The Great Sadness of Zohara

Zohara is a young Orthodox Jew who sets out on a material and spiritual journey through a world for which she is entirely unprepared. Leaving Jerusalem behind, she heads into Arabic territory: a complete immersion in otherness, it also means moving away from one tradition and into a different kind of mystery. But all journeys are inner journeys: The Great Sadness of Zohara is a portrait of a desperate woman suffering from exile and loneliness, trying to find her place in the world. This film is also the counterpoint to another journey: the one Nina and Tinka Menkes made through Israel and Morocco with a camera in hand, from which they returned with a fistful of images loaded with beauty and desolation. (Mar del Plata International Film Festival)