How Long Is “The Bubble”?

Director Eytan Fox bursts the idyllic bubble of cosmopolitan Tel Aviv with this thought-provoking meditation on cultural relations concerning a brooding Israeli reserve soldier who enters into a passionate same-sex affair with an intense Palestinian man. Noam (Ohad Knoller) shares his posh Tel Aviv apartment with progressive-minded twentysomething Lulu (Daniela Wircer) and flamboyant café owner Yali (Alon Friedman). It was during checkpoint duty that Noam first made the acquaintance of intense and handsome Palestinian Ashraf (Yousef "Joe" Sweid). Though their initial meeting was someone harried as Ashraf struggled to aid a woman who was forced to give birth at the roadside, a connection was formed and Ashraf soon comes knocking on Noam's door. In the weeks that follow, the pair embark on an intense love affair and the amiable Ashraf forms a fast bond with Lulu and Yali. But life in Tel Aviv couldn't be more different from life in nearby occupied Palestine, and as the reality of the violence that surrounds them slowly envelopes them, Noam and Ashraf find that their heated affair was doomed from the moment they locked eyes.