From Rahat to the silver screen: Yousef Abo Madagem breaks barriers with debut film 'Eid'

Yousef Abo Magadem is the first Bedouin director to make a feature film.

By HANNAH BROWN DECEMBER 9, 2024 15:15

DIRECTOR YOUSEF Abo Madegem, right, with the star of ‘Eid,’ Shadi Mar’i . (photo credit: Roni Oren)

Directors whose films are about to be released often get interrupted during interviews to take phone calls about details of screenings, publicity, or posters. But until I met Yousef Abo Madegem, the director of Eid, a highly acclaimed movie playing throughout Israel now, no director had ever excused himself to sell a living room set.

There are many ways that Madegem is different from most Israeli directors, and one is that his day job is running a furniture store and workshop, Petra Home Design, in Rahat, his hometown. Rahat is the largest Bedouin city in Israel, and he is the first Bedouin director to make a feature film.

As he showed three young women wearing hijabs the options available on display at his store, I looked around the office and noticed something you won’t see in any other furniture store in the world: A certificate from the Jerusalem Film Festival proclaiming that Eid had won the Haggiag Competition for Israeli Feature Films, the festival’s top prize.

Madegem, at the age of 54, has broken barriers as a total outsider who got his movie made in the often cliquish world of the Israeli film industry, but he’s more than a curiosity.

Eid is a great film that tells a unique story of a young construction worker from Rahat who loves literature and wants to process the trauma of a sexual assault he suffered by writing a Jean Genet-influenced play. He is encouraged in his ambition by an Arab actress who lives in Paris with whom he communicates via Skype, while his parents pressure him to marry an uneducated woman, which is the last thing he wants.

MAR’I AND Angham Khalil in ‘Eid.’ (credit: United King Films)

No one has ever made a movie quite like this, and Eid skillfully blends all its themes, avoiding clichés and easy answers, to say something moving about a troubled young artist that will resonate with moviegoers around the world.

In addition to the prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, the lead actor, Shadi Mar’i, best known for Fauda, won the Best Actor Award at that festival and also the Ophir Award for Best Actor this year.

MADEGEM SOON resumed our interview, having made a deal for some living room furniture, which will help support his three sons and seven daughters, a large family compared to most film-industry professionals.

The classic question to ask a filmmaker who has just made his debut film, especially one that seems to have personal elements, is whether it is, in fact, autobiographical.

“Eid is based on a true story, but it’s about a friend of mine,” said Madegem. “He was the victim of a sexual assault that he couldn’t talk about while he was growing up, and then he wanted to be a writer.

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“We decided about 20 years ago to make a movie about his life experience, then he felt that, no, he couldn’t deal with it. So he wrote a play about it, which was performed and which won an award for the best play at the Akko Festival [of Alternative Theatre]. Afterward, we decided again that we would do a film about it. The screenplay changed as we worked on it, but the basic story remained the same.”

There have been feature films about Bedouin made previously, notably Sharqiya (2012) and Sand Storm (2016), and while both were good, they were made by Jewish directors.

“Who other than you can tell your story?” said Madegem. “Just you. Because you have power and you have knowledge that no one else has. You can add details and information effortlessly. You don’t have to think about whether, and how, to make the story emotional. The emotion is all built into the story, and you understand how to tell it.”

I wondered whether telling the story of a sexual assault victim in his community could cause problems for him.

Madegem said that was not a concern. “Cinema was born to create a conversation. It’s very important that there will be a discussion about this subject… It’s true in many cultures that people stay quiet about this.”

He said he felt that the subject of sexual violence against boys was especially taboo. “Why is it that we warn girls not to take candy from strangers, but we don’t warn boys?”

Bedouin society ready to open debate, beginning discussions 

But Bedouin society is ready to have this debate now, he said. “We simply have to begin the discussion,” he said. “We need to get to another level in bringing this out in the open.”

While the vast majority of the reactions he got from the Bedouin community were positive when the film was screened in Jerusalem and the Cinema South Festival, “There was criticism; I want there to be criticism about the content. If there is agreement across the board, for me, that’s not good. That means that the movie is too slick.”

