AKA Nadia

Tova Ascher : 2015

Maya Goldwasser is happily married to Yoav, a senior official at the Ministry of Justice. She is a successful choreographer and they have two lovely children. But one evening Maya spots a figure from her past and her world starts to unravel. She is scared and panicked but doesn't dare say a word to anyone, terrified that her past has caught up with her. She once was Nadia Kabir, a 17-year-old Arab girl just graduated from the Jewish-Arab girls' school in Jerusalem. She was having a secret affair with Nimer, an activist in a Palestinian Liberation Movement. When Nimer is sent to London on assignment, they secretly marry. In London, Nadia realises the meaning of the step she has taken, severing her ties with her family and beloved mother, as she embraces a life of exile and escape. When the authorities catch Nimer, Nadia is left on her own. She knows there is no option of returning to Israel: she's a terrorist to the authorities and a disgrace to her family. But she meets a man who is able to create a new life and a new identity for her as Maya. Now, more than 20 years since she abandoned her previous identity, her past rears its head again. Can a person reinvent herself without dealing with consequences from her past? The connection between the two lives, Maya and Nadia, forms the core of the film. It raises questions of identity: about when the private becomes political and the political becomes private, without the means to separate the two; about the ability of society to accept the Other and forgive their Otherness. It's a story about innocent individuals who pay a terrible price, the victims of a society that has gone awry, and how life seems to repeat itself and not learn from past mistakes. Tova Ascher's directorial debut was winner of the Israel Critics' Forum Award for Best Feature Film when it premiered in competition at Jerusalem Film Festival 2015.