A Borrowed Identity (aka Dancing Arabs)
A BORROWED IDENTITY (aka DANCING ARABS)
Dir. Eran Riklis (104min, Israel/Germany/France, 2014)
Hebrew and Arabic with English Subtitles
Narrative
Winner of the 2015 WJFF Audience Award for Best Feature!
First love, school bullies, British New Wave … and SCUD missiles. This bittersweet ‘80s coming-of-age drama from the director of The Syrian Bride and Lemon Tree adapts two autobiographical novels by popular Israeli-Arab writer Sayed Kashua. Eyad is a gifted Arab teenager who wins the chance to attend a prestigious Jewish boarding school. Isolated and lonely at first, he soon develops close friendships and begins fitting in. Soon however, heartbreak, personal tragedy and politics threaten to destroy his adolescent idyll. As Eyad moves into manhood, he makes impossible decisions about where he will stand – and who he will be – in a divided country.
***Note: The title of the film has been changed by its US Distributor between the 25th WJFF and the film’s current encore screening. The former title was Dancing Arabs.