Broken Wings

The Ulman family in Haifa lost its father nine months ago, and nobody in the house has said much about it since. Dafna works double shifts as a midwife and is barely home. Seventeen-year-old Maya writes songs but keeps postponing her own life because someone has to look after the younger children. Yair, sixteen, has dropped out of school and hands out flyers in a mouse costume underground, mocking everything so he does not have to feel it. Nir Bergman's first feature shows how grief quietly takes a family apart, without staging a single big scene. Nobody is in the right or in the wrong; everyone is doing what they can and it still is not enough. The film was named best picture at Israel's national film awards and carried Bergman onto the festival circuit.