Ahed's Knee

Florida Premiere

Celebrated Israeli writer-director Nadav Lapid (Synonyms) makes intensely personal, cunningly political, and very provocative films brimming with an energy often mirrored by his lead characters. Ahed’s Knee, his fourth feature and winner of the Jury Prize at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival, is arguably his most radical film yet — one steeped in torment and angst with irrepressible moments of despairing romanticism emanating from Y, an obvious alter ego to Lapid himself. Played with fierce physicality by Israeli choreographer Avshalom Pollak, Y is a filmmaker and artist who, in the midst of casting for a project, receives an invitation to present one of his films in a small town in the arid Arava Valley. There he is met by vast desert expanses — which he films on his phone and sends to his ailing mother — and his host, Yahalom, a passionate admirer of his work who arranged the screening in her role as deputy director of the Ministry of Culture’s library department. The two instantly engage in an intellectual game of cat and mouse, but when Y is asked to sign a waiver declaring that he will stick to government-sanctioned topics in his introductory address, he cannot contain his indignation at the Ministry’s supposed censorious agenda. An intentionally brazen and at times, purposefully inflammatory work that cries out against artistic censorship, Ahed’s Knee pulls no punches. Nominated for eight Israeli Academy Awards, including Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, and Best Actress.