GILA WHO WALKS ALONE
[Year]: 2021[Location]: Jerusalem[Medium]: Film[Director]: Yuval Shapira
[Film Synopsis]
A group of girls freeze in place—they’re playing statues. Gila, the eldest, watches over her younger siblings in their crowded Orthodox home. But her stillness holds a quiet longing. A date with a deaf-blind man and a nighttime walk to the tomb of Rachel the Matriarch mark her quiet steps toward something of her own.
[Design]
This design approach begins in stillness—a quiet resistance formed within tightly controlled spaces. The beehive geometry of Ramot Polin and the walled passage to Rachel’s Tomb mirror Gila’s confined world: ritualistic, airless, and shaped by control. I designed from within that tension—grids, barriers, and textures that both reflect and heighten the conflict. As the day unfolds, surreal disruptions emerge: time loosens, boundaries blur, like the fish that thrashes in a bathtub. In these moments, the film makes space for Gila’s quiet revolt—not through spectacle, but through presence reclaimed.