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Eyes Wide Open

Directed by: Haim Tabakman
90 Minutes, 2008, Drama; Romance

Aaron, an ultra-Orthodox butcher, is happily married with four children and a loving wife. But when he hires a handsome but homeless young man, Ezri, as an apprentice, he finds there to be something more between them than just a friendship. As Aaron and Ezri begin a sexual relationship, Aaron finds himself torn between his wife, his community, his God, and his intense feelings for his apprentice. And the forces opposing his relationship continue to grow.

Credits

Director: Haim Tabakman

Producer: Isabelle Attal

Producer: DavidChristophe Barrot

Producer: Michael Eckelt

Producer: Rafael Katz

Cast: Tinkerbell

Cast: Zohar Strauss

Cast: Ran Danker

Cast: Isaac Sharry

: Tzahi Grad

: Avi Grainik

Written by: Merav Doster

Distributor: New American Vision

Awards

Haunting, languorously paced tale of a doomed Orthodox Jewish gay couple—a father of four, and the young man he hires as an apprentice in his butcher shop—eschews sentimentality and pathos, instead letting body language and the dusty, gloomy streets of Jerusalem shape the story. 

- New York Magazine

It moves slowly and patiently through the ordeal of a single soul, illuminating in the process a cosmos of intense and hidden feeling.

-A.O. Scott, New York Times

The unusually subtle yet eloquent debut of Israeli director Haim Tabakman...

 

-Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald