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Sweet Mud Photos

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Movie Info

Dvir (Tomer Steinhof) lives on a progressive kibbutz with his older brother, Eyal, (Pini Tavger) and their mother, Miri (Ronit Yudkevitz). Miri is mentally ill, has spent time in an institution and is not particularly liked by the other members of their commune. Things get even worse when Miri invites her boyfriend (Henri Garcin), a non-Jew, to move in. Meanwhile, Dvir is busy studying for his Bar Mitzvah, which proves to be a particularly arduous task.

Genre:

drama
Original Language:

English
Director:

Dror Shaul
Writer:

Dror Shaul
Runtime:

1h 41m
Production Co:

Cinephil
Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Cast & Crew

Tomer Steinhof
Dvir

Henri Garcin
Stephan

Shai Avivi
Avraham

Gal Zaid
Shimshon

Sharon Zuckerman
Etty

Pini Tavger
Eyal

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News & Interviews for Sweet Mud

Sundance Awards: "Padre Nuestro," "Grace is Gone" Among Competition Winners

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Critic Reviews for Sweet Mud

All Critics (12) | Top Critics (4) | Fresh (10) | Rotten (2)

An appealing coming-of-age tale that takes on the difficult issues of mental illness and conformity.

June 15, 2007 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Bruce DeMara
Toronto Star
If [director] Shaul means for his indictment to have some contemporary resonance, to hint at conformist pressures in the current Israeli state, he fails to give us any of the blocks needed to build that thesis.

June 15, 2007 | Rating: 2/4 | Full Review…

Rick Groen
Globe and Mail
This is a film from the heart, from a firsthand familiarity that yields conflicted emotions over the gap between an ideal and its realization.

January 19, 2007

Kirk Honeycutt
Hollywood Reporter
A tendency toward broad novelistic storytelling... robs Sweet Mud of a focus.

September 20, 2006

Robert Koehler
Variety
The plot may sound familiar, but director/writer Dror Shaul makes it fresh with his vivid and often bitterly funny depiction of the film's setting, a kibbutz in the 1970s.

March 22, 2016 | Full Review…

Hannah Brown
Jerusalem Post
If the film is an indictment of anything it is how the collective experience of the kibbutz is at odds with family loyalties.

November 9, 2007

Daniel M. Kimmel
The Jewish Advocate
Sweet Mud holds within its delicately wrought, keenly insightful grasp, the illuminating convergence of political reality and the individual in a personal struggle to transcend the constraints of the human condition.

October 19, 2007

Prairie Miller
WBAI Radio
As the story spirals tragically away--all the more powerfully because of Dvir's part in his mother's fate--it avoids the sacrificing-mother-redeemed-by-love cliche and gains a remarkable dramatic weight and urgency.

September 20, 2007

Brian Gibson
Vue Weekly (Edmonton, Alberta)
Sad, sweet and tragic.

June 15, 2007 | Rating: 3.5/5 | Full Review…

Jim Slotek
Jam! Movies
... a richly complex tapestry of culture, idealism, love and freedom.

February 18, 2007 | Rating: 4.5/5 | Full Review…

Kim Voynar
Cinematical
Sundance Jury Award Winner: Though grounded in a particular locale, Israeli kibbutz in 1974, this disturbing coming-of-age tale also serves as an allegory about the clash between "deviant" individuals and a system that emphasizes "health" and conformity

January 28, 2007 | Rating: B+ | Full Review…

Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
Subtly directed and flawlessly acted, Sweet Mud packs a genuine punch.

January 25, 2007 | Rating: 3/4 | Full Review…

Shlomo Schwartzberg
Boxoffice Magazine

View All Critic Reviews (12)

Audience Reviews for Sweet Mud

Jun 14, 2007

A decent story of a mother and son who have a not-so-great existence in a kibbutz system. A good depiction of how sometimes the strongest communities can effectively abandon one of their own.

John B Super Reviewer