San Francisco Jewish Film Festival

Bubble, The

With The Bubble, director Eytan Fox and his screenwriting (and life) partner Gal Uchovsky continue their extraordinary run of sleek, chic films that define the contradictions of modern Israeli life. Like their previous hits Walk on Water, Yossi and Jagger and the watershed television series Florentine (a record-breaking SFJFF favorite in 1998), The Bubble weaves together the lives of likable young characters of various exuberant sexualities into a storyline that raises issues far more complex than the characters seem prepared to handle.

In The Bubble, a trio of charming and sexy Israeli twenty-somethings share a flat in Tel Aviv's hip district, Shenkin Street. Idealistic Lulu works at The Body Shop, goofy and flamboyant Yali runs a cafe, and moody Noam works in a record store when he's not doing dispiriting reserve duty at a Palestinian checkpoint. They love their carefree lives inside Tel Aviv's "bubble," where the strains of a violent outside world are kept at bay, one day (and party-filled night) at a time.

But the bubble is threatened to the bursting point when Noam hooks up with and gradually falls in love with Ashraf, a young Palestinian man who cannot legally work or reside in Tel Aviv. Seeing Ashraf's situation as a chance to act on their principles of peaceful coexistence, the three roommates turn somersaults to squeeze Ashraf into the bubble. How their ideals run headlong into tragic realities forms the core tension in this smart, keenly felt drama.

Principal cast: Alon Friedmann, Ohad Knoller, Yousef Sweid, Daniela Wircer.

Co-sponsored by Frederick Hertz & Randolph Langenbach; and by Doug Okun & Eric Ethington, Scott Rubin & Stephen Moore, and Dan Wohlfeiler

Co-presented by Frameline, Congregation Sha'ar Zahav of San Francisco, and the LGBT Alliance of the Jewish Community Federation