Sayed Kashua - Forever Scared

It is never easy to live a life caught between two cultures, and this is especially true if you find yourself between Arabic and Jewish cultures. When he was 15, the now 34-year-old Israeli Arab writer Sayed Kashua was sent to a prestigious Israeli high school in Jerusalem. His first week there was, he says, the most terrible of his life. Things have improved since then, though. He became a columnist for the Israeli newspaper and has published two books and written a satirical series for Israeli television about Arabs attempting to build a life for themselves within Israeli society. is the portrait of an author who, writing in Hebrew, repeatedly raises the issue of his uncomfortable position between the two cultures: Arabs see him as a collaborator, while Israelis call him an Arab drunkard. The filmmakers followed Sayed Kashua for seven years, capturing both his successes and failures. Despite ongoing fears of what his opponents might do, he continues to write. He has now moved from his Arab birthplace, the village of Tira, to an apartment in West Jerusalem.