The Gaza Pig

Movie
German title	The Gaza Pig
Original title	Le cochon de Gaza
Country of production	France , Belgium , Germany
original language	Hebrew , Arabic , English
Publishing year	2011
length	98 minutes
Age rating	FSK 12
Rod
Director	Sylvain Estibal
script	Sylvain Estibal
production	Jean-Philippe Blime ; Wolfgang Mueller ; Benito Müller
music	Aqualactica ; Boogie Balagan
camera	Romain Winding
cut	Damien Keyeux
occupation
	Sasson Gabai : Jafaar; Baya Belal : Fatima; Myriam Tekaïa : Yelena; Gassan Abbas : Hairdresser Slim; Khalifa Natour : Hussein; Lotfi Abdelli : Policeman; Ulrich Tukur : UN functionary; Khaled Riani : Shopkeeper; Uri Gabai : Netsah;

The Pig of Gaza (original title: Le cochon de Gaza , English title: When Pigs Have Wings ) is a feature film by Sylvain Estibal from 2011 , which was produced in Germany, France and Belgium. The film tells the story of the fisherman Jafaar, who unexpectedly pulls a pig ashore.

action

The Palestinian fisherman Jafaar does not have it easy. Because the Israelis do not allow the Palestinians' boats to go far out, he only pulls small fish and, above all, garbage on board. His house is used by Israeli soldiers as an observation post. He faces jail because he owes a trader. After a stormy night, instead of a big fish, he has a live pig in the net. Now Jafaar faces a big problem. Because pigs are considered unclean in Gaza and are not accepted on land. He cannot sell the pig to Israel either, because the Palestinians and Israelis agree on this point .

Jafaar hides the pig, it's a boar , on his boat and tries everything possible to get rid of it. In doing so, he enters into several bizarre but also not harmless trades that initially improve his rather miserable existence. But when his co-religionists find out that he has loaned the boar to an Israeli settler for breeding purposes, he is given the choice of either dying a traitor or a martyr.

backgrounds

In some scenes of the film it can be clearly seen that the pot-bellied pig is not a boar, but a sow. According to the press release, two pigs, called Charlotte and Babe , were used during the shooting .

The director Sylvain Estibal on the role of the pig in the film: “ What unites the two different camps of this film is only that they abhor the pig. In this way, the pig becomes an ambassador, cross-border commuter - the link between the two camps. This lowest common denominator gives rise to understanding that leads to an approximation. In a certain sense one could say: The pot-bellied pig is my dove of peace! "

criticism

“The director frankly makes use of the Bible and film history and declines all possible varieties of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without shrinking from politically incorrect jokes about the absurdities of this conflict. This is how he succeeds in creating a black, humorous, subtle tragic comedy. "

- Lexicon of International Films

“'The Pig from Gaza' is an insane film that boils down to the essence of a hopeless conflict. The more magical and metaphorical his scenes filmed in Malta, the better he succeeds in circumnavigating the abysses of the comedy of international understanding and revealing what it must feel like to live in Gaza. "

- taz

“Estibal's film pays tribute to those people who refuse to be manipulated by the ideology of incontrovertible belonging. He does it in simple pictures, without artificial drama and with a touching ending. "

- Frankfurter Rundschau

“The Gaza Strip and comedy, that go [...] together, for once laughing about the Middle East conflict, too. Absurdly funny and warm-hearted, the film doesn't lose sight of the bitter reality. "

- ZDF aspects