Red Cow (film)

Benny, whose full name is Benyamina, is seventeen years old and an only child whose mother died in childbirth.[1] She lives with her father, Yehoshua, played by Gal Toren, in the film's Jewish settlement community in Silwan, East Jerusalem.[2] The Dome of the Rock is visible from the setting, where Jewish prayer mingles with the call of the muezzin.[3] At the story's opening, Benny's grandmother, who had helped raise her, has also recently died.[1]

Yehoshua is a deeply religious nationalist who longs for the Temple Mount and dreams of building the Third Temple. When a red calf is born, he interprets it as a providential sign that his vision may be realized.[2] The plot invokes Numbers 19:2, which prescribes using such a cow's ashes in a purification ceremony — a ritual that some extremists believe would enable Third Temple construction to begin.[4] Yehoshua names the calf Baraket and assigns Benny responsibility for caring for it; the calf must be observed for two years to ensure that no white or black hair grows among its red hairs.[5] One Ynet review draws a visual parallel between the calf's red coat and Benny's red hair, and describes the film as drawing a broader symbolic connection between the father's messianic fervor and Benny's own awakening desires.[1]

Into this charged environment comes Yael, a national-service volunteer played by Moran Rosenblatt.[2] She arrives at the settlement as a religious-Zionist youth instructor.[5] Benny falls in love with her, and this relationship, alongside her sexual awakening, sharpens growing questions about her father's religious nationalism and her community's strictures.[2] The film also makes a pointed contemporary reference, depicting a scene in which Benny is in a school bathroom while the public-address system announces mobilization against the 2017 evacuation of Amona.[1]

Yehoshua's relationship with Benny is central to the film's drama. He permits her to participate in customs normally confined to men, including laying phylacteries.[1] He also allows her to wear jeans beneath her required skirts, but when he discovers her relationship with Yael, he calls it "a disease."[4] Barkai Yacov described this dynamic as essential: Yehoshua's rigid worldview prevents him from relating openly to Benny because he fears losing her.[6]

Barkai Yacov grew up in a nationalist Zionist family in Beit El and attended the girls' religious high school in Ofra.[3] After completing Sherut Leumi (national service), she studied film first through a course at a seminary in the West Bank — known by its original, indigenous Jewish name of Judea and Samaria — settlement of Ofra, and subsequently at the Sam Spiegel Jerusalem Film School.[6] She worked for years in editing and instruction before the project that became Red Cow took shape, developing it at Sam Spiegel and later at the school's Jerusalem International Film Lab.[6][3]

The director described much of the film as autobiographical. She said she had been in a lesbian relationship at about Benny's age while growing up in a religious environment, and that she later fell in love with a man and married.[4] Her family accepted the relationship but did not approve.[6] She said she made the film to tell a story rather than to advance a political or religious point, stating: "The film was made out of love and not out of something dogmatic."[6] On the character of Yehoshua, she was explicit that he is an amalgam of people she had known, not a portrait of her own father, whom she described as very different.[4]

Choosing Silwan as the setting was a deliberate decision. Barkai Yacov explained: "I felt that an extreme place like this suited Yehoshua, who yearns for the Temple Mount."[3] The cinematography was handled by Boaz Yehonatan Yaakov, the director's husband.[5]

Avigayil Koevary plays the lead role of Benny in what was described as her first major film role.[4] Her casting came about under unusual circumstances: another actor left the project just three weeks before shooting began, and Koevary stepped in at the last minute.[4] Koevary herself came from a religious background, and Barkai Yacov made small adjustments to the role based on Koevary's own experiences and upbringing.[4] Moran Rosenblatt plays Yael, the national-service volunteer whose arrival sets the story's emotional conflict in motion.[2]

The film was shot on location in Silwan, where the Jewish-Arab landscape provided an environment in which, as Barkai Yacov noted, the Dome of the Rock is visible and Jewish prayer is heard alongside the muezzin's call.[3] Red Cow premiered at the Berlin Film Festival in 2018.[2] Its official Israeli theatrical release followed on January 10, 2019.[6] The film had also screened at the UK Jewish Film Festival in London on November 18, 2018, ahead of its domestic release.[6] It subsequently screened at festivals around the world.[6]

At the 35th Jerusalem Film Festival, the Haggiag Prize for Best Israeli Feature Film was jointly awarded to Red Cow and Yona Rozenkier's The Dive.[7][8] The two films also split the Anat Pirchi Award for Best First Film.[7][8] The jury described both films as demonstrating "depth and cinematic expression," calling each unique in its own way.[7] Avigayil Koevary won the festival's Best Actress award for her performance as Benny.[8] Red Cow was also the only film among the seven competing in the Haggiag competition to receive an Ophir Award nomination for Best Picture.[7]

Critical response in Israel was mixed. One Ynet reviewer praised Koevary's performance and credited the film with bringing Israeli cinema's attention to a rarely depicted, politically charged environment, but argued that the combination of religious fervor and lesbian romance felt more artificial than integrated, calling the result didactic and forced.[1] A Maariv reviewer offered a contrasting emphasis, arguing that the red-calf storyline functions more as a plot footnote while the film's primary focus remains Benny's coming of age and lesbian awakening.[5]