel
    • Official sites
      • Official Facebook
      • Official site
    • Languages
      • English
      • Arabic
      • Hebrew
    • Also known as
      • Rokdim B'Yaffo
    • Filming locations
      • Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel
    • Production companies
      • kNow Productions
      • Tiara Blu Films
      • Warrior Poets
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

    Edit
    • Gross US & Canada
      • $151,098
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $10,564
      • Apr 13, 2014
    • Gross worldwide
      • $311,001
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Technical specs

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    • Runtime
      1 hour 30 minutes
    • Color
      • Color

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