Noodle is an award-winning 2007 Israel

Israel

The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...

i film directed by Ayelet Menahemi

Ayelet Menahemi

Ayelet Menahemi is an award-winning Israeli film director, producer, writer, editor, and actor.-Life and Works:Menahemi was born in Tel Aviv in 1963...

, written by Shemi Zarhin and Ayelet Menahemi, and starring Mili Avital

Mili Avital

Mili Avital is an Israeli actress. Avital built a successful stage and film career in Israel, winning the Israeli Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 and nominated for Best Actress in 1994.-Personal life:...

, Chen Baoqi, and Alon Aboutboul.

Plot

When the Chinese woman working in Israel for Miri Kalderon, an Israeli flight attendant, is suddenly deported for overstaying her work visa, her lack of Hebrew-language skills makes it impossible for her to convince the Israeli authorities that she has a young child with her. Miri, twice-widowed because of the ongoing Arab-Israeli wars, has been going through the motions of living, somehow detached from a real connection to life itself. Her decision to help reunite the child—nicknamed "Noodle"—with his mother, now back in Beijing, ends up helping her, not just the boy and his mother, in ways Miri herself could not have expected.

Cast

Main cast

• Mili Avital
  Mili Avital
  Mili Avital is an Israeli actress. Avital built a successful stage and film career in Israel, winning the Israeli Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress in 1992 and nominated for Best Actress in 1994.-Personal life:...
  
   (Miri Calderone)
• Chen Baoqi (Noodle)

Supporting characters

• Alon Aboutboul (Izzy Sason)
• Sinaya Ben-Dor (Ilana)
• Yiftach Klein (Mati Gueta)
• Daphna Shpigelman (Batya)
• Sarit Vino-Elad (Dafna)
• Anat Waxman (Gila Sason)
• Roni Yuria (Yaeli)

Awards

The film won the Best Supporting Actress Award from the Israeli Film Academy (Ophir Awards), and a Special Grand Prize of the Jury from the 2007 Montreal World Film Festival

Montreal World Film Festival

The Montreal World Film Festival , founded in 1977, is one of Canada's oldest international film festivals and the only competitive film festival in North America accredited by the FIAPF...

. It also won numerous other awards at film festivals throughout the United States and around the world, including the award for Best Feature Film Audience Choice Award at the 2010 Jersey Shore Film Festival.

The film was an official nominee for numerous Israeli Film Academy Awards, including Best Actress, Best Cinematography, Best Director, Best Editing, Best Film, Best Music, Best Screenplay, and Best Sound.

Critical responses

As one review put it, "This Israeli film about grief and loss surprisingly takes the form of a crowd pleaser." Other reviewers agreed, noting that films like Noodle are rare, combining great stories and performances with enough "heart" to involve the audience emotionally. Ultimately, as a review from the 18th annual Tucson Jewish Film Festival put it, "The film is a touching comic-drama of two human beings accompanying each other on a remarkable journey that takes them both back to a meaningful life."

External links

• Movie review and trailer, "At the Movies," ABC.
• More complete list of awards and screenings at film festivals.