SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

Striking up a conversation one day with the contractor plastering his walls, Israeli filmmaker David Ofek (A Hebrew Lesson, SFJFF 2007) found himself moved to retell the Romanian-born man’s story, using the actual persons involved to narrate an immigrant tale suffused with irony. Centered on the so-called law of return, the foundational Israeli law giving all Jews the freedom to immigrate, the story cheekily underscores its unsettling contradictions by unfolding in the manner of a traditional Jewish fable. It opens in a village in the overwhelmingly Catholic region of Moldavia, where Nicolai and fellow workers are still reeling from the postcommunist closure of the local factory; they fan out across Europe and the world in the hunt for work to support their families. Leaving behind his pregnant wife and his first child, Nicolai ends up in Israel as an exploited employee of Manpower. Three years later, a remark on a construction site brings forth Nicolai’s nonchalant reference to his Jewish grandmother, leaving his fellow immigrant laborers—Arabs, Moldavians, Turks and Chinese among them—dumbfounded. Did Nicolai really not know he and his family could immigrate on that basis? For all its lightheartedness, The Tale of Nicolai broaches serious and central questions about the nature of Israel as a Jewish state and a democracy.
—Robert Avila

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