Strangers (2007)

Interesting facts

Strangers (Zarim) is a 2007 Israeli experimental fictional film directed by Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor that is set during the 2006 FIFA World Cup and the 2006 Lebanon War. It is the first feature film that they made together and was developed from an award-winning 2004 short of the same name.

Production

In 2004, directors Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv submitted a short called Strangers to the Sundance Film Festival. It won the Online Film Festival Audience Award which led to funding a full-length version of the film.

They envisioned the feature version as experimental in form, largely improvised and centered around the World Cup in Berlin. Production began in Berlin with one actor (Levo), photographer and producer. They then met with actress Lubna Azabal whom they convinced to join the production via phone by telling her: "two actors, one camera and the World Cup Soccer Championships. That's all.

The war broke out two weeks into the Berlin shoot, prompting production to shut down. Tadmor noted that, "We immediately made the decision to stop shooting and return home to be with our families. When we continued shooting later in Paris, it was a different movie." The basic premise of the film, a love story, was thus further complicated by the introduction of the war when filming resumed: " 'We didn't want to do a war movie or a political movie…

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