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After premiering at Cannes in May and garnering a Best Actress award for Laslo, Free Zone has played only a handful of festivals in the U.S. and has just recently secured stateside distribution. It played the Las Vegas Celebration of Jewish Film on January 15, its fifth public exhibition, according to festival organizers. It's received attention both for Portman and for being the first Israeli movie to film in Jordan.
Gitai follows two women—American Rebecca (Portman) and Israeli Hanna (Laslo)—on a rambling journey to Jordan's free zone to collect money owed to Hanna's husband. Once there, they meet Leila (Abbass). Via flashbacks and chunks of exposition, Gitai illuminates the women's pasts, although they serve more as mouthpieces for political ideology than as fully formed characters.
The film's politics are relatively nuanced and compelling, with each woman serving as a metaphor for her group's policies. The deeply allegorical ending may provoke political discussions, but as drama, Free Zone has lost its way long before then.