Round Trip

Our Rating: L Factor: Lesbian Film Short Take: An Israeli bus driver and a Nigerian refugee fall in love in Tel Aviv. Alternate Titles:
Year: 2003 Duration: 95 min Language: Israel/Hebrew and English MPAA: Not Rated	Director: Shahar Rozen Writer: Noa Greenberg Starring: Anat Waxman, Eyal Rozales, Nthati Moshesh, Natan Zahavi, Ido Port, Reut Kahlon

Round Trip Trailer

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Before watching this, an Israeli friend warned me that films from Israel are typically depressing. I’d like to say that this film is a unique love story between an Israeli woman who has just left her husband and the African woman who moves in with her. But frankly, the film became one with a very negative message – go back to your boring life without love because you will never have anything better (although your children might).

Nurit (Anat Waxman) drives a bus in a small Israeli town, in an unhappy marriage to a husband who can’t keep a job. Finally she leaves him and moves with her son and daughter to Tel Aviv. Working long hours, she takes in a woman to help with the children in exchange for free room and board. Mushidi (Nthati Moshesh) has a young son back home in Nigeria, and she is working in Israel to make a better life.

At first Nurit and Mushidi seem like an odd couple, but their friendship and then a romantic relationship seems to grow very naturally. Then Nurit’s husband threatens to take the kids, and Mushidi’s illegal status in Israel becomes an issue. (AB)