A heartwarming local adaptation to Brecht’s masterpiece, which places the story between modern day Israel and 1930’s Palestine, presented in Hebrew and Arabic.

 

In the year 2020, MIKA, a young Israeli, is about to go on a plane and leave her homeland for good. In her suitcase she finds a diary, carefully placed there by her grandfather, with a family story that has never been told taking her all the way back to 1930’s Palestine. 

It is a time of unrest. The British governor is assassinated by the revolting mob, his wife is troubled by having to choose which gowns and jewellery to leave behind, and eventually abandons their infant child. GRUSHE, an Arab maid who can’t change a diaper to save her life, takes the child, and must leave behind her lover, the Jewish Soldier SIMON HAHAVA. While the men are busy with their war, the women Grushe meets during her journey teach her how to mother the helpless child.

At the same time, AZDAK, a simple watermelon vendor at the local market, accidentally gives shelter to the queen of England and is appointed as a supreme court judge. 

The years go by, the British government successfully ends the rebellion and order is restored. The widowed governor’s wife returns and demands her son back, especially since he is the sole heir of their inherited fortune. The governors wife and Grushe are brought before the not-so-esteemed Judge Azdak, and he performs the chalk circle test in order to decide once and for all - who is the child’s real mother?