GEVALD (2008) — Short*
“Gevald was born out of a sense of urgency. As the queer community in Jerusalem faced real and immediate threats, this film emerged as an act of protest and solidarity. It was created collectively, by members of the local queer community on both sides of the camera, many of them non-actors, telling a story based on real lives.
This is the first queer, community-based film ever made in Israel-Palestine. It insists on visibility, complexity, and the right to exist—within a city that constantly seeks to erase queer presence.”
Logline
A queer musical set in Jerusalem’s only queer bar on the eve of a threatened Pride parade—desire, faith, fear, and resistance collide overnight.
Synopsis
Yesterday, the Jerusalem Pride Parade was cancelled due to violent religious opposition. Tomorrow, a small pride event is scheduled to take place despite grave danger. Tonight, a young religious woman is about to cross the lines.
Gevald unfolds on the night before the 2006 Jerusalem Pride event, inside “Shushan,” the city’s only queer bar (since closed). It tells an almost impossible love story between two women who were once a couple, until one of them—unable to reconcile her religious life with her desire—left to marry a man. When she suddenly returns to warn her former lover of imminent danger surrounding the Pride event, the night becomes a space of reckoning, risk, and choice.
Blending fiction, documentary footage, and musical performance, the film portrays a Jewish-Palestinian queer community struggling for the basic right to exist in a city where its presence is fiercely contested. Reality, music, drag, and protest converge to expose both the fragility and the power of a community fighting for love rather than hate.
Major Awards
First Prize, TLVFest – Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival (2008)
First Prize, Goethe-Institut Competition for Films Dealing with Human Rights (2008)
Berlinale 2009, Panorama — Official Selection
Additional Highlights (selected)
Palm Springs International ShortFest, USA (2009)
IRIS Prize, Wales — Shortlist Nomination (2009)
NewFest, New York LGBT Film Festival, USA (2009)
Image+Nation, Montreal, Canada (2009)
Cheries-Cheris, Paris LGBT Film Festival — First Prize (2011)
Cineffable – International Feminist Film Festival, Paris (2012)
The film screened at dozens of international LGBT, human-rights, Jewish, feminist, and short-film festivals worldwide between 2008–2012.
Cast & Crew
Writer / Director / Producer: Netalie Braun
Cast: Adili Liberman, Samira Saraya, Noga Meltzer, Gil Naveh, Elisha Alexander
Cinematography: Avigail Sperber
Editor: Tali Hayat
Sound Design: Carmel Tzameret
Press / Notes
Financial Support
Gevald was created as a spontaneous, no-budget initiative by members of Jerusalem’s queer community—both from within the film industry and outside of it—who volunteered their time and labor in response to an urgent political and social threat.