Film
JIFF: 'Wet Dog'

Wed, 23.02.2022 -
Sun, 03.04.2022
Melbourne, Sydney, Perth, Canberra, Brisbane & Southport

Solheil is 16 when he and his Jewish-Iranian family move to Wedding, one of Berlin’s multicultural, predominantly Muslim, neighbourhoods.

He quickly makes friends with the youths from Husseyn's gang. When he wears his Star of David necklace in the supermarket, he is insulted by two Arab youths and chased away. Wary, and yet still eager to fit in, Solheil hides his Judaism. 

At night, he joins Husseyn’s gang in graffiti adventures and petty crimes; he quickly changes the way he speaks, adopting the street slang, roams around the neighbourhood with the gang and becomes a sprayer. His tags are cool, with "King Star" is his pseudonym. His status in the gang grows and everyone calls him their brother. During the day, he flirts with cool girl Selma. However, when the gang decide to rob his parents store – the local Jew-lery, as they call it - he is forced to embrace who he is and where he comes from.



Directed by Damir Lukacevic, the film is loosely based on the provocative autobiography by German-Israelian author, Arye Sharuz Shalicar „Ein nasser Hund ist besser als ein trockener Jude“ – ‘A Wet Dog is better than a Dry Jew’.  Croatian-born German filmmaker Lukacevic transposes Shalicar’s 1990s-set memoir to the present day, driving home the point that bigotry and the impulse to conform are dismayingly perennial.

The film ‘Wet Dog’ raises important questions of cultural diversity and religious identity, and considers in depth the challenges of friendship and finding your place in an ever changing and confusing world.