Israeli 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.
Read more on deadline.com