The world is funny and wondrously strange in this tender new comedy from the Israeli fabulist Shemi Zarhin (Aviva My Love, PSIFF 2008). Full of quirky charm, this ambitious, multi-strand tale about storytelling – and a fractured family – unfolds in a friendly Tiberias, where reality and fantasy cleverly intertwine.
Budding writer Zafi has trouble composing endings to her stories. Instructed by her workshop leader to write about "people with secrets and lies, wounds and diseases," she uses her housecleaning jobs to sniff out interesting tales. Among the narratives she collects and ties together is the sad story of estranged siblings Yardena, Meron and Golan.
Building a tales-within-a-tale structure, Zarhin alternates the orchestration of the siblings' problematic lives with the stories that Zafi’s writing group composes. As the members of the group describe their work, their fanciful stories unfold in black-and-white. And it soon becomes clear that Zafi is not the only member of the group who is writing from life. Zarhin shows how love can both wound and heal, how fiction can make reality bearable, and how humor is the best medicine of all. Nominated for 15 Israeli Academy Awards.