Location: el- Daliat Carmel Israel
Portrait of an Award-winning Druze Director and Screenwriter
Adi Adwan has made history. Not only has he coined a word Arabani, the conflation of Arabic and Hebrew and the title of his new feature film for which he won a best screenwriting/ script award at the prestigious Jerusalem International Film Festival, but most importantly for being the first Druze filmmaker of the first Druze feature length film in Israel. Hailing from the largest Druze Village (pop. 15,000) Daliat el-Carmel in Israel, Adwan is the film’s director and screen writer. Trained in media production, he has written and directed a number of plays, TV shows, and movies. But it was always his dream to make a film about the Druze, a religious group which is mysterious to many, and he has succeeded in doing just that. Arabani was filmed in the smallest Druze village in the Galilee population 800 with the fictional name of Sumaka. As Adwan says, in Israel there are films about 1) the conflict 2) being gay 3) about and 3) the religious. Now there is a film about the Druze from a Druze point of view.
Adwan wanted to make a film that would be universal but most importantly he wanted to tell the world through the vehicle of a family drama with a coming of age subplot something about the Druze people and the culture of which he is a part. Adwan wants Israel and the world to know more about Druze from a Druze point of view. Clichés for Israelis about the Druze exist: they make great pita, weave beautiful cloth, and believe in reincarnation. Ironically, he believes that the secrecy of the Druze will make knowing these people and their ways completely impossible even to him. Beginning as Shia Muslims, the Druze separated from this group adding elements of to their beliefs. Today there are also Druze in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine, and Jordan Often, when asked, Israeli and Palestinian academics describe the Druze from the Golan Heights as different from the Druze in the Carmel and elsewhere in green line Israel. The Druze of the Golan Heights became part of Israel geographically after Israel annexed this land in the ‘67 war. Most Druze of the Golan do not enter the Israeli army nor do many embrace Israeli citizenship. The Druze of the Carmel, of which Mr. Adwan is one, do join the Israeli army and are Israeli citizens. They are Israeli Druze and not to be confused with Palestinian-Israelis. They are simply Druze. Adi Adwan believes that there is no difference between the Druze of Israel. Syria, the Golan Heights, Syria, or Lebanon. He sees outward differences i.e. in clothing but not inward or religious ones. Although he says some Druze of the Golan Heights look down on The Druze of the Carmel or regard themselves as the metaphoric Ashkenazim of the Druze they are in fact less conservative than the Druze of the Carmel .
Adwan made his remarkable film, Arabani, on a very low budget with some professional and non-professional actors. Therefore, he had no time or budget for rehearsal. Some of the adults are stage and film actors; one is a TV show host, and most significant role (to me)-the mother- is not a professional. The Jewish children were acting in a film for the first time. He even used a family member. The little girl at the beginning of the film is Adwan’s daughter. People from the village were the extras.
Intrigued by the title of the film Spanglish and Yiddish a combination of Russian, German, Polish, and Hebrew; Adwan wanted to create/ coin a title of his own. Arabani is his slang for Arabic and Hebrew, a language spoken daily by Druze community in the Carmel. He hopes the term will catch on but still wants Arabic to be the number one language.
Adwan became interested in filmmaking at the age of thirteen when he saw the film Cinema Paradiso. The director, Giuseppe Tornatore, and film have deeply influenced him. From a small and conservative family, Adwan was headed to a profession like the law. However, after his military service, he studied and worked in banking, but in 2004 he decided to pursue what he had always dreamed of doing. He studied filmmaking, completing his first film in 2009, a documentary for Aljazeera about a Palestinian poet, Fawda Tucan, from Nablus. After this he worked on two series for Palestinian TV and began writing Arabani in 2009.
Official description:
Arabani is a slang word that combines Hebrew and Arabic. Yoseph is a Druze who returns to his native village after having been estranged from it for 17 years. He arrives with his son and daughter, whose Jewish mother he has just divorced. Yoseph plans to settle down in this small Druze village. That decision leads to friction within the closed, conservative Druze community and also with his mother Afifa, who accepts him and his children as part of her family. The friction stems from the fact that to be a real Druze, both parents must be Druze. Despite the problems and difficulties, Semadar, Yoseph's daughter, unexpectedly finds love. Written by South Film Fesival