The first Israeli film to compete in the official competition at the Berlin Film Festival in seven years has won the festival's top award, the Golden Bear for best film.
"Synonyms," by Nadav Lapid – an Israeli-French-German production – is about Yoav (Tom Mercier), an Israeli man who moves to Paris to try and shed his Israeli identity.
Yoav, who is bitter about Israel, completes his IDF service and, convinced that Israel is on the brink of destruction, leaves the country for Europe, where he tries to pass as French. But the protagonist discovers that French society does not welcome him with open arms.
Yoav refuses to speak Hebrew and is accompanied by an ever-present French dictionary as he tries to put down roots and create a new identity for himself. He is shown muttering French synonyms in an attempt to displace his native Hebrew with French as he bonds with a young, wealthy Parisian couple, played by Quentin Dolmaire and Louise Chevillotte.
Like his protagonist, Lapid left Israel for Paris at a young age, and he compared his journey to Yoav's.
"In his head, he leaves the worst country ever to arrive in the best country ever," he told a news conference.
"And at a certain moment he is facing a more complex reality. But I am always a little bit like Yoav. … I'm trying to open this closed door. I'm always charmed by something that exists in France."
Lapid said as he accepted the award that some in Israel might be "scandalized" by the movie "but for me, the film is also a big celebration – a celebration, I hope, also of cinema."
"I hope that people will understand that fury and rage and hostility and hate … are only the twin brothers and sisters of strong attachment and powerful emotions," he said.
Lapid dedicated the film to his mother Era Lapid, who edited his films until her death.
"We edited this movie between editing room and hospitals," he told Reuters. "It was a kind of competition between death and completing the movie. And death won."
