Directed by Ruthy Pribar
SYNOPSIS
Asia is a 2020 Israeli drama film directed by Ruthy Pribar, starring Alena Yiv and Shira Haas. The film was premiered online at the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival (due to the COVID-19 pandemic), where it won the awards for Best Actress (Shira Haas), Best Cinematography (Daniella Nowitz) as well as the Nora Ephron Prize (Ruthy Pribar).
Asia is a mother-daughter drama film. A thirty-five-year-old single mother named Asia immigrated to Jerusalem from Russia with her daughter Vika, where she works as a nurse at a hospital.
The Hebrew and Russian-language film premiered as part of the 2020 Tribeca Film Festival where it won awards for Best Actress in an International Narrative Feature (Haas), Best Cinematography (Daniella Nowitz) as well as the Nora Ephron Prize for Filmmaking (Pribar). The latter is a $25,000 prize awarded to a female writer or filmmaker “with a distinctive voice”.
The jury of the festival – including Danny Boyle and William Hurt – wrote about Haas: “Her face is a never-ending landscape in which even the tiniest expression is heartbreaking. She’s an incredibly honest and present actress who brings depth to everything she does.”
The Axelrod is proud to be the presenter of the North American Premiere of the award-winning film, ASIA.
Neil Friedman of Menemsha Films stated: “This is not only a film starring internationally acclaimed Shira Haas, but a beautifully rendered film from Israeli filmmaker Ruthy Pribar.”