'Ahed's Knee' Teaser Trailer: 'Synonymns' Director Nadav Lapid Returns With First Cannes Competition Title

Israeli writer/director Nadav Lapid has been on the international radar for quite some time, 2011’s “Policeman” made international waves, and 2014’s ‘The Kindergarten Teacher” was so well regarded, Hollywood, Netflix, and Maggie Gyllenhaal made a remake in 2018. But things started to really take off for Lapid after “Synonyms” won the Golden Bear award at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival in February 2019 and introduced most of the world to breakout star Tom Mercier. Now, Lapid is back and graduated and bumped up fast into competition for the first time at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival.

Starring Avshalom Pollak and Nur Fibak “Ahed’s Knee” (“Hadereḵ”) centers on an Israeli filmmaker who throws himself in the midst of two battles doomed to fail: one against the death of freedom, the other against the death of a mother. Lapid wrote the film as well. And apparently, he put it together fast.

The movie was shot with a very small budget. I had just won the Golden Bear, and I could have made it totally differently,” he recently told Deadline. But we went with a small budget and shot in 18 days. But that wasn’t 18 full days. This was December in Israel, and those are the shortest days of the year, just nine hours of light; you begin shooting, and the sun is already on the way down. It was like a simulation of death – you feel the end from the beginning. I would bet that there are no other movies [in Cannes competition] that were shot in such a small amount of days.”

Here’s the film’s official synopsis:

In his mid-forties, Y., an Israeli filmmaker, arrives in a remote village at the far end of the desert to present one of his films. There he meets Yahalom, an officer for the Ministry of Culture, and finds himself fighting two losing battles: one against the death of freedom in his country, the other against the death of his mother.

“Ahed’s Knee” debuts at the Cannes Film Festival today, so we should hopefully be getting a review and word on the film later today. Check out the first striking teaser trailer below.

Follow along with our full Cannes 2021 coverage here.