Raised in an Arab city in Israel, at 16 Eyad gets into a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. As the first and only Arab to be admitted there, he is soon the victim of bullying by his peers. His only two friends are Aisha, whom he meets in secret to keep them both out of trouble from their parents, and Yonathan, who is handicapped and lives with his single mother Edna. Eventually Eyad is forced to confront the realities that stand between him and the others.

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In the wake of the beautiful Lemon Tree, Israeli director Eran Riklis continues to explore the traumas of his country with false lightness and a delicate hand that is quite real. Adapted from two novels by Sayed Kashua, Dancing Arabs and Second Person Singular, A Borrowed Identity is a harsh but very sensitive portrait of a country that breaks its peoples’ hearts, destroying their heritage and their future. Through this extraordinary story that is almost a fable, the movie presents a gallery of magnificent characters who come to life with astonishingly few words – Yonathan’s mother, played by the excellent Yaël Abecassis. Eran Riklis himself calls it a movie that is both happy and tragic, and this divide shows the importance of this filmmaker.