Arranged

Rochel is an Orthodox Jew and Nasira is Muslim. Both start work as first-year teachers at a public school in Brooklyn. At first they keep their distance from each other; everyone around them sees them as each other's opposite. Then they find something in common: both are going through a marriage process arranged by their families, and both are trying to have a say of their own in it. The film was co-directed by Diane Crespo and Stefan Schaefer. The mould is a friendship story, but the film neither defends arranged marriage nor condemns it; it shows how much room the two women have to move inside their own traditions and leaves the judgement to the viewer. The school principal sees them both as women who need saving, and the film keeps its distance from that view as well. Zoe Lister-Jones and Francis Benhamou act in it. Ninety minutes.