Casablan

74 Minutes, 1964
Genre:
Feature

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Directed by: Larry Frisch
Language: English
| Subtitles not available

About 10 years before Menahem Golan produced the most famous big screen adaptation of Yigal Mossinson’s acclaimed play, Casablan (aka ‘Kazablan’) starring Yehoram Gaon, director Larry Frisch helmed the play’s first and earliest film adaptation – set in Greece and English-speaking. Frisch’s otherwise forgettable film is a far darker twist on the premise of Casablan – a young Jewish Moroccan immigrant in Israel who fought in the 1948 War of Independence only to then become a victim of the nascent country’s ‘melting pot’ ideology and institutionalised Ashkenazi racism towards Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews, is accused of a murder he did not commit.
During the war Casablan saved his commanding officer, Josh’s life, and at the end was even declared a war hero. But after all fighting had stopped, not one of his Ashkenazi fellow soldiers in the unit ever invited him to their homes – and it seemed as though everyone had all but written him off. His former commander, Josh, who has since started a career in law, tries to help Casablan and tells him that with the war now over, he must find a new ideal to fight for. Casablan meanwhile, has fallen in love with Ashkenazi Rachel, but between the tremendous cultural divides and a neighbourhood steeped in racism, their relationship is met with hurdles every step of the way.

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