In the heart of the Shapira neighborhood in Tel Aviv, in a wide yard with no partition, two schools operate side by side: one is an old religious state school called "Roots";
And the second is the "neighborhood" school that opened a few years ago, and which is intended for children from secular families and children of migrant workers who moved to live in the neighborhood.
These two schools - and all the tensions, disputes and difficulties that exist between the two completely different educational worldviews represented by their principals, Shahar Feinstein and Elior Turgeman - are at the center of "40 Steps", a film by Gad Eisen and Manor Birman, which will be broadcast on Saturday night in Here is 11".
"The film shows how every morning the impossible becomes possible,"
"In the beginning, I thought it was a story about secular discrimination," says Eisen about the birth process of the film, which won the "Beyond the Screen" award for cinema that changes reality and consciousness, at the last Dokaviv festival.
"It seemed that the religious school was about to be closed, and that a secular school would be built on its ruins for the children who came to the neighborhood as a result of gentrification and for the children of the foreign migrant workers. But the exact opposite happened. Elior, the director of the religious school, actually greatly strengthened and enlarged the school. At the same time , as I continued to read about the history of the neighborhood, I realized that it was always a kind of wild west. From here the film stopped being a film about discrimination, and became a film about coexistence and coping."
What did you learn during the three years you accompanied the principals and the children in these two schools?
"This film is a kind of microcosm of this country. It shows how every morning the impossible happens and becomes possible. Israel connects religious, secular, foreigners - in the end, everyone somehow manages to get along. Although when you look at reality, it is very difficult to see. This is a situation complex".
Based on the difficult conversation between the two managers towards the end of the film, I got the impression that the experiment they were participating in didn't quite work out. But it sounds like you feel differently.
"It's a difficult meeting, it's true. But Elior and Shahar can't decide on their own about coexistence. The big decisions are made at the top, at the political level, above their heads. In the end, it's a movie where everyone suffers. Like in this country. We live here in a way Impossible, but in the end it works for us."
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