Stars (1999)

The story is about a group of mentally retarded people in a shelter in Israel. It has a personal and intimate approach, reflecting the deep involvement of the movie team with the inmates. The long and intriguing experience started with instinctive rejection (by the team), gradually replaced by sympathy and involvement with the inhabitants, causing the surfacing of a wide variety of intensive feelings: sorrow, pain, jealousy, love and joy. The film accompanies several figures, concentrates on their daily routine, focusing on small details, thus enables them to "grow"to their full volume. Retarded people are unable to build defenses and tend to expose their innermost feeling, thus becoming the mirrors of our innersouls. That perhaps is the main reason for our initial rejection, namely, a fear of identifying ourselves in them. "Now we are all stars in a movie" said one of them "We are going to be seen by the whole world on television" Last filming day. Parting is difficult. The magic is fading away. The "stars" are back to their routine lives and the movie team leaves, changed, fuller than before.