Israeli Settlement-Set Drama ‘The Good Fence’ Wins Sam Spiegel Film Lab Prize
deadline.comIsraeli director Hillel Rate’s drama The Good Fence, set against the backdrop of a right-wing religious settlement, has won the $50,000 Grand Prize for the 12th edition of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.
The feature revolves around the antagonistic relationship between a right-wing religious settler father and his son, who rejects his religious upbringing and joins an extreme left-wing group.
Rate, who describes himself as a no-longer-practicing Jew raised in a religious home, has taken inspiration from events in his own life, and the tension he experienced with his late father after he chose a different life from that of his parents. “The Good Fence portrays the conflicted relationship between a father and son in the settlements, in the wake of a family tragedy.
It avoids simple answers while looking unblinkingly at the most complex issues of our time,” said Austrian Film Institute CEO Roland Teichmann, who headed the international jury.
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