The film HOUSES deals with our search for a true home inside us. It follows Sasha, a young woman who looks and feels more comfortable as a man, as he sets out on a journey of self-discovery, while grappling with his traumatic childhood memories of growing up in Safed.
After emigrating to Israel from the former Soviet Union in the early ‘90s, my family settled in Safed, the city that now lies at the center of the film. We moved houses three times while living there.
Over the years, the urge to share my memories from this time has evolved. The experience of a rootless 6-year-old girl, the child of immigrants, not speaking the local language, in a family that is busy building a life in a new country. These circumstances have formed me to become a person who, for most of my life, has looked back in an attempt to shed light on my formative memories.
Veronica Nicole Tetelbaum
