RECHOKIM

Rechokim is the story of a family torn apart by espionage. In this cinema verité film we follow the El-Akels, a Palestinian family whose father, Ibrahim, has been a collaborator for Israel for the past twenty years. Labeled a traitor by Palestinians, Ibrahim’s three sons Mahmoud (12), Suffian (16), and Muhammad (17), along with their mother, Yusra, pay the heaviest price for their father’s covert actions and carry with them, not by their choice, a scarlet letter. The film follows the El-Akel family in their attempts to cope and assimilate to Israeli society and keep their family together, while suffering the humiliation and fate of outcasts in a country not their own.
Although it inevitably touches on the political situation in the area, the film is also about family, about parents trying to keep theirs together, about the angst of teenage children, about the simple joy of blowing out candles on a birthday cake, about surviving under difficult circumstances and about the relationship between a husband and a wife. (Catherine Nelson-Pollard)