Speaker/Performer: Introduction and discussion by Shiri Goren and Dina Roginsky, The Modern Hebrew Program, Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations, Yale University
Description: A smash hit in Israel and winner of the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Tribeca Film Festival, Zero Motivation is a unique, sharply observed, sometimes dark and often hilarious portrait of everyday life for a unit of young, female soldiers in a remote Israeli desert outpost. Playing out like M*A*S*H meets Orange is the New Black, Talya Lavie's brilliant debut details the power struggles of three women with different agendas and very little to do. Pencil-pushers in the Human Resources Office, best friends Zohar (Dana Ivgy) and Daffi (Nelly Tagar) spend their time playing video games, singing pop songs, jousting with stationery and dreaming of Tel Aviv. The indolent twosome are watched over by their aspiring senior officer, Rama (Shani Klein), who dreams of a higher position and a significant military career, but with a platoon of unskilled, idle, female soldiers without any drive under her charge, her ambitions for promotion are constantly thwarted. If there is a war going on, it's one against boredom, bad uniforms, and doing everything in triplicate. Debut filmmaker Talya Lavie is Israel's answer to Lena Dunham.
Directed by Talya Lavie (Israel, 2014)
In Hebrew with subtitles in English
Co-hosted with the JCC of Greater New Haven
Sponsor: The Council on Middle East Studies at the MacMillan Center, The Modern Hebrew Program, and the JCC of Greater New Haven