Across borders where weapons and drugs are usually smuggled, two men try their luck with something far more dangerous: books in Arabic. What begins as a modest business venture unfolds into an ironic journey through language, culture, and a system that quietly erodes both.
A small bookshop in Jaffa becomes the starting point for a larger investigation. When film producer Tony Copti joins his uncle Michel Alraheb in the family business, he is drawn into a struggle over the circulation of Arabic books - many of which cannot legally enter Israel due to longstanding restrictions. What begins as a logistical challenge gradually reveals a broader system shaping access to language and knowledge.
Their encounters at checkpoints, in markets, and among readers - trace the contours of a culture under pressure. Tony Copti and Yaniv Berman capture a paradox: a language deeply rooted in place, yet increasingly absent from public and educational spaces. Through understated humor, it builds a layered portrait of loss, resilience, and persistence. Musical interludes featuring Palestinian rapper Tamer Nafar punctuate the narrative, adding a driving pulse to a story about heritage and its fragile transmission to the next generations.
Beneath the films' wit runs a sharper current: a culture not simply neglected, but systematically eroded. The film gestures toward an ongoing cultural displacement where books disappear, language recedes, and with them, memory itself. In this light, smuggling becomes more than an act of necessity; it becomes a form of resistance.
Text: Naomi Levari
Supporting Film: Butcher’s Stain Meyer Levinson-Blount, IL 2025, 26 min
Credits
original title The Smugglers
international title The Smugglers
german title The Smugglers
JFBB section The Other Israel
country/countries IL
year 2025
duration 86
Tony Copti
BIO Tony Copti is a Palestinian producer and the CEO of Fresco Films, a fresh and dynamic company that specializes in developing, financing and producing feature films with artistic value that also appeal to general audiences. Fresco Films also provides hands-on production services with
finance structuring for films.
Tony produced, line-produced and managed more than 30 productions, including the Academy Award-nominated film “Ajami” by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani; “Die Akte Golgatha” by Zoltan Spirandelli; Nadav Lapid’s “Policeman,” which won the Grand Jury Prize at Locarno; the Jerusalem International Film Festival award-winning feature “Dissolution” by Nina Menkes; “In Between” by Maysaloun Hamoud that won the NETPAC Award at the Toronto Film Festival, the Eroski Youth Award at San Sebastian and the TVE Another Look Award.
Tony is a member of EAVE, a training program for European producers.
Yaniv Berman
BIO Producer and Director Yaniv Berman is a graduate student from the BA and MFA program at the Film and Television Department, Tel-Aviv University. His short film “Even Kids Started Small”, about school children taking over the school, was an official selection of the Cinéfondation, Cannes Film Festival. He filmed a documentary about a military company of reserve soldiers in the IDF for six years, which was made into the award-winning documentary “The Alpha Diaries”. His first narrative feature film, “Land of the Little People”, in 2016, deals with the traumatic process of becoming a child soldier in a militaristic society.
