Foreign Sister (2000)

Fifty-year-old Naomi is a woman who has everything, including a handsome husband and nice kids, but she is collapsing under the ordinariness of her successful life. She loses herself in the circle of housework and children. Just before the breaking point, she agrees to take Nigist, an Ethiopian Christian illegal worker, as a maid. The encounter between the two women channels Naomi's life in a new direction and exposes her to the world of migrant workers living among us. Paradoxically, parallels emerge between the problems of the two women, though their hardships have entirely different origins. This makes possible a temporary friendship between two women who represent two entirely different worlds. The events take place against the background of Israeli society, in which some 300,000 foreign workers live. Since the beginning of the 1980s, some 80,000 Ethiopian Jews have arrived in Israel. This unique wave of immigration attracted great public attention. Few are aware, however that among the workers who arrived to Israel from various African countries, there is also a community of several thousand Ethiopian Christians. The film Foreign Sister tells the story of this small and little known group.