Doubtful (Hebrew: Mutalim Besafek) is a 2017 Israeli social drama film, written and directed by Eliran Elya, produced by Oren Rogovin, starring Ran Danker, as Assi, screenwriter and a poet, sentenced to community service as a juvenile delinquency teacher. The film was screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2017 and won two awards: Best First Film, Best Cinematography to Shai Goldman, and honorary mention for his performance to Adar Hazazi. Doubtful was nominated for nine Ophir Awards, including Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Film. The film produced following the support of the Israeli Film Fund, Yes, and Gesher Multicultural Film Fund.
The film is based on actual events, took place in the director's life, Eliya played by Danker. The juvenile actors have no former experience, it's their debut cinematic appearance.
Following a motorcycle accident, Assi (Ran Danker), screenwriter and poet from Tel Aviv, sentence to community service as a cinema teacher in a development town in southern Israel. His student are a juvenile delinquency. At the beginning, Assi find it difficult to communicate with the boys, but due to his uncompromising efforts, he paved a way to their heart. Assi develop close relationship with Eden (Adar Hazazi Gersch), young man who collect bottles for recycling in order to fulfill a dream. Assi try to help Eden break through the boundaries of his life.
Doubtful proves to be an intelligent, intimate, and potent first feature. We’ve all got scars, and we try to move past them, and connect with others, but no one gets out fully unscathed.
The Full Review >
Kristy Strouse – FILM INQUIRY
Think an Israeli “Stand and Deliver.” It doesn’t blaze many new trails as far as inspiring-teacher narratives go, but based on a real-life incident, the story of a filmmaker sentenced to community service with a group of delinquents packs an emotional punch. This is thanks primarily to performances from Ran Danker as the teacher who’s just as broken and lost as the kids, and Adar Hazazi Gersch, who plays the student with whom he forms an unlikely bond. It’s an exposed open wound of a performance and it’s absolutely gut-wrenching.
The Full Review >
Brent McKnight – THE SEATTLE TIMES
You might think that Israeli Jews have enough problems on their hands with Arabs inside Israel, in Gaza and in the West Bank; that they don’t have the time or the inclination to fight among themselves. This is a doubtful premise. There is probably not a nation in the world whose people live together in a Shangi La location, and that includes North Korea though we in the West have no idea how those folks get along with one another. Now Eliran Elva, who wrote the script and directs “Doubtful,” uses the experience he has had with two shorts involving gunplay and the IDF, to give us his freshman full-length feature. He gives us insight into the lives of people who are not the sort that you see in Israeli posters that show a solidarity of human beings unified by a common religion. Instead his characters, eleven who are non-professional actors, play out a script about dysfunction in a small desert town in Beersheva.
The Full Review >
Harvey Karten – BIG APPLE REVIEWS
Finally, a clip that is relatable to all of us: a fight over film genre that leads to violence.
It’s a small sample from Doubtful, which will screen tonight (Sunday, June 3) at the Seattle International Film Festival. The film follows a screenwriter and poet from Tel Aviv who ends up in circumstances he’s never encountered before
Peter Martin – SCREEN ANARCHY
Dramatically powerful and thematically challenging, this is a remarkably impressive feature début. Director Eliran Elya shows real assurance behind the camera and Arik Leibovitch’s editing makes the events we see feel completely spontaneous. Gersch stands out as he shows us Eden opening up, making us root for him despite his ongoing hostility and unpredictability. Doubtful is intelligent and deliberately uncomfortable, and it presents an uncompromising picture of the consequences of social exclusion.
The Full Review >
Jennie Kermode – EYE FOR FILM
Director-writer Eliran Elya’s feature début is a very dark tale about tale two men struggling to stay afloat in a world which, seemingly, wants to drown them both. It is a powerful vision whose characters play out these scenes every day in various ways around all corners of the planet.
At the centre of it all is when sometime filmmaker, Assi’s brush with the law requires a stint of community service. Accordingly, he “volunteers” to teach a group of equally at-odds-with-society young men and women, hoping to show them not only how to make films but also how to cope with life: “In each of us is a demon…that can fool us.” The rest of the film succinctly proves that telling statement.
The Full Review >
JAMES WEGG REVIEWS
