Man Without a Cell Phone

Jawdat is twenty years old and comes from a Muslim family. He is studying at an Israeli university in Nazareth, but he’s not doing so well in his Hebrew lessons and wants to transfer to an Arab college. His origins also complicate his attempts to date the Jewish girl Jenine. And then he has arguments with his conservative dad Salem, who’s convinced that the nearby cell phone transmitter is damaging his olive harvest and the health of everyone in the vicinity. Jawdat’s cell phone is causing yet further problems: it seems that the police are suspicious of the young man’s innocent telephone conversations with a girl from the Palestinian territory…. In his feature film debut, Sameh Zoabi uses the current political conflict as a backdrop for his essentially apolitical tragicomedy about a youngster who just wants to flee the family nest. The film does have its autobiographical traits: like its protagonist, the director was also born in former Palestinian territory, an area constantly plagued by bickering between the original inhabitants and the Israeli administration. –KVIFF