Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem / Gett (2014)

After a lukewarm marriage of over twenty years, a woman appeals to her husband's compassion to obtain the desirable divorce document in front of a court, which proves to be more challenging than she would expect.

Directors: Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz
Cast: Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian, Gabi Amrani, Dalia Beger, Shmil Ben Ari, Abraham Celektar, Rami Danon, Sasson Gabai, Eli Gornstein, Evelin Hagoel, Albert Iluz, Keren Mor, Menashe Noy, David Ohayon, Roberto Pollack, Rubi Porat Shoval, Ze'ev Revach




An Israeli woman (Ronit Elkabetz) seeking to finalize a divorce (gett) from her estranged husband finds herself effectively put on trial by her country’s religious marriage laws, in this powerhouse courtroom drama from sibling directors Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. In Israel, there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce; only Orthodox rabbis can legalize a union or its dissolution, which is only possible with the husband’s full consent. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Viviane Amsalem has been applying for a divorce for three years but her religiously devout husband Elisha (Simon Abkarian), continually refuses. His cold intransigence, Viviane’s determination to fight for her freedom, and the ambiguous role of the rabbinical judges shape a procedure where tragedy vies with absurdity and everything is brought out into the open for judgment.

Winner of the Israeli Film Academy Ophir Award for Best Picture and propelled by the craft of Ronit Elkabetz (Late Marriage, The Band's Visit), one of Israeli cinema’s most acclaimed actresses, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem is an uncompromising, heart-rending portrait of a woman’s struggle to overcome an unmoving patriarchy and live a life of her own design.

“Gripping cinema from start to finish … assured, streamlined and bold”
~ Manohla Dargis, The New York Times

"Almost all of the film takes place inside a courtroom, at irregular intervals over five years, but there is no sense of drag or slump; on the contrary, the action quivers with tension, impatience, comic heat, and, beneath it all, an irrepressible rage."
~ Anthony Lane, New Yorker

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