Odessa Odessa...

The Ukrainian city of Odessa on the banks of the Black Sea was always a place with a large Jewish community. The remaining members of the community today mix Russian and Yiddish and remember with emotion the torment associated with the occupation of Odessa by the German army, as well as the following persecution of the Communist regime. With smooth cuts we move to the New York neighborhood of Little Odessa and are introduced to the lives of the immigrants from Odessa in the land of "unlimited possibility". The last stop on our pilgrimage with Odessa's Jews is the city of Ashdod, in Israel. "In Odessa we were Jews, in Israel we are again Russians," confides one of the characters, whose name, as those of the other characters in the film, we never learn. For the purposes of director Michale Boganim these names are not important. The characters are typical representatives of a people that were so often persecuted in the past, who are searching for their promised land. This poetically tuned film, which this year received the prestigious Award from the International Confederation of Art Cinemas at the Berlin Film Festival, is a visually refined and slightly melancholic portrait of the Jewish soul imprisoned in a trap of memories, disappointments, and hopes placed in finding its true home.