Death of a Poetess

On a fateful evening in Tel Aviv, the lives of two women - and their powerful stories - intersect. Lenny, a 50-year-old Israeli filled with regret, has just completed a manuscript titled Death of a Poetess. This achievement seems to have given her some relief, but also carries with it a certain finality. Yasmin, a 30-something Palestinian, works as a nurse, and regularly leaves her husband and young daughter to come to a gay-friendly bar on the beach. When they meet, they strike up an intense and wide-ranging conversation - about poetry, about motherhood, about their lives. While in many ways very different people, the two have more in common than one might think, and the evening grants them a moment of unexpected intimacy. When that moment has passed and the women have gone their separate ways, Yasmin finds herself at a police station being interrogated by an officer who seems determined to make her confess to a crime she didn't commit. Shot in black and white, this chamber drama offers a poignant evocation of the ways in which human beings connect with and diverge from one another, never fully knowing what the impact might be. (Seattle International Film Festival)