Orange People (film)

Orange People (Hebrew: אנשים כתומים) is a 2013 Israeli drama film, written and directed by Hanna Azoulay Hasfari.

The grandmother, Zohara (Rita Shukrun), who immigrated from Morocco in the 1950s, is a seer, and many members of the Moroccan community flock to her, so she can dream for them and advise them on life decisions.

It seems, however, that the "dreaming" is not willing to let her go, and she suffers from what appears to be narcolepsy, and takes medication to control her inability to fall asleep and her resulting bouts of obsessive cleaning.

Zohar (Meital Gal Souissa), Simone's daughter, gets along with her grandmother but sees the dreaming as a curiosity, and wants to write a school project on narcolepsy.

Things become even more complicated when Fannie (Hanna Azoulay Hasfari), Simone's estranged sister, arrives unexpectedly from Paris.

Fannie arouses feelings and memories from the past - some good, such as awakening Simone's passion for cooking, others less so, as the possibility of an illicit relationship between her and Jacqui is hinted at.

[4] The film was shot in colors associated with South American magic realism, to illustrate the connection Moroccan Jews have with their traditional mysticism.

"[14] In his ynet review, film critic Shmulik Duvdevani found Azoulay's return to her roots (both in terms of her interest in identity politics and in terms of her heritage) to be clichéd, especially given Azoulay's longstanding interest in these subjects, which he felt were better served in her earlier work, Sh'Chur, and the many films that have already used the medium of food to convey the emotions of the characters and tantalize the audience.

As such, Orange People seems to him smaller and weaker, though he admits that it could be more apropos of the time it was released, and may be the beginning of new directions for the filmmaker, for whom he expresses great appreciation.