Roshmia

Yousef and Amna are both around 80. For more than 50 years, they’ve been living in a ramshackle house made of corrugated iron and canvas in the Roshmia Valley, a deep gorge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa. Now that the city is expanding, the quiet is frequently broken by the rumble of a passing truck. A new road is being built, so the authorities are forcing the elderly couple to move out. Both of them are defiant and desperate, but Yousef is especially affected. Oppression and war have taken their toll on him, and this is the place where he wants to live out his old age. The film observes the couple as they bicker and chain-smoke their way through their last days in Roshmia Valley. They have no children and they get few visitors – except for the now constant stream of journalists who question them about their situation. One man offers to mediate for them and negotiates with the municipality for decent compensation. Meanwhile, demolition day is drawing ever closer, and the tension is mounting. It even goes so far that the elderly couple might break up.