Page - 147 - in JRFM - Journal Religion Film Media, Volume 05/01

detailed and powerful portrait of female relationships in a broader family where traditional hierarchies and male power fail to provide order and stability and generate physical, psychological and systemic violence in all aspects of life. Breaking social conventions, the female members of a middle-class family, who include two young indigenous women who work as maids and nannies, have to face crude relationships of violence on many levels of their lives. With unbreak- able solidarity and thanks to their capacity to overcome prejudice, they succeed in facing suffering and death and opening up a space of hope. The narrative is strong, without any sentimental concession but very transparent in transmit- ting a feeling of commitment and profound love. Furthermore, the film is im- pressive on the aesthetic level. The black-and-white images, which may suggest recollections of the past, use a broad range of visual metaphors. The gaze into the microcosm of the family mirrors the observation of macrocosmic connec- tions (fig. 2). VIOLENCE AND SOCIAL RELATIONSHIPS The role of violence in shaping social relationships is the leitmotif in three out- standing productions from different cultures. The Tibetan film Jinpa (Pema Tseden, PRC 2018) is situated in a dreamlike vision. The protagonist Jinpa, a lorry driver, meets a wayfarer with the same name on a vast plain. The film explores the reflections of these two figures, who are trapped in chains of vengeance and violence. Finally, they succeed in liberating themselves from this heavy her- itage. The film demands an active interpreter who is ready to engage this poetic but still hermetic work where cultural stereotypes and habits are broken on the narrative and aesthetic levels. Soni (Ivan Ayr, IN 2018) is the name of the female protagonist of an Indian drama that focuses on violence between genders in institutions and families. As a diligent policewoman, Soni tries to be guided by justice, equality and solidarity. Her chief, Kalpana, supports her. The two wom- en fight together against violence, indifference and the arbitrariness of habit. The challenges that Soni deals with in her professional life are reproduced in her private and intimate domain. A fresh and in no way banalising analysis of social violence is presented in a comedy set in the middle of the most paradigmatic and complex conflict of the present time. Tel Aviv on Fire (Sameh Zoabi, LU/ FR/BE 2018) traces the production of a soap opera in Ramallah. The protagonist has a job as an apprentice on the set of the successful TV series Tel Aviv on Fire, in which a charming Palestinian spy flirts with a Jewish officer. The protagonist, who crosses a checkpoint every day, becomes involved in an intricate network of constraints on his real life and his position as a screenwriter on the set. In this brilliant piece, which won the award of the Interfilm jury, playful jokes and the serious dimensions of social violence are intertwined in a captivating way; Festival Review: Film Festival Venice | 147www.jrfm.eu 2019, 5/1