Hellen I like the storyline of this show,it attract me so much

Smartorhypo Highly Overrated But Still Good

Contentar Best movie of this year hands down!

Frances Chung Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

gradyharp FOR MY FATHER (Sof Shavua B'Tel Aviv) is a brilliant little film, a joint German/Israeli production that for once has the courage and wisdom to examine another vantage of a potential suicide bomber. Written by Ido Dror and Jonatan Dror and directed with great sensitivity by Dror Zahavi the story is a brave one, one that takes the viewer into the minds of those who live in Tel Aviv both as Israelis and as youths disillusioned by parental dominance and by the outsiders, or Palestinians.The film opens with a trio of men driving across the border into Tel Aviv to transport one of them as a suicide bomber - the quietly reluctant and sensitive Tarek (Shredi Jabarin). When the bomb fails to explode, he's left stranded in Tel Aviv until he's able to fix the detonator. The fact that Tarek is unable to detonate the bomb and will fail his mission opens the possibility to get to know the young man behind the terrorist mask, an opportunity we have not been offered before. Tarek encounters a young 17-year-old girl Keren (Hili Yalon) who wears earrings and brightly colored hair and short skirts in defiance of her conservative family and is mocked and beaten by young Israeli men for being an outcast. Her only friend is an old disillusioned man Katz (Shlomo Vishinsky) who likewise owns a tacky street vendor booth across from Keren. Tarek encounters Keren, protects her form her assailants, and they develop a close bond - Keren's desire to go swimming with Tarek is rebuffed because Tarek is still carrying the defective suicide bomb device under his shirt. In this one brief weekend we see that both Tarek and Keren have virtues, flaws, and unexpected facets to their personalities. It is also important to note that they both face as much pressure and harassment from their own communities as they do from their counterparts on the other side of the political and cultural divide. And in keeping with the total honesty of the story the ending will surprise and stun the viewer.The film is in Hebrew with English subtitles. The cinematography is excellent and the acting by the three principals as well as by the supporting cast is outstanding. This is a very important film, well deserving of all the honors it has received since it was first released in 2008. Grady Harp

kastellos This is not a good film; it is a very, very, good film. Here in the US the Palestinians are painted as pure hateful terrorists killing teenagers in pizza shops. This film is able to show that even suicide bombers are people. The prospective bomber's (Tarek) parents are shown as loving parents and not as fanatics praising dead martyrs and happy if their sons can achieve martyrdom. Tarek himself is a multi-faceted individual, not a focused uneducated fanatic. What I found most interesting are his motives - they have nothing do to with Islam, rather, he is motivated by a sense of family, honor, love of father, and hatred for those that caused the "downfall" of his family and his loss of the opportunity to play soccer. Although his "handlers" are short-sighted and evil people, they make an interesting point when they say "We (the Palestinians) have no Air Force." Indeed, they fight with the few weapons they have. If they had the hardware (and perhaps it is better that they don't), software and training the Israelis have, then their strategy would be quite different.I also liked very much the portrayal of the Israelis. Here we see that they are a complex hardly homogeneous people. Some are disgruntled refugees from other countries and not happy in Israel, some are intolerant believers, some are border atheists, some are smart, some are not so smart, some are trusting, some are suspicious, etc. I especially liked that it portrays the working class area and people of Tel Aviv - a nice change from the million dollar condos on the sea full of American Jews that we normally see on American TV.The acting is tremendous. You sympathize with most every character because the acting is so believable. You don't want any Israeli to die because you see them as real (and innocent) people. You also don't want Tarek to die because he also is real and innocent. Also he is torn between his hatred of all Israelis on one hand while on the other hand he has feelings of no hatred, even love, for those Israelis he meets and gets to know in just a few days.But most of all I so enjoyed Hili Yalon as Keren. One can get lost in her beautiful eyes. Her acting is suburb. She represents so many things - vulnerability, love of parents, non-conformity, naivety, etc.See this film; you won't regret it.

Red-125 Sof Shavua B'Tel Aviv (2008) is a German-Israeli co-production shown in the U.S. as "For My Father." Directed by Dror Zahavi, the film follows a Palestinian, Tarek (Shredi Jabarin), who is sent to Tel Aviv as a suicide bomber. When the bomb fails to explode, he's left stranded in Tel Aviv until he's able to fix the detonator. The entire movie takes place during Tarek's weekend in Tel Aviv.Director Zahavi pulls off a coup, in that he makes his protagonist's mission understandable. It's hard to think of an audience being sympathetic to a terrorist bomber, but we can at least understand the internal logic behind Tarek's actions, even while we recoil at the thought of the suffering a terrorist bomb will cause.Added to this volatile mixture is a young, liberated Israeli woman, Keren, played by the beautiful Israeli actor Hili Yalon. Naturally, there's a chemistry between the young man and woman, although the differences that separate them make Romeo and Juliet's problems appear trivial by comparison.It's interesting that both Tarek and Keren are not cardboard characters. They have virtues, flaws, and unexpected facets to their personalities. Also interesting is the fact that they both face as much pressure and harassment from their own communities as they do from their counterparts on the other side of the political and cultural divide.We saw this film at the extraordinary Rochester Jewish Film Festival, but it will work well on a small screen. It's a provocative, troubling movie, and worth seeking out and watching.

dromasca Seeing this film was a kind of surrealistic experience. On a Friday night in a cinema complex in the center of Tel Aviv, me and my wife were the only two viewers. Private screening. Taking into account that our tickets were not even paid by us but won on a raffle by the Tel Aviv edition of Time Out, this film does not seem to enjoy commercial success.It is certainly deserving more. This film is one in a row of films that started to appear from both sides of the never ending and violent conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians, dealing with one of the most cruel aspects - suicide bombings. The approach that is being taken here is to try to humanize without necessarily explaining or excusing, and combine the story with a romantic line.The result is mixed. The film dares too little, Dror Zahavi who studied and works in Germany made a film that looks unexpectedly like conventional Israeli cinema or even more like Israeli commercial theater. His succeeds in the marginal aspects - the life of low-class Tel Aviv a few hundreds of meters from the glamorous aspects of the largest and most contradictory city in Israel. He succeeds less in the principal conflict and fails to says anything new or unexpected on this line.Zahavi is being helped by a team of experienced actors in the secondary roles - especially Shlomo Vishinsky and Rozina Cambos (this is how her Romanian name is correctly spelled :-)) as a slightly strange, pain and loss-stricken aged couple. Shadi Fahr-Al-Din does what you would expect, while Hili Yalon gives in my opinion the best performance in the movie, as the vulnerable young woman finding strength to fight her destiny of being born in an ultra-orthodox Jewish family and build a life of her own. The problem is that good acting cannot feel for the flaws of the story, and especially of its ending. The conflict in the Middle East is tough and complex. Simple and conventional solutions do not work here. So does not work the ending of this film.