Anna and the Egyptian Doctor

Synopsis

The extraordinary story of Mohamed Helmy, an Arab Egyptian doctor, who, posing as Nazi supporter, rescued a Jewish girl disguised as a Muslim, in Nazi Berlin. He’s the first and only Arab ever recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, but his family refused to accept the award because of political reasons and fear.

The survivor’s daughter embarks on a journey and meets Helmy’s nephew who agrees to risk himself and accept the award.

A unique piece of docu-Activism with breathtaking animation, Anna and the Egyptian Doctor is a story that transcends the boundaries of time, religion and politics.

Artistic Statement

I am a multi-disciplinary artist, specializing in documentary cinema. Most of my work deals with the borderlines of identity and of belonging. I see my personal experience as the primary basis of all that I create. To me every medium contains possibilities of documentation – photography, video, text etc. Therefore, everything I go through in life may be used as rushes for my next film. The inner world is equivalent to the outer world and therefore merits documentation no less.

My unquenched thirst for documenting people mirrors my ongoing quest to define my scope of existence. Who am I in relation to my family and lineage, to the religion I was born into and my obvious secularity? In “Over My Dad’s Body”, my father’s inner world, forever mixed with the imaginary and the real is a parable to artistic creation and to the way in which I perceive the world through my camera or paintbrush. Spending entire days with my ultra-orthodox grandparents, who came from a place I never knew and suffered in a way I hope I will never experience, helped me redefine myself. As does the “Rabbanit” Kook, a staunch believer in a prophecy the world refuses to hear, such an extrovert enthusiast that I felt compelled to document her for two entire years as you can see in “Tikkun”.

It seems that art is often like a prophecy for the deaf and the artist a mad genius who has to march on with G-d as his only confidante. All my subjects are unique in a way, but in their different inner worlds I can often see myself. And that lead me on to finally document my own search for that thing called love. “Taliya.Date.com” was a way for me to simultaneously track down the man of my life and a way to expose my most inner insecurities. I went on forty-five dates on a row. Some mad, some bad, some boring and some wildly amusing. At the end of this search, I did find it. That thing called love.

Festivals, Screenings, & Awards

Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival (2022)