The Galilee Eskimos

Winner of the audience award at the Jewish Film Festival in Berlin, this astonishingly moving film depicts a group of elderly kibbutz inhabitants who wake up one morning to find that everyone else has abandoned them. It seems their beloved kibbutz is broke, and with it their old-fashioned dreams for a meaningful, cooperative future end. Rapacious Yuppie developers are salivating over the land, which they want to transform into a disco-gambling complex a la Las Vegas. The 12 self-styled “Eskimos,” taking their name from the supposed Eskimo custom of leaving their elderly to die alone, are shocked from drowsy complacency into action. They unite in their goal of defending their home in ways they never did as members of the kibbutz. The filmmakers' love for their subject is evident: writer Joshua Sobol, the great Israeli playwright, lived on a kibbutz for eight years, and co-author/director Jonathan Paz dedicates his story to his parents, founders of the kibbutz movement. Their finely-wrought film, featuring marvelous performances by all the “Eskimos,” is full to bursting with yearning for the past, but also of hope for the future. (In Hebrew with English subtitles) – BB