Yom Yom House

Gitai's close-ups of seemingly trival, everyday situations reveal much larger issues at the heart of Arab-Israeli relations.

Yom Yom (Day after Day), about Gitai's hometown of Haifa, is the second in his trilogy about Israeli cities. It's an intricate, intriguing drama that focuses on an Arab-Israeli family's daily life and the small incidents that come to evoke larger issues facing the state. In particular, the film focuses on Moshe (Moshe Ivgi), an umbitious man drifting through his forties while trying to balance a life that revolves between his wife Didi (Dalit Kahan) and misress Grisha (Nataly Atiya), and his father's (Yussef Abu Warda) decision to sell the family's Arab-inherited land to Israeli developers. (1998; 97 mins.)

One of his earliest films, House is a documentary that traces the history of a dwelling being rebuilt on the West Bank after 40 years of occupation by both Palestinian and Jewish settlers. (1980; 51 mins.)