Does anyone have a phone card?
‘I wanted to give this group a face’, says Ami Goldman, whose documentary film 'Long Distance' follows foreign workers in Israel
Thirty-four-year-old Ami Goldman studied film in New York for eight years and returned to Israel four years ago. During his first six months in Israel he worked at a telephone network system near the central bus station in Tel Aviv that provides foreign workers with a calling service to contact their families overseas.
“I felt connected to them because I had just returned to Israel, and when I was in New York I felt like a foreigner - exactly how they feel here. By watching them and hearing their conversations the idea of filming them arose because I understood that this was a very significant issue,” he said.
Goldman discusses the process in which he understood that the phenomenon of foreign workers living in Israel and especially in Tel Aviv is spreading despite attempts made by the country to deport them or imprison them.
“This is already our reality,” he said, “and it was important for me to give this group of people a face and to tell their personal stories. It was important for me not to look through the lens and tell a story of oppression or despair but rather solely to humanize them.”
Part of the film depicts a man from the Philippines who has been in Israel for nine years. In a conversation with his wife he discusses his mother’s death and memorial service.
However, he doesn’t say the term “memorial service” in Filipino but rather in Hebrew, a language his wife obviously does not understand. This scene is indicative of a certain growing cultural gap between the foreign workers and their families back home.
The film "Long Distance" is still in the making and is being funded by Channel 8 and the Makor Foundation for Israeli Films.
