Price : NIS15

Melting Away

89 Minutes, 2011
Genre:
Feature

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Directed by: Doron Eran
Production:Billy Ben-Moshe, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery
Photographer: Daniel Kedem
Language: Hebrew
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Subtitles: Hebrew

Director Doron Eran’s feature film came in response to the (still unsolved) 2009 fatal mass shooting that took place in a Tel Aviv LGBTQ youth centre. At the heart of the film is one family’s tumultuous journey with their male-to-female transgender daughter. Galia, the mother, retains the services of a private investigator to help her find her runaway son, Assaf, so that he could say goodbye to his terminally ill father.
As Galia recounts the story of Assaf’s disappearance to the private investigator, snapshots of the past come to the fore that shed more light on the circumstances behind Assaf’s departure: the parents confronting their son and failing to relate or even listen to him, the stash of women’s clothing they find hidden in his room, and their ultimate decision to kick him out in the hopes of “setting him straight” – after which he is never seen again.
The detective’s investigation leads him to a club where the act that night is a performer named Anna. Midway through the show, the penny drops and the P.I. realises that Anna and Assaf are one and the same. He later approaches Anna (who has evidently undergone gender reassignment surgery) and tells her about her father’s condition. She initially refuses to forgive her parents but later, decides to show up at the hospital and pose as a nurse. She is able to reconnect with the her and look after him, however, the situation remains every bit as tenuous – and when the rest of the family find out that Anna is, in fact, Assaf, it all comes to a head. Only later on, following a violent incident that pushes everyone to the precipice, is the family able to start rising from the ashes, find their way back to each other, and embark on a journey of forgiveness, healing, and acceptance together.
The film was shown at countless festivals around the world and has won multiple awards.

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