Kadosh

This third film in the “cities trilogy” is set in Mea’ Shearim, the ultra-Orthodox neighborhood of Jerusalem. Meïr and Rivka have been married for ten years but have to divorce because they have no children. Malka, Rivka’s sister, is in love with Yaakov, who has chosen to live outside the community. The rabbi makes a decision: Malka will marry Yossef, his assistant. Rivka falls prey to solitude, while Malka chooses another path: rebellion.

 

“Kadosh – the title means “sacred” – addresses universal themes. Among them are the demands of ultra-orthodox religion, which confines as it sustains, and the suffering of men and women whose religion comes before love, but whose culture lacks a vocabulary for expressing personal pain. Yet Kadosh is also foreign in the extreme, an austere and shocking portrait of daily life in Mea’ Shearim, the Hasidic Jewish quarter of Jerusalem… Kadosh is an horror story, or rather two horror stories intertwined, about women tyrannized by men in the name of religious belief.”

The Wall Street Journal, 2000

​

Cast Yaël Abecassis, Yoram Hattab, Meital Barda, Uri Ran Klauzner, Yussef Abu Warda, Sami Hori, Lea König, Rivka Michaeli

Screenplay Amos Gitai, Eliette Abecassis, Jacky Cukier Cinematography Renato Berta Editing Monica Coleman, Kobi Netanel Sound Michel Kharat Music Philippe Eidel Production design Miguel Markin Costumes Laura Dinulescu Casting Ilan Moscovitch

Production Agav Hafakot (Israel), M.P. Productions, Le Studio Canal+ (France), Mikado Films, RAI (Italy) 
Producers Amos Gitai, Michel Propper Coproducers Roberto Cicutto, Laurent Thiry Line producers Laurent Truchot, Shuki Friedman

 

FESTIVALS

• Cannes: Festival de Cannes 1999 – Official selection, in competition

• Telluride Film Festival 2000

• London: British Independent Film Awards 2000 – Best Foreign Independent Film

• Rotterdam International Film Festival 2000

• Singapore: Singapore International Film Festival 2000