Advocate

Meet Lea Tsemel, a human rights lawyer who specializes in defending Palestinians in Israeli courts. Because she is also an activist on the political left, she has been harassed and spat on, threatened on her life, and called «extremist», «traitor», and «the devil’s advocate» – the latter seemingly without irony. This documentary traces her relentless work, with special focus on a case in which she defends a 13-year-old Palestinian boy from Jerusalem. After being accused of stabbing a man, the boy is held illegally in custody and put under extreme pressure from police, media, and the public. Through flashbacks we also learn about Tsemel’s younger years and career in an Israeli society where public debate has become extremely polarized, but where the rights of Palestinians as an occupied people are slowly recognized – at least on paper.

Advocate is a fly-on-the-wall-account of a fearless woman who has taken on the thankless task of being a watchdog. It is well-paced and empathetic, and alarming in its depiction of injustice and repression.

Cato Fossum

Read Ny Tid's review of Advocate here (in Norwegian).

Director

Rachel Leah Jones (b. 1970) is an American-Israeli documentary filmmaker. Philippe Bellaïche (b. 1967) is an award-winning French cinematographer who has worked on many films in Israel. Advocate is their first film together. It premiered at the 2019 Sundance film festival and has been screened at numerous festivals all over the world.

This film is part of