Film: The Belle from Gaza - IDFA

It’s nighttime in south Tel Aviv, and a disparate group of trans women around Hatnufa Street are offering sex for money. An old photograph puts director Yolande Zauberman on the trail of a stunningly beautiful trans woman who reportedly walked from Gaza to Tel Aviv. Her story changes with each interview, and sometimes the search for the mysterious title character fades into the background.

The sex workers speak with candor and humor on a variety of topics, despite the whispers of danger lurking even here, in liberal Tel Aviv. In the unforgettable opening minutes, an older Arab trans woman recounts an intense affair with an Orthodox rabbi.

Yolande Zauberman stumbled on the subject for this project while shooting her previous documentary M, which concerns a man who was sexually abused as a child in the Orthodox Jewish community. In this intimate and elusive documentary the director once again endeavors to expose the fault lines in Israeli society.