Shmuel Wolf

Incited by a disillusioned young man who yearns to flee from civilization, four people sail off in search of happiness and land on an isolated island.

Amos Gitai’s debut feature, which draws upon his mother Efratia’s own Biblical scholarship, is filmed as a series of ritualized tableaux amid the ruins of Wadi Salib, the contested Arab neighborhood of Haifa. The story of Queen Esther, who in the Old Testament rescued the Jews from imminent slaughter by her husband King Ashasuerus, is made vividly relevant to present-day Israel.