''Ahed's Knee'' () is a 2021 internationally co-produced

drama film In film and television, drama is a category or genre of narrative fiction (or semi-fiction) intended to be more serious than humorous in tone. The drama of this kind is usually qualified with additional terms that specify its particular ...

directed by

Nadav Lapid Nadav Lapid () is an Israeli screenwriter and film director. Film critics consider him to be among the most internationally acclaimed filmmakers from Israel. Early life Lapid was born in Tel Aviv, Israel, to a family of Ashkenazi Jewish descent. ...

. It was selected to compete for the

Palme d'Or The (; ) is the highest prize awarded to the director of the Best Feature Film of the Official Competition at the Cannes Film Festival. It was introduced in 1955 by the festival's organizing committee. Previously, from 1939 to 1954, the festiv ...

at the

2021 Cannes Film Festival The 74th annual Cannes Film Festival took place from 6 to 17 July 2021, after having been originally scheduled from 11 to 22 May 2021. American filmmaker Spike Lee was invited to be the president of the jury for the main competition for the fes ...

. At Cannes, the film shared the

Jury Prize The Jury Prize () is an award of the Cannes Film Festival bestowed by the jury of the festival on one of the competing feature films. According to American film critic Dave Kehr, the award is "intended to recognize an original work that embodies t ...

with ''

Memoria Memoria was the term for aspects involving memory in Western classical rhetoric. The word is Latin, and can be translated as "memory". It was one of five canons in classical rhetoric (the others being inventio, dispositio, elocutio, and pronun ...

'' by

Apichatpong Weerasethakul Apichatpong Weerasethakul (; ; , born 16 July 1970) is a Thai independent film director, screenwriter, film producer and Professor at Tama Art University in Tokyo. Working outside the strict confines of the Thai film studio system, Apichatpong h ...

Synopsis

The film's protagonist is "Y" (Avshalom Pollak), a

film director A film director or filmmaker is a person who controls a film's artistic and dramatic aspects and visualizes the screenplay (or script) while guiding the film crew and actors in the fulfillment of that Goal, vision. The director has a key role ...

working on a new film about Palestinian

activist Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, direct or intervene in social, political, economic or environmental reform with the desire to make changes in society toward a perceived common good. Forms of activism range from mandate build ...

Ahed Tamimi. While traveling to the Arava desert to screen one of his previous films, and as his mother is dying, the director meets Yahalom (Nour Fibak), a clerk from the Ministry of Culture. She demands he sign a politically controversial form that requires him to define his film's content using politically biased terminology reflecting

right-wing Right-wing politics is the range of political ideologies that view certain social orders and hierarchies as inevitable, natural, normal, or desirable, typically supporting this position based on natural law, economics, authority, property ...

worldviews. Y becomes close to Yahalom while simultaneously trying to use her to fight against the agenda she serves.

Cast

* Avshalom Pollak as Y * Nur Fibak as Yahalom * Yoram Honig as the farmer * Yonathan Kugler as the young Y * Lidor Ederi as Narkis * Amit Shoshani as the fearful soldier *

Yehonatan Vilozny Yehonatan Vilozny (; born 9 December 1995) is an Israeli film, television and stage actor. Early life He was born and raised in Tel Aviv in Israel. His father Shmuel Vilozny, is an actor and married to Yehonatan's mother, Iris. He also has three ...

as the sergeant * Naama Preis as the casting director * Ortal Solomon as Ahed 1 *

Mili Eshet Mili Eshet (; born 30 June 1993) is an Israeli actress, known for her appearances on the television show ''Sovietzka'' (2023) and her starring role in the feature film ''Barren'' (2022). Early life Eshet was born in Jerusalem, Israel, to a fami ...

as Ahed 2 * Oded Menaster as Smotrich * Netta Roth as the young actor

Release

The film was selected to compete for the

at the

, it had its premiere on 7 July 2021 in the festival. It was also selected in 'Icon' section of 26th Busan International Film Festival and was screened in the festival in October 2021. It was invited in the Soul of Asia section at the

52nd International Film Festival of India The 52nd International Film Festival of India opened on 20 November 2021 with ''The King of All the World'' (''El Rey de Todo El Mundo'') by Carlos Saura in Goa. Like the 51st edition, this edition was held in a hybrid format which combined onl ...

for screening in November. The film was inspired by the story of Palestinian activist

Ahed Tamimi Ahed Tamimi (, also romanized ''Ahd''; born 31 January 2001) is a Palestinian activist from the village of Nabi Salih in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Best known for appearances in photos and videos in which she confronts Israeli soldiers, ...

Reception

On the review aggregator website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, 75% of 59 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.7/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "An occasionally uneasy blend of human drama and message movie, ''Ahed's Knee'' forcefully reaffirms that the personal is political."

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 80 out of 100 based on 17 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ahed's Knee 2021 films 2021 drama films Israeli drama films French drama films German drama films Israeli independent films 2020s Hebrew-language films Films directed by Nadav Lapid 2020s French films Cannes Jury Prize winners