In Meyer Levinson-Blount’s Butcher’s Stain, Samir (Omar Sameer) works as a butcher at a supermarket in Tel Aviv and finds himself accused of tearing down hostage posters in the break room.
Awards Buzz spoke with Levinson-Blount about the general inspiration for a very specific fictional story:
“I did work at the supermarket for a year and a half after the 7th of October events in Israel, so there was a lot of tension between the Palestinian Israelis and the Jewish Israelis within the supermarket and that was what sparked the idea for me. Obviously, there was some writing going on but it definitely was based on my experience with the trauma that happened after those events and then racism and discrimination that came out of that as a reaction. And I really wanted to tell like a human story around that, to try to touch a few different subjects in a way that people could really connect in the human sense and not necessarily feel like I’m trying to push a specific political message.”
He understands the complexity of the society he’s portraying:
“This really symbolizes what exactly is going on because you have the hostage posters and there really are hostages and you have this Palestinian that’s working at the supermarket who is suddenly accused of tearing them down, the idea of accusing a Palestinian Israeli of ripping down posters that symbolize what happened. So I think it’s really playing into those issues of what happened and then the kind of thing that happens afterwards within Israeli society, but I think it could have to do with other societies as well.”
Watch the video above to hear how he believes the film will be received and the stories he’d like to tell next.
Butcher’s Stain is on the Oscar shortlist for Best Live Action Short.
