Paradise Cruise (2013)

Yossi (Oz Zehavi) is a 24-year-old man who has recently been discharged from an elite unit that operated mainly in the occupied territories. He carries a scar in his soul from an encounter involving his unit in Ramallah, where he and his friend Rani (Gil Desiano Biton) were attacked. Yossi is left wounded beside a poster showing a boat with the words “Paradise Cruise” on it (hence the film’s title). Exhausted, he sees a Palestinian photographer named Khaled (Kais Nashif) approach and start taking pictures of him, despite Yossi’s request that he stop. Yossi shoots and kills him. Rani arrives, takes the camera, and runs Yossi out of there. For a moment, Yossi’s eyes meet those of Khaled’s girlfriend, Catherine (Wahina Giocante), who arrives and witnesses the death of her beloved. Catherine returns to France, then comes to Israel under the name Dora, a photographer who focuses on taking close-up portraits of soldiers at military funerals. Her hidden goal is to find the soldier who killed Khaled. She meets Kobi (Oded Leopold), who tells her that he serves in the occupied territories. She shows him a photo of Khaled, but he does not recognize him. When Kobi starts getting closer to her, she drives him away at gunpoint. Binder (Eli Altunio), a friend of Yossi’s with left-wing views, decides to leave the country. Yossi works on road construction with Rani and Omar (Johnny Arbid). Dora meets Yossi, and the two begin an affair. She does not tell him why she came to Israel, and he does not tell her about the incident in which Khaled was killed. Rani is killed in an encounter in the occupied territories, and his mother, Adina (Shlomit Trigger-Hagoel), invites Yossi over and gives him a camera she found among her son’s belongings—the camera belonged to Khaled. Yossi and Dora go out to the Dead Sea and swim naked. When Dora finds Khaled’s camera among Yossi’s belongings, she realizes she has found the man she has been looking for for so long. But her love for him keeps her from hurting him, and she decides to flee back to France immediately. Yossi is left with a photograph of Khaled bearing a phone number, which he uses to find Khaled’s home address. Omar reluctantly agrees to take him to Ramallah. Yossi meets Khaled’s father (Salim Daw), who tells him about his son’s death and says that his girlfriend’s real name is Catherine. Yossi and Omar quickly leave, as Yossi experiences flashbacks to the incident that continues to haunt him.