Written and Directed by Orit Fouks Rotem | 91 min | ▲▲▲▲△ | Carbon Arc Cinema

An Israeli-Belgian co-pro with an impressive docudrama heft — it’s shot with all the authenticity of a documentary but is entirely fictional.

Eight women — Israeli and Arab — gather to take a how-to video course but learn a lot more about each other than they expected while they photograph the details of their own lives. The film touches on the political situation in the troubled nation — you’d expect it to come up at some point — but it’s never driven by message. It’s more concerned with the restrictions in the lives of these women due to class, patriarchy, and fundamentalist religious doctrine and how they all come to understand their shared experience with both men and god.

There’s a subtlety here that impresses, and a lightness of touch. This is a film without an antagonist, unless you count the baked-in prejudice and bigotry of some of the characters. That’s addressed and acknowledged by their fellow students but as a point of discussion rather than a spark of anger. As we go along each one has a moment to share something that opens their world to the others.

Especially impressive is Dana Ivgy, who plays Rona, the instructor. Her character comes across as wise and empathetic like the best therapist you’ve ever had, which of course encourages the women to open up to her and each other. She encourages them to share more and more, and perform what feels like theatre improv based on their own experiences. But Rona’s confidence, and her ego, eventually gets her into trouble.

It may not be an entirely deep observation to notice structural parallels with Sarah Polley’s Women Talking, but there’s something similar in the vein of hope, of using kindness and creativity to imagine a better world. Both plant a bud of optimism in the final reel.