Disappearances

Directed by Anat Even

Past inhabitants of Manshiye neighborhood arrive with their families for a picnic on the lawns that cover the ruins of houses they inhabited as children. They roam, breathing in the familiar sea air of the Jaffa City line, and try to locate the exact spot of the home from which they were either forced to flee or evicted by the authorities. The park serves as their witness stand, a stage on which the materials of memory are projected. With their children and grandchildren, in Arabic and in Hebrew, they share the little stories of their interrupted daily life. Their voices are a living testimony to the human fabric of the neighborhood. Layer by layer the neighborhood is exposed on the beach between Tel Aviv and Jaffa. “Disappearances” addresses a place that has disappeared, but its existence still alive and etched in the memories of its refugies.