One Night in Jaffa

Layla has created an inner world in which she is accepted as the woman she knows herself to be. One night in Jaffa, that private vision runs into the city's rough nightlife, and each encounter tests how much of her fantasy can survive contact with reality. Written and directed by Raz Bar David Varon, this 23-minute Israeli short stars Tzachi Zeev Look, Ori Levanon and Miriam Cohen, and follows Layla across a single night in the old port city at the southern edge of Tel Aviv. Moving between drama and romance, it shows a world that is by turns inviting and cruel, and captures the fragile courage of a transgender woman insisting on being seen as herself in a place that is not ready to see her. It is an intimate portrait of longing, identity and the distance between who we are inside and how the world chooses to treat us.