Full Description
It may take a village to raise a child, but sometimes it takes a child to knit together a family. The sole adopted daughter in a household of 12, Ariella Sperber is unusual in more ways than one. She is the youngest sibling, the only Ethiopian in a family of Zionist Ashkenazi Israelis and has been in and out of prison for years. Family filmmaker Avigail Sperber provides an intimate, unflinching lens into her younger sister’s struggles and aspirations. Yet even as the camera outlines Ariella’s story, it aligns us with the colorful cast of characters that make up her family. We watch as Ariella’s gracefully stoic mother plumbs the depths of her empathy. We witness her older siblings—male and female, gay and straight, devoutly religious and spiritedly secular—try their best to juggle their concern for their wayward sister with their responsibilities to their own children and long-suffering parents. Named Best Israeli Film in the Docaviv International Film Festival, Probation Time is an introspective, subtle film about acceptance amid hardship and the balance each of us must learn to strike between our desire for belonging and independence.
