Mabul

On a tumble-down collective farm stretching along Israel’s Mediterranean coast, the Rosko family is quietly struggling to keep up appearances while hiding their sins, small and large, from one another. Miri (Ronit Elkabetz) teaches preschool and is having an affair; her husband Gidi (Tzahi Grad), a crop-dusting pilot on the moshav, isn’t letting on that he’s been grounded and has been whiling away his days getting stoned. And their late-blooming son Yoni is practicing for his upcoming bar mitzvah, avoiding the class bullies by selling them completed homework assignments behind the teachers’ backs. The Rosko household, fragile already, is thrown into disarray by the unexpected return of older son Tomer (Michael Moshonov), an autistic boy whose institution has suddenly closed. As family pressures mount, past secrets emerge, and Yoni’s Torah portion — relating the story of Noah and the flood — comes to take on multiple meanings, not only in the two brothers’ lives but for the whole family and their extended community: as the promise of either salvation or utter inundation. Nominated for six Israeli Ophir Awards, Mabul features tour-de-force performances by Ronit Elkabetz (MJFF 2009 film Seven Days), Tzahi Grad (MJFF 2011 film Eli & Ben).