It wasn’t mentioned in yesterday’s press release and unless I missed the pick-up in the headlines, Here Films was busier than what has been reported while at Cannes. Variety mentions that the re-minted distributor has an additional title for their future slate – and it happens to be the perfect melange of a film for the distributor since it has played in a prestigious film fest and carries a narrative that details homosexuality relationship, which happens to occur in the Jewish Orthodox community. Haim Tabakman’s Eyes Wide Open was an Israeli film that was featured in The Un Certain Regard section. Here Films should roll-out the film in 2010.
This centers around Aaron (38), a respectable butcher in Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox community, is married to Rivka (28) and a dedicated father to four children.
After his father’s death, Aaron is looking for assistance in his business when a handsome and homeless Yeshiva (religious school) student, Ezri (19), comes upon the butcher shop by chance. Aaron decides to be Ezri’s patron: he hires him, teaches him the craft of slaughtering, and houses Ezri in the shop’s back room. Aaron invites Ezri to meals in his home and introduces him to the community. When they go together to a remote “Mikve” (a sacred ritual bath), an intimate moment occurs between them.
From this moment onwards, Aaron knows no peace. Spending more and more time with Ezri, Aaron starts neglecting his family and community life until he is completely swept away in a whirlpool of love and lust for Ezri.
While Rivka suspects that something is wrong with Aaron, Rabbi Vaisben, (56) a family friend and the head of the community, tries to warn Aaron of the future to come if he won’t expel Ezri. But Aaron refuses.
Unwilling to tolerate Ezri’s presence, the “Modesty Guards”, a radical authority in the Ultra-Orthodox community, threaten Aaron. Under enormous pressure that Rivka and the community operate on him, Aaron comes to a decision to commit an irreversible act….
