Episode 110: Nadav Lapid on Ahed’s Knee

Welcome to The Last Thing I Saw. I’m your host, Nicolas Rapold. The filmmaker Nadav Lapid has made one tense, kinetic, indelibly original drama after another: Policeman, The Kindergarten Teacher, Synonyms, and now Ahed’s Knee. Ahed’s Knee premiered at the Cannes film festival last year where it shared the Jury Prize with Memoria, and it opened in New York on March 18. The film follows an Israeli director who is presenting one of his movies in a small town, thanks to an invitation by a young, eager library official. But when he arrives, she asks him to sign a government form saying exactly what topics he can and cannot talk about. The director—who’s named only with the letter Y—lashes out at his host. But the small community doesn’t have exactly the reaction he might expect. The film’s title refers to a well-known incident when a Palestinain teenager named Ahed Tamimi slapped an Israeli soldier, and a conservative politician responded by saying that she should be shot in the knee. I spoke with Lapid about the film’s ferocious vision and how it explores the idea of speaking out, among other things.

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Music: “Tomorrow’s Forecast” by The Minarets, courtesy of The Minarets

Photo by Steve Snodgrass