30th Seattle Jewish Film Festival: The City (העיר הזו)

8:30 PM | SIFF CINEMA UPTOWN

Presented by the Seattle Jewish Film Festival (a program of Stroum Jewish Community Center).

The City is a wildly inventive, a genre-bending homage to heart-pounding crime fiction and Israeli rap that cleverly creates and critiques Israeli society.

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Prepare to be swept off your feet seeing this dazzling Israeli rap-opera, which has taken Israel by storm and smashed box office records. Destined to be a cult classic, The City is a testament to the vitality and creativity of Israeli independent cinema. Based on a play, this hybrid hip-hop, film-noir opera detective story was created by the Victor Jackson Show ensemble, under the auspices of Jerusalem’s fringe-theater collective, The Incubator Theater. The film gathers some of the most talented figures of the new musical scene in Israel, many appearing for the first time on screen. This unique project is a fascinating blend of American genre cinema brilliantly adapted to a local Israeli context.

The city in which the story is set is a combination of present-day Tel Aviv and an American metropolis from 1940s gangster movies. Joe, a private detective, is hired by a beautiful and mysterious cabaret singer, Sarah, to find her missing sister. Despite his suspicions that Sarah might be harboring secrets of her own, Joe decides to take the case—a decision that could cost him his life.

Sponsors: Diane Aboulafia + Peter Shapiro, Christopher Conrad