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‘The Belle From Gaza’ Review: A Blinkered Search for a Palestinian Trans Woman in Israel
Yolande Zauberman's latest documentary about Tel Aviv nightlife, 'The Belle from Gaza,' doesn't probe far enough.
The need to infer and intellectualize are frequent prerequisites when watching Yolande Zauberman ‘s gentle documentary, in which she searches the clubs and red-light districts of Tel Aviv for a trans woman rumored to have traveled there secretly from Gaza on foot. “The Belle from Gaza” marks a kind of pilgrimage through the French’s director’s previous works, especially her most recent documentary, “M,” in which 2016 Miss Trans Israel winner Talleen Abu Hanna played a supporting role. As an Arab trans woman narrates a hate crime from her youth, she recalls being driven by a lynch mob toward an IDF military checkpoint, which she assumes was so that Israeli soldiers might mistake her for a terrorist and shoot her dead.
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