''Kedma'' is a 2002

Israeli film Cinema of Israel ( he, קולנוע ישראלי, Kolnoa Yisraeli) refers to film production in Israel since its founding in 1948. Most Israeli films are produced in Hebrew, but there are productions in other languages such as Arabic and English ...

directed by

Amos Gitai Amos Gitai ( he, עמוס גיתאי; born 11 October 1950) is an Israeli filmmaker, who was trained as an architect. Gitai's work was presented in several major retrospectives in Pompidou Center in Paris, the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) and ...

and starring Andrei Kashkar and Helena Yaralova. It was entered into the

2002 Cannes Film Festival The 55th Cannes Film Festival started on 15 May and ran until 26 May 2002. The Palme d'Or went to the Polish-French-German-British co-produced film '' The Pianist'' directed by Roman Polanski. The festival opened with '' Hollywood Ending'', direct ...

Plot

The film is a historical tragedy set during the opening stages of Israel's 1948 War of Independence. The film follows the fate of a group of refugees from

the Holocaust The Holocaust, also known as the Shoah, was the genocide of European Jews during World War II. Between 1941 and 1945, Nazi Germany and its collaborators systematically murdered some six million Jews across German-occupied Europe; ...

who are illegally brought to Israel by the Palmach. When they arrive, they are chased by British soldiers. Once they escape, they are immediately drafted into the war, and take part in a grueling battle against Arab irregulars. The film centers on two long monologues, one by an Arab peasant who pledges to oppose the Jews forever; and one by an emotionally demolished refugee who laments the seemingly endless suffering of his people. Gitai intended the film to be a more realistic answer to the romanticized depiction of the war in Otto Preminger's ''

Exodus Exodus or the Exodus may refer to: Religion * Book of Exodus, second book of the Hebrew Torah and the Christian Bible * The Exodus, the biblical story of the migration of the ancient Israelites from Egypt into Canaan Historical events * Ex ...

''. The final shot of ''Kedma'' is identical to the final shot of Preminger's film.

References

External links

*
''Kedma's'' review from ''The Jewish Channel''
* Stephen Holden (February 7, 2003)
Film Review; War-Weary Immigrants Facing Another War

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

2000s German-language films 2002 multilingual films 2002 films 2000s Arabic-language films Films directed by Amos Gitai Films set in Israel Films produced by Marin Karmitz 2000s Hebrew-language films Israeli multilingual films 2000s Russian-language films Yiddish-language films {{Israel-film-stub