| Summary: | Soros Documentary Fund
The documentary follows four women of various backgrounds residing in the town of Ramleh, Israel. The film seeks to explore how fundamentalism and cultural displacement have impacted their lives and political views. Profiled in this film are Sima and Orly, two ultra-orthodox Jewish women who rediscover religion and enthusiastically support the conservative "Shas" party, the third largest political party in Israel; Svetlana, a single-mother and recent Jewish immigrant from Uzbekistan struggling to establish herself in her new country; and Gehad, a young Palestinian Muslim teacher and law student, born to refugees, attempting to find a sense of national identity in a predominately Jewish state. Filmed between the general elections in 1999 and 2001, Ramleh demonstrates the profound cultural and political divisions barring these women from living together as a united community, as well as reveals how their political landscape helped sow the seeds of the Intifada in 2000. The film also raises the question whether each woman and the communities they represent will ever peacefully reconcile their search for tradition, religion and homeland.
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