Campfire (film)

Campfire was Cedar's second feature film, following A Time of Favor (2000).[2] Like its predecessor, it focused on religious-Zionist society, although it shifted from the thriller genre to comedy-drama.[6]

Cedar grew up in a religious-Zionist family in New York and moved with his family to Jerusalem at age six. Many of his parents' friends belonged to the settlement movement.[7] In a 2005 interview, he described the film as personal and nearly biographical, rooted in his experience in 1981 when he lived in Bayit VeGan, a Jerusalem neighborhood from which a group was organizing to establish a settlement.[3][8] The settlement depicted in the film was inspired by Psagot.[8] Cedar said the film's broader subject was belonging and the personal needs people may sacrifice in order to be accepted by a community.[3]

The film was nominated for 13 Ophir Awards and was scheduled to open in Israeli cinemas on September 2, 2004.[9] A special-edition DVD was subsequently issued by Globus United in Netanya, and the film was also published as a screenplay by Yedioth Ahronoth.[1][3] By 2005, the film had been purchased for U.S. distribution and was expected to screen in approximately nine additional countries.[3]

The story is set in 1981, as a new settlement is being established in Samaria and on the eve of the evacuation of Yamit.[2][3] Rachel Gerlik, widowed roughly a year before the story begins, tries to join a founding group for a new Orthodox settlement in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria.[7][3] The settlement's leader, Motke, played by Assi Dayan, is skeptical that a single-parent family will fit into the close-knit community.[10][7] His wife urges Rachel to find a new husband and proposes two potential matches, while Rachel's emotional guardedness complicates her relationship with her daughters.[7][3]

The daughters resist the move for different reasons. Esti has a boyfriend and an established social life in Jerusalem, while Tami is unmoved by the settlers' religious and social posturing.[6] They also seek connections with young men associated with the settlement group, and the film traces the tension between individual desire and communal expectation.[7] A darker thread runs through the narrative: Tami is sexually assaulted on Lag BaOmer, and people who witnessed or knew about the incident remain silent.[8] My Jewish Learning contrasts this silence with scenes in which young men weep while watching a film about the Entebbe raid and mourning Yonatan Netanyahu, interpreting the contrast as exposing the limits of their compassion.[6]

Rachel and her daughters ultimately decide not to join the settlement.[3] Cedar rejected reading this choice as a political statement against settlements or the Jewish right to the land. He described it instead as arising from social dynamics and personal integrity: Rachel refuses what he characterized as a demand to betray her daughter, while continuing to believe that it is important to live beyond the Green Line.[3]

Michaela Eshet plays Rachel, the widowed mother at the center of the story. Her daughters are portrayed by Maya Maron as Esti and Hani Furstenberg as Tami.[10] Assi Dayan, a left-leaning actor who portrayed right-wing activists in both Campfire and Cedar's A Time of Favor, plays Motke, the settlement's leader.[11] Moshe Ivgy received an Ophir acting nomination for his role in the film.[9]

Campfire led the 2004 Ophir Award nominations with 13 nods, including Best Feature Film, Best Director, Best Screenplay, and acting nominations for Moshe Ivgy, Michaela Eshet, Assi Dayan, and Hani Furstenberg.[9] It ultimately won five Ophir Awards: Best Film, Best Director and Best Screenplay for Cedar, Best Supporting Actress for Hani Furstenberg, and Best Editing for Einat Glaser-Zarhin.[4] Globes characterized Campfire as the ceremony's biggest winner that year.[4]

At the international level, the film received a Special Mention at the 2004 Berlin International Film Festival.[5] Its Best Picture award followed the 2000 win by A Time of Favor, giving Cedar Best Picture honors for his first two films.[12] A 2024 Jerusalem Post retrospective included Campfire among ten films that changed Israeli cinema and emphasized its unusually prominent portrayal of Israel's national-religious community.[10]

A contemporary Ynet review praised the film as enjoyable, well made, and carefully executed, highlighting Hani Furstenberg's performance, Einat Glaser-Zarhin's precise editing, and Ofer Shelachin's music.[2] The reviewer nonetheless argued that, although Campfire purports to criticize religious-Zionist society, it ultimately softens its critique: the traumatic storyline is resolved too easily and the ending, in the reviewer's view, leaves the film in a conservative position.[2]

An Israeli cinema syllabus places Campfire in a discussion of settlers and the nationalist Israeli right under the heading of "insiders' cinematic perspectives," grouping it with films that portray these communities from within.[13] My Jewish Learning characterizes the film as a close portrayal of settlers' inner lives, including their ideals, passions, hatreds, motivations, and the harm they can cause one another.[6]

Cedar said his goal was "to take a dramatic situation to its extreme and crystallize an understanding of the human condition."[14] He denied having a political agenda, and the Jerusalem Post reported that critics read the film as addressing sexism and inequality within the community rather than offering a verdict on West Bank settlement itself.[14] Some viewers, however, considered the film too critical of West Bank settlers, a reaction Cedar recounted hearing from a well-known general whose colleagues had divided sharply over the film.[5]

Campfire brought the rarely depicted national-religious experience to a prominent Israeli feature film. A 2024 retrospective noted that few films before or since had centered that community, while accounts of Cedar's early career describe Campfire and A Time of Favor as sustained examinations of a segment of Israeli society that had been underrepresented on screen.[10][6] The film's Ophir success and recognition at Berlin also gave it prominence both within Israel and internationally.[4][5]

The film examines religious-Zionist society from within, through characters who share its values even as they chafe against its social codes. An academic syllabus places it among cinematic "insiders' perspectives" on settlers and the nationalist Israeli right.[13] Cedar, meanwhile, has consistently described the story as fundamentally concerned with belonging and community rather than as a political argument about land.[3]