– Time Out Tel Aviv

– YNET

“A humane and universal portrait.” – Yediot Aharonot (Israel)

“The film possesses a brutal immediacy, unfolding like a Middle Eastern Grapes of Wrath.” –Tom Beer, Time Out NY

“Draws us into the precarious world of young Palestinian construction workers scrabbling to survive. A documentary filled with immediacy. Fascinating.”
– Jeannette Catsoulis, The New York Times

“Like all good political documentaries, 9 STAR HOTEL is more anthropology than agitprop, a portrait of life among the young, poorly educated men who are caught between Israeli exploitation and Palestinian Authority corruption…. their determination to survive is inspiring.”
– Ella Taylor, Village Voice

“Presents – without rancor and with deep pathos – the irony of dispossessed young men who would normally be lauded for eschewing violence and striving to make a living, but find themselves building someone else’s future.”
– Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post

“Outstanding! Both a work of art and a fine piece of reportage from, the unseen underside of the modern world.”
– George Robinson, Jewish Week

Just as Mexicans cross U.S. borders illegally to find work as day laborers, thousands of Palestinians do likewise, into neighboring Israel, seeking jobs in construction. For 9 STAR HOTEL, Israeli filmmaker Ido Haar gained the trust of a group of nomadic young men whom he observed fleeing from police, risking their lives to cross highways at night, sleeping in makeshift hovels – a dramatic contrast to the luxury housing they build by day. “We think backwards – we never think forward. We are like scavengers, like those who harvest olives after the locust,” one of his subjects confesses with lyrical simplicity. This is a devastating cinema verite portrait of young men caught in an economic and political maelstrom not of their own making – their dreams subsumed by the hard reality of day-to-day survival. Winner of the Best Documentary Award, Jerusalem International Film Festival, 2006. A surprise hit in Israel.

WITH SUPPORT FROM THE JOAN S. CONSTANTINER FUND FOR JEWISH AND HOLOCAUST FILM

Israel • 2006 • 78 minutes • In Arabic & Hebrew with English subtitles
Koch Lorber Films