The Political Awakening Of a Palestinian Rapper
When the hip- hop- f l avored “Junction 48” won top prizes at the Tribeca and Berlin film festivals last year, its Israeli director, Udi Aloni, wondered whether he’d forgotten about the folks back home. “But then I saw the reactions of young Palestinians here and women who said how empowering it was,” he said. “I think maybe this has become the movie of the new resistance.”
Resistance, however, can go both ways. “Junction 48,” which stars the Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar, offers an Arab’s- eye view of contemporary life in Israel, and it found itself in a public commotion last September: At the Ophir Awards, the Israeli equivalent of the Oscars, the right-wing culture minister, Miri Regev, stormed out during Mr. Nafar’s reading of the Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwish’s famous work, “Identity Card.”
For Mr. Aloni, a filmmaker and luminary on Israel’s far left ( his mother was the politician and civil-rights champion Shulamit Aloni), “Junction 48” is simply a film made by “a gang of Jews and Palestinians” — the crew was split 50-50.
“Usually, the Arab is the object and the Jew is the subject,” he said. “In this, I wanted the Arabs to be the subject — which is why the worst person in the film is also an Arab. The Jews are portrayed almost the way a kid in the ghetto sees the Jews” — without a lot of nuance.
Inspired by Mr. Nafar’s life and written with the Israeli- born screenwriter Oren Moverman (“The Messenger”), “Junction 48” tells of an emerging rap artist, Kareem, who has issues with his family and confrontations with rival Jewish rappers, and experiences a political awakening.
The demolition of a friend’s home to build a “Museum of Co- existence” is a pivotal event. ( The film’s title refers to 1948, when Israel gained its independence and thousands of Palestinians were ousted from Lyd — Lod in Hebrew — the town where the film is set.) The film also has, Mr. Aloni emphasized, a feminist bent: Kareem’s girlfriend, Manar (Samar Qupty), is under pressure from family members, who consider her stage performances to be shameful.
Released in Israel last May, “Junction 48” received mixed reviews there. “Well, it’s watchable,” said the Israeli critic Yair Raveh, of the Israeli website CinemaScope. “And, with about 50,000 admissions, it did O.K. business here. The best thing in it is the presence of Tamer Nafar.”
Mr. Nafar was in Mr. Aloni’s first
Arab hip-hop, as seen by an Israeli filmmaker.
film, “Local Angel.” Mr. Moverman and Mr. Aloni have also long known each other. “Junction 48” came together after Mr. Moverman heard Mr. Nafar’s music and asked him for a memoir he could work from. Mr. Nafar said, “He asked for 20 pages, and after two days, I gave him 150.”
He and his group DAM were founders of Palestinian hip- hop, which is heavily influenced by Americans but with Middle Eastern flourishes. While he is a celebrity in Israel among both Jews and Arabs, he was enthusiastic about such a group telling his story.
Laughing, he said, “A lot of it ended up more interesting than reality.”