Kedma (film)

For other uses, see Kedma (disambiguation).

Kedma
Directed by	Amos Gitai
Written by	Mordechai Goldhecht Amos Gitai
Produced by	Marin Karmitz Amos Gitai
Starring	Andrei Kashkar Helena Yaralova Yussuf Abu-Warda Moni Moshonov Juliano Mer-Khamis
Cinematography	Giorgos Arvanitis
Edited by	Kobi Netanel
Music by	David Darling Manfred Eicher
Distributed by	Celluloid Dreams
Release date	May 22, 2002
Running time	100 minutes
Country	Israel
Languages	Hebrew Arabic French German Polish Russian Yiddish

Kedma is a 2002 Israeli film directed by Amos Gitai and starring Andrei Kashkar and Helena Yaralova. It was entered into the 2002 Cannes Film Festival.

Plot

The film is a historical tragedy set during the opening stages of Israel's 1948 War of Independence. The film follows the fate of a group of refugees from the Holocaust who are illegally brought to Israel by the Palmach. When they arrive, they are chased by British soldiers. Once they escape, they are immediately drafted into the war, and take part in a grueling battle against Arab irregulars. The film centers on two long monologues, one by an Arab peasant who pledges to oppose the Jews forever; and one by an emotionally demolished refugee who laments the seemingly endless suffering of his people. Gitai intended the film to be a more realistic answer to the romanticized depiction of the war in Otto Preminger's Exodus. The final shot of Kedma is identical to the final shot of Preminger's film.

External links

• Kedma at IMDb
• Kedma's review from The Jewish Channel
• Stephen Holden (February 7, 2003). Film Review; War-Weary Immigrants Facing Another War. New York Times