Ahed's Knee


Ahed's Knee is a 2021 internationally co-produced drama film directed by Nadav Lapid. It was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival. At Cannes, the film shared the Jury Prize with Memoria by Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Synopsis

"Y", a film director, is working on a new film about Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi. He travels to the Arava desert to attend a screening of one of his films at a local library, a government institution. There he meets Yahalom, an official from the Ministry of Culture. She explains he needs to sign a form that defines the subject of his appearance at the screening, a form that offers him a checklist of topics acceptable to the government all of which reflect its right-wing ideology and antipathy to criticism. Y becomes close to Yahalom while exploring how to use her sympathy for a more liberal approach to culture and speech to attack the government's agenda.

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 as the sergeant
  • Naama Preis as the casting director
  • Ortal Solomon as Ahed 1
  • Mili Eshet as Ahed 2
  • Oded Menaster as Smotrich
  • Netta Roth as the young actor

Release

The film was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, 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 for screening in November.
The film was inspired by the story of Palestinian activist Ahed Tamimi.

Reception

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