Special online screening of Leo Khasin’s award-winning film available for free streaming in the US

The German Film Office is pleased to present a special online screening of Leo Khasin’s award-winning film Kaddish for a Friend, co-presented with the Goethe-Institut Toronto. The film will be available for free streaming in the United States and Canada.
Watch Now Fourteen-year-old Ali has been searching for belonging his whole life. A Palestinian refugee, he and his family lived in Lebanon before relocating to Berlin, where their status is precarious. Trying to fit in with a bad crowd, Ali ransacks a neighboring apartment but is caught by its elderly Russian-Jewish tenant, Alexander. To make amends and avoid deportation, Ali agrees to fix up the apartment. Though the two Kreuzberg neighbors initially resent and distrust each other, their sudden proximity wears down ingrained prejudices, and an intergenerational friendship blossoms even as new obstacles emerge.

“A friendship that is as unequal as it is unlikely. They leave behind the enemy images in their heads, the prejudice, the deep-rooted hatred. A small-scale peace agreement that has less to do with the Middle East conflict than with two people who have been brought together by life.” (Sueddeutsche Zeitung)

Kaddish for a Friend won the 2013 German Film Award for Best Children’s Film.

Parental guidance suggested.

Kaddisch für einen Freund
Dir. Leo Khasin
Germany, 2011
94 minutes
With Neil Belakhdar, Ryszard Ronczewski, Neil Malik Abdullah, Sanam Afrashteh, Kida Khodr Ramadan