He had great praise for Shadi Mar’i, who was important in bringing his complex vision to life. “He’s an amazing person. He came open-minded. Tabula rasa… he lets you mold his performance as you go along. He does as you ask, but he comes with ideas… He’ll ask for another take, he’ll say, ‘I could give more.’ He really deserved the Ophir Award. He has been waiting to play a lead role, and he really stepped up.”

AS MADEGEM took a phone call, I reflected on how similar this industrial zone looked to other such neighborhoods around the country. Like many Israelis, I had never been to Rahat and thought of it as remote and inaccessible. But it turns out that it takes about the same time to reach it by train from Jerusalem as it takes to go to Haifa, a journey I have made countless times.

The Rahat-Lehavim station lets you off in Lehavim, a Jewish suburb, but a modern highway connects it to Rahat, which is just a few kilometers away. The only real hint that we were in a Bedouin town was that a bridal store near Madegem’s workshop showed posters of models in wedding gowns with matching white satin hijabs.

Madegem grew up here, the son of an agricultural worker. He wanted to go to university after high school, but there was no money, so he worked in construction, like Eid, and eventually enrolled in social work school, but dropped out after a year.

Always interested in taking photographs, he heard about a program at Sapir Academic College in Sderot that also taught filmmaking and got a BA there. His parents were mystified by his choice, not understanding how he would support himself and his family.

“It wasn’t just my parents who didn’t understand, it was the whole society.”

As he went on to get a master’s degree and to study for a doctorate at the University of Haifa, he taught photography at high schools. When he got into financial trouble because a partner had mismanaged his store, his teachers at Sapir helped him by getting him scholarships and on-campus jobs. He also made television news features for Rafik Halabi.

All the while, he dreamed of making his first film. Eventually, he teamed up with Yuval Aharoni, who received screenwriter credit on Eid, and submitted it to Israeli film funds. They were given money from several film funds to develop Eid, including the Rabinovich Foundation, the Gesher Film Fund, Mifal Hapayis, and Keren Darom.

Some Arab filmmakers refuse to take money from Israeli film funds, but Madegem didn’t hesitate. “I pay a lot of taxes, so I’m entitled to this money. However, it does limit where the film can be shown in the Arab world.” It’s a little-known fact that Arab Israeli artists are boycotted by the BDS movement, as well as Jewish ones.

“It also hurts its chances to be accepted to international film festivals during the war. I hope eventually it will go to countries like Morocco, the UAE, maybe Tunisia.” The movie is set to be shown at a number of film festivals around the world soon, including in the US and Europe.

OPENING THE movie during the war has not been simple. “The movie was almost done when the war broke out. The war didn’t interfere with it getting finished. But it was hard to feel completely happy about it because of the war, because of all the pain, all the destruction, the ruins, the victims, all of the loss.”

Like many Bedouin, the Hamas attack touched his life. Eighteen Bedouin were killed on October 7 and seven were taken hostage. “Two relatives of mine were killed in the war. Several were wounded. The hostages from the Ziyadne family, Yousef and Hamza, are cousins of my son-in-law.” Yousef and Hamza are still held hostage in Gaza.

He recently made a documentary about how the Bedouin in Israel are coping with the war, called Open Wound, which was shown at the Cinema South Festival and details how Bedouin have lost relatives both in Israel and in Gaza.

Even without the war breaking out, it was a long, hard road to get Eid to the screen, and Madegem earned very little from it, but it was a labor of love.

“It’s very little money, it’s a joke, but when you make a film that wins prizes, there is prestige and recognition. And there’s something more important. There’s the peace of mind, the satisfaction you get from making it. I’m proud of myself, and my family is proud of me… Every time I see it, I see it as if it’s new, I feel a different emotion. And it’s a great feeling.”

While the movie’s hero is Bedouin, he said, “It’s not a movie just for Bedouin or Israeli society. It’s a movie that crosses barriers, borders, societies, languages. That’s what’s great about making a movie and getting it out to the world.”