Back to selection
“It Was More Pointedly a Satirical Look at …’The Peace-Building Industry'”: Amber Fares on her Sundance-Premiering Coexistence, My Ass!
Coexistence My Ass Amber Fares’s Sundance-premiering Coexistence, My Ass! takes its fabulous title from a one-woman show of the same name, a piece developed (at Harvard of all places) by the doc’s star, “activist-comedian” Noam Shuster Eliassi. The daughter of an Iranian Jewish mother and a Romanian Jewish father, Shuster Eliassi grew up in “Oasis of Peace” (Neve Shalom/Wahat al-Salam), a utopian community purposely comprised equally of Jews and Palestinians, where she would become “the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process” and eventually a co-director of the UN’s Interpeace organization by the time she was in her early 20s.
But then disillusionment with the impotence of institutions set in as well as her realization that, when you’re a Hebrew-Arabic-English-speaking,Mizrachi-Ashkenazi Jew often mistaken for an Arab — with a Palestinian best friend who could pass for Ashkenazi — you’re sitting on a potential comedic gold mine and perhaps a way to build bridges one punchline at a time. Until, that is, October 7th, 2023 put idealism itself to the test.
Just prior to the doc’s January 26th Sundance debut, Filmmaker caught up with Fares (Speed Sisters) to learn all about the ups and downs of a five-year, multilingual, country-hopping journey with an Israeli wisecracker raised to defend peace at all costs.
Filmmaker: You first met Noam when you lived in the West Bank for seven years while filming Speed Sisters and then started shooting with her when she moved to Boston to work on her one-woman show at Harvard back in 2019. Which made me wonder how exactly this relationship developed. Were you planning to make a doc about Noam from your first encounter at a bar in Ramallah? Did you just follow her whenever you found time between other projects (I noticed you’re also the DP on Reid Davenport’s likewise Sundance-premiering Life After)? Or was the process more intensely structured?
Fares: When I first met Noam in Ramallah, making a film about her wasn’t even on my radar. At that time she had just returned to the Middle East after spending some time abroad and was starting her career at the UN. We hung out a bit in Jerusalem, where she lived, and in Ramallah, where I was based; but shortly after I moved to New York and our paths diverged.
Then, about five years later, I met Noam at a cafe in Brooklyn in the fall of 2019. She had just moved to Harvard for a year-long fellowship, developing a comedy show called Coexistence, My Ass! The show was generally based on her life, but it was more pointedly a satirical look at what Noam calls “the peace-building industry.” I thought the premise was genius, but had no idea if Noam was actually funny enough to pull it off. We decided that it could be fun to make a short film about her experiences developing the show and following her effort to break into the US comedy world. I initially thought it would be short and we’d both move on from there.
I flew back with Noam to her home over winter break and stayed with her and her family in Oasis of Peace, the only intentional Jewish-Palestinian community in Israel, where Noam grew up. After that we had planned to meet up back in Boston on March 6, 2022. Obviously, given the pandemic, that didn’t happen. When she decided to return home I asked her to film herself whenever she could, which she did. Then she got Covid and, after a night in the hospital, was admitted to a hotel for recovering Covid patients. The hotel was full of Israelis and Palestinians, religious and secular, who were all recovering from Covid together and who seemed to be having a pretty fun time. So I asked her to introduce me to the people she was hanging out with and got them to film for me too!
It became clear that there was a much bigger story unfolding than I’d initially realized, and knew that I needed help making it. That’s when I reached out to Rachel Leah Jones (the Sundance-premiering and Emmy Award-winning Advocate), who is based in Tel Aviv and also knew Noam personally. Thankfully, Rachel agreed to join me as a creative and producing collaborator on the film. I wouldn’t have been able to make the doc without her and her partner Philppe, who shot a great deal of it.
While I traveled back to the region whenever I could — starting with the first time the borders were re-opened in 2021 and after that a couple times a year — the process was incredibly organic. It was a combination of trusting Noam to document her own experiences during the pandemic, leaning on my collaborators for their local expertise and creative insight, and seizing opportunities to film whenever I could be there in person. (Yes, I’m also the DP on Reid’s film!) What started as a simple idea for a short film evolved into something much more complex and layered.
Filmmaker: Everyone on your team is either bilingual or, like Noam, trilingual, with roots in the Middle East. Did this make for a smoother — or perhaps at times more complicated — production?
Fares: Actually, I have a basic understanding of Arabic, and spent a lot of time filming around Arabic speakers, but working in Hebrew added a new layer of complexity for me. It was challenging, especially during filming and editing, to fully grasp the nuances of conversations in a language I don’t speak. Thankfully, the multilingual nature of the team was a huge asset. Our editor, Rabab Haj Yahya (with whom I also made Speed Sisters) is fluent in Arabic, Hebrew, and English, and Rachel has good Arabic in addition to her Hebrew and English. Their ability to bridge those linguistic gaps also brought invaluable cultural insights that informed how we shaped the story. Having a team with roots in the Middle East and a deep understanding of the region definitely enriched the production. It allowed us to approach the material with a sensitivity and authenticity that might have been harder to achieve otherwise.
Filmmaker: What led to your decision to employ a cinematographer (the Tel Aviv-based DP Philippe Bellaïche) rather than shoot this film yourself? Was it a matter of needing eyes on the ground in Israel at all times?
Fares: While I’ve shot a lot of my own work, this film demanded a different approach. When the pandemic hit and Noam returned home I wasn’t able to travel to the region, so needed to find someone who was based there. Philippe Bellaïche and Rachel Leah Jones are partners in life and film so it all worked out well. We also worked a lot with one of Philippe’s former students, Amit Chachamov, who was a great addition to the team.
This collaboration was also a way to ensure continuity and authenticity in a time when travel restrictions and logistical challenges made it impossible for me to be physically present for every moment. Working with Rachel and Philippe allowed me to stay deeply involved in the creative process, while leveraging their expertise and proximity to capture the heart of the story. Again, I couldn’t have made this film without them.
Filmmaker: As a NY-based Canadian of Lebanese origin, what’s it been like to film in Israel in recent years? Have conditions, even prior to October 7, changed for foreign media makers since the Speed Sisters shoot?
Fares: When I was filming Speed Sisters we shot mainly within the West Bank. I think we had one day in Jaffa where we filmed some of the characters on the beach. So I didn’t have a lot of experience filming in Israel, to be honest. But it really wasn’t hard for me to film in Israel. I was never stopped or questioned or anything like that. I was usually with Noam or Rachel, but also wandered around with just a camera and tripod by myself. That didn’t seem to change after October 7.
I think what was more challenging for me, especially after October 7, was to see how normal life was. I was there in December 2023, and again in April 2024, and it was surreal to me that life was so normal knowing what was happening about 50 miles away. It really felt like The Zone of Interest, and I tried to portray that with the shots of the beach at the end, which I filmed in April 2024.
Filmmaker: Have Noam and her loved ones all seen the final film? What’s been the various reactions?
Fares: Yes, her parents and boyfriend, now husband, have seen the film. They all really loved it.
