TAU student film wins at Mar del Plata Festival

Hadas Ben Aroya’s feature film, People That Are Not Me, created as part of her studies at TAU’s Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, has won the Golden Astor at the prestigious Mar del Plata film festival held in Argentina. The festival is the most important of its kind in Latin America and considered one of the ten most notable film festivals in the world.

The film deals with the lives of twenty-something residents of Tel Aviv, and was produced, written and starred in by the director herself. The film describes the trials of generation Y, who are lost in a vain search for intimacy that they fail to attain. The plot follows Joy, a young woman searching for her place in the local dating scene. She finds it difficult to cope with the separation from her partner, and does not let him go until she meets Nir, whose intellectual dynamism and openness inspire her. Buy Joy does not quite fall in love with NIr, and in the meantime has affairs with other men.

According to the jury, “Ben Aroya’s film is born of inner contemplation and presents the fears shared by a whole generation.” The film is a rarity in that it was produced as part of an undergraduate degree program, while competing with feature films by famous directors from around the world.

In an interview immediately after the award ceremony, Ben Aroya said, “We wanted to make a film that says something important about our generation. Winning the prize shows that what is important is being faithful to oneself and one’s beliefs and succeeding in touching the hearts of people.”

The film received support from TAU’s Blavatnik Student Film Production Fund.