alr

Policeman
(Ha-shoter)

Director in Person
$12 Special Event Tickets
Directed by Nadav Lapid.
With Yiftach Klein, Yaara Pelzig, Michael Moshonov.
Israel, 2011, DCP, color, 105 min.
Hebrew with English subtitles.

In his feature debut, Lapid presents the internal workings of two different urban Tel Aviv tribes whose respective insularity and narcissism prevents one from understanding or even crossing paths with the other—a fact that Lapid reflects in the narrative’s split structure. On one end is a band of athletic, macho buddies within Israel’s antiterrorism police unit. Their very masculine, physical and nationalistic drive seems at odds with the leftist activists’ romantic, philosophic, anarchic mission. However, both are on similarly confused searches for meaning and purpose while masking deeper conflicts beneath a confident, gun-wielding, communal egotism. The police unit’s tight, brotherly bonds must be secured by the sacrifice of one of its members, while the glue holding together the radicals consists of a love triangle and a bond between father and son. Lapid’s steady, precise gaze lingers on indirectly telling moments, as if the harder truths always approach as asides. Neither his audience nor his characters may be prepared to see the Other when looking in the mirror.

Policeman (Ha-shoter) with introduction and post-screening discussion with filmmaker Nadav Lapid and David Pendleton.

Part of film series

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Occupation of the Interior.
The Films of Nadav Lapid

Current and upcoming film series

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The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig

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Rosine Mbakam, 2025 McMillan-Stewart Fellow