Ajami (عجمي)
Ajami (Hebrew: עג'מי; Arabic: عجمي) is a 2009 Israeli–German ensemble crime drama co-written and co-directed by Scandar Copti, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, and Yaron Shani, a Jewish Israeli, in their feature debut. It is set in the Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa, where Jewish, Muslim, and Christian residents live side by side, and tells five interconnected, non-chronological stories of revenge, poverty, and forbidden relationships.1 • 2 The film was nominated for the 2010 Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and won the Ophir Award for Best Film in Israel.3 • 4
| Key fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Directors and writers | Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, both also editors; Copti plays the character Binj1 |
| Setting | Ajami, a mixed Arab and Jewish neighborhood of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv2 • 5 |
| Structure | Five chapters following different characters, told back and forth in time5 • 2 |
| Cast | Primarily non-professional actors from the area, plus real police officers5 • 6 |
| Language | Arabic and Hebrew1 |
| Production | Germany/Israel co-production by Twenty Twenty Vision and Inosan Productions, with ZDF and Arte; world premiere 22 May 2009 at Cannes Directors' Fortnight1 |
| Top honors | 2010 Oscar nomination, Best Foreign Language Film; 2009 Ophir Award for Best Film plus four other Ophirs; Camera d'Or special mention at Cannes3 • 4 • 7 |
| US release | Limited release 3 February 2010 through Kino International; US gross $621.2K8 |
Spoilers
The story
The film opens with a drive-by shooting in Ajami: a teenager fixing a car is shot dead by members of a Bedouin gang in an attack meant for another target, Omar (Shahir Kabaha).9 Omar is a 19-year-old Muslim who works as a kitchen aide at a restaurant owned by Abu Elias (Youssef Sahwani), a prosperous Arab Christian, and is in love with Abu Elias's daughter.5 His family is drawn into a vendetta after his uncle shoots and wounds a Bedouin extortionist. Mediation prices a life: a mediator rules that Omar's family owes the Bedouin clan US$57,000 in blood money, a sum Omar turns to crime to raise.5
The other chapters follow a cross-section of the neighborhood. Malek (Ibrahim Frege), a young Palestinian from Nablus, crosses into Israel illegally and works at Abu Elias's restaurant to raise $50,000 for his mother's bone marrow transplant.5 Binj, played by co-director Copti, is a cook from a well-off Jaffa Palestinian family who dreams of leaving Ajami to live with his Jewish girlfriend in Tel Aviv, a plan shattered when his brother becomes a suspect in the murder of a Jew.5 • 2 Dando (Eran Naim), a Jewish police detective in charge of the district, searches for his missing soldier brother; in one strand his brother is found dead in the West Bank, and he shoots a young Palestinian he should have arrested.5 • 10 The final chapter centers on Abu Elias, who learns of his daughter's relationship with Omar and tries to break it up.5
The narrative moves back and forth in time, so that events shown early are explained later and outcomes are decided before their causes appear.2 Critics noted the fragmented, multi-strand structure resembles films such as Amores Perros and Crash, and that a second viewing clarifies how the storylines connect.8
Production and method
Copti and Shani developed the screenplay over several years. Shani conceived the multi-perspective structure during his film studies at Tel Aviv University, and the script took shape after the two met in 2002 at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival.11 They cast primarily non-professional actors from the neighborhood, including residents of Ajami itself and real-life police officers, shooting in the district's actual streets, back alleys, nightclubs, and rooftops.5 • 6 According to a BBC profile, actors were not given a script but were thrown into scenarios and told to react; one woman playing a mother who lost her son to gang violence said, "I was really crying, I wasn't acting."3
The production was a Germany/Israel co-production by Twenty Twenty Vision and Inosan Productions, with ZDF – Das Kleine Fernsehspiel and Arte, supported by Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg and the World Cinema Fund, and sold internationally by The Match Factory.1 It premiered at the Cannes Film Festival's Directors' Fortnight on 22 May 2009.1 Running time is given as 120 minutes in several release materials.1 • 9
Awards and Oscar nomination
At the Ophir Awards of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television in September 2009, Ajami won the top prize for Best Picture against the Venice Golden Lion winner Lebanon, and took four additional awards: Best Director, Best Screenplay, Best Editing, and Original Music.4 In October 2009 Israel chose Ajami as its Oscar submission, the first time an Arabic-language film was selected.3 The Israel Ministry of Information lists it as the 10th Israeli film nominated for the Foreign Language Academy Award, and it was the third consecutive Israeli nominee, after Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir.12 • 13
At Cannes 2009 the film received a special mention for the Golden Camera, the festival's best-first-film award.7 Other honors include the Wolgin Award for Best Full-Length Israeli Feature at the Jerusalem Film Festival, the Golden Alexander for Best Film and a tied Best Screenplay award at the Thessaloniki Film Festival, the Grand Prix at the Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, the Sutherland First Feature Award at the London Film Festival, and the FACE Award at the Istanbul Film Festival.7 • 1 On Rotten Tomatoes the film holds a 97% Tomatometer from 68 reviews.8
Reception in Jaffa
Reactions from the neighborhood itself were mixed. Some residents told the BBC the film would ruin Ajami's reputation with its depiction of shooting and drugs, while others said it was not political enough given decades of martial law and discrimination that Jaffa's Israeli-Arabs had faced.3 Sami Abu Shahadeh, a friend of Copti's who nonetheless reviewed the film critically, argued it lacked historical context for how Ajami became a neighborhood of drugs, poverty, and crime, pointing to the upheaval of 1948, during which, he said, 97 percent of Jaffa's residents were expelled or fled.10 Abu Shahadeh also noted some backlash in the Arab community over the film being co-created by Copti with a Jewish Israeli, while poet Mohammed Jabali answered that it was "a film, not a PR campaign."10 Reviewers elsewhere emphasized the film's refusal to take sides; the Washington Post observed that although its themes of revenge and mutual resentment offered little hope of ready solutions, the movie itself testified to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.8 • 9
References
- Ajami, Twenty Twenty Vision Filmproduktion
- עג'מי (2009), Israeli Film Fund
- Israel Submits Arabic-Language Film for Oscars, Tablet Magazine (21 October 2009)
- 'Ajami' wins Israeli Academy film of the year, Ynetnews (27 September 2009)
- Ajami as Israel, by Shai Ginsburg, ZEEK (2 February 2010)
- Ajami, Kino Lorber Theatrical
- Ajami (2009) Awards, IMDb
- Ajami, Rotten Tomatoes
- Crossing paths and cultures, by Ann Hornaday, The Washington Post (18 February 2010)
- Israeli-Arab film 'Ajami' spotlights tough, gentrifying Jaffa, The Christian Science Monitor (17 February 2010)
- Ajami press book, The Match Factory
- Facts About Israel 2018: Culture – Cinema & Television, Government of Israel
- Ajami, review by Michael Fox, KQED (11 March 2010)
Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Crime, thriller, and mystery films (individual works) › 2005–2009 films › Released 2008 to 2009
Initially written Oct 3, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 15, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026
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