18/03/2025 - Amber Fares zooms in on Jewish comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi as she unpacks her transformation from a self-deluded UN diplomat to an artist who challenges her audience

After world-premiering at Sundance and scooping the Special Jury Award for Freedom of Expression in the US gathering’s World Cinema Documentary Competition earlier this year, Amber Fares’ Coexistence, My Ass! [+see also:
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In a nutshell, Coexistence, My Ass! is a powerful documentary dramedy. In it, we follow Jewish comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi as she creates a one-woman show about the struggle for equality in Israel and Palestine, unpacking her transformation from a self-deluded young UN diplomat championing coexistence internationally to an artist who challenges her audience and her own people.

We trace Shuster-Eliassi’s emotional rollercoaster from her childhood in the idyllic village of Neve Shalom/Wahat as-Salam in the Latrun valley. Born to a Romanian Jewish father and an Iranian Jewish mother, she was raised in a community where Arabs and Israelis cohabited peacefully, embracing each other’s cultures. “We grew up to become the thing that Israel hates the most – woke, progressive leftists, [believing] in this radical idea that Israelis and Palestinians deserve the same human rights,” she jokes.

After a light-hearted, hopeful start filled with memorable puns – at a comedy festival, she greets a group of Palestinian spectators by saying, “I’m only staying for seven minutes, not for 70 years, I promise” – the film veers towards a more sombre tone, focusing particularly on events unfolding from the start of 2020.

After contracting COVID-19, Shuster-Eliassi ends up isolated in a hotel in Jerusalem, spending time with 200 people from all walks of life who are forced to live together. To some extent, she therefore relives the utopian experience of her native village. As her appearances on live TV become more frequent, she gains viral attention in the Arab media in 2022, following a performance of her song “Dubai, Dubai” in perfect Arabic on the programme Shu Esmo. The song specifically satirises the Abraham Accords and the Emirates’ normalisation of relations with Israel, among other topics.

In the background, Fares documents Shuster-Eliassi’s growing concerns as various micro- and macro-historical events unfold. These include the burning of her childhood School for Peace, the eviction of a Palestinian family by a Jewish settler, Benjamin Netanyahu’s reckless rule, massive anti-government protests, the tragedy of 7 October, the death of family friend and peace activist Vivian Silver, the shift in her own family’s stance, and the escalating war.

Dramaturgically speaking, the protagonist reaches her lowest point at the film’s conclusion. We are left with a hopeless Shuster-Eliassi, who painfully admits: “Palestinian-Israeli peace was, at best, a feel-good industry, rather than a lived reality. After being a poster child for coexistence, I said, ‘Enough!’ We forgot about the elephant in the room, which used to be occupation. Now it’s genocide.”

All in all, Fares’ tragically timely piece promises to be one of the unmissable titles of this year’s early festival season thanks to its deeply intimate, heartfelt approach.

Coexistence, My Ass! is a US-French co-production staged by Little Big Story.