2015

"Women in Sink"

Director: Iris Zaki

Since its premiere in 2015, Women in Sink—produced with the support of Haifa Arts Foundation and Other Israel—was shown in over 100 festivals around the world, sold to TV Channels, and won thirteen international prizes, including Best Short Documentary, HIFF 2015.

In her acceptance speech in Karlovy Vary, Zaki said, "the only way to defeat racism and fear is to live side by side. My film expresses hope for coexistence of Arabs and Jews. I dedicate this movie to people who believe in coexistence and to women."

Iris Zaki with the Vision Award certificate at Nyon Festival in Switzerland.

Founded in the late 60s, Visions du Reel Festival, considered one of the most important festivals for documentary film, is attracting representatives of the documentary movie industry from around the world.

Women in Sink

Director Iris Zaki came to work at Fifi's—an Arab-Christian women's hair salon in Wadi Nisnas in Haifa —as a shampooer, and to make a film that will serve as her means of being acquainted with the city's Arab women. To her surprise, the little hair salon turned out to be a local Institute which is a meeting place for Arab and Jewish women, who keep politics outside the salon and go there to laugh, eat and take care of their hair.

For one month, while washing hair and recording her conversations with the women  using a photography kit she installed above the shampooing sink, Iris got to know many Arab and Jewish women, all regular clients that come to the place for many years, and was exposed to a composite image of the place's reality.

 

ynet.co.il

The film is a collection of portraits of women in the shampooing sink, which together constitute an unusual and fascinating mosaic, while revealing in a light and open manner their opinions on politics, Israeli history and love.

Short Version, on New York Times' site: https://nyti.ms/25dAbxc

Festivals in which the film participated:

IDFA – ‘Best of Fests’,  Netherlands; AFI DOCS, USA; Hamptons International Film Festival; RIDM, Canada; ZagrebDox, Croatia; Viennale, Austria; London Shorts, UK; DokumentArt, Germany; Films de Femmes, France; Docudays UA, Ukraine; ÉCU- European Independent Film Festival, France; Stockholm Feminist Film Festival, Sweden; Watch Docs, Poland; Winter Awards Film Festival, USA; Gottingen Ethnographic Film Festival, Germany; EthnoFILm, Croatia; Filmmor Women Film Festival, Turkey; Middle East Now, Italy; Sola Luna, Italy; Annapolis International Film Festivals, USA; WOW – Women Film Festival, UK; Films de Homem, Portugal, 2016 Barcelona international women's FF, Spain, 2016 Society for Visual Anthropology (SVA) Film & Media Festival, USA 2016 NAFA Film Festival, Aegean Docs, Greece, 2016, Budapest International Documentary FF, Hungary, 2016 Women of Pamplona, Spain, 2016; San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, USA; Other Israel Film Festival, USA; UK Jewish Film Festival, UK; Cleveland Jewish Film Festival, USA; Tucson Jewish Film Festival, USA; San Diego Jewish Film Festival, USA; SERET – Israeli Film Festival, UK; Women’s Freedom Center, USA; Washington Jewish Film Festival, USA; Stockholm Israeli Film Festival, Sweden; Copenhagen Jewish Film Festival, Denmark; Toronto Jewish Film Festival, Canada; Jewish Motifs, Poland; Lisbon Jewish Film Festival, Portugal; Cherry Hill Jewish Film Festival, USA; New Jersey Jewish Film Festival, USA; Gainesville Jewish Film Festival, USA; Westchester Jewish Film Festival, USA; Central Queens YM & YWHA; CRONOGRAF Jewish Motifs FF, Poland; Cherry Hill JFF, USA; FilmIsreal, Netherlands,; Berlin Jewish Film Festival, Germany; Woman Festival Holon, Israel... And MANY MORE!

Articles and Media:

www.facebook.com/Women.in.Sink

http://www.visionsdureel.ch/en/festival/programme/film/f/women-in-sink/

Mako:

http://www.mako.co.il/culture-tv/local/Article-b2ed321c546a151006.htm

Haaretz:

http://www.haaretz.co.il/gallery/cinema/1.2650423

http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/2.3006/.premium-1.686373