Rahel Streiff and her son Alva.
Rahel Streiff and Ohad Milstein met at a pet dog park in Tel Aviv. She’s Swiss and he’s Israeli. They fell in enjoy and a few months later Rahel became pregnant. The couple were delighted and their joy increased once throughout the 10th week of pregnancy they were told they were having twins. Points changed in week 23, and Streiff described it in her diary.
“Little peanut, this is the hardest time of my life. Last Thursday, we went to take a schedule check, and rather fast it became clear that something was not pretty right,” she wrote.
“The doctor explained to us that if one twin dies, it could have actually fatal consequences for the others twin since an imbalance in the blood tension is created, which sets off vessels to be damaged, especially in the brain, leading to significant brain damage. The specialists in the hospital unanimously recommended us to have actually an abortion once feasible since the risk of having a baby along with a handicap is so high.”
Ohad and Rahel’s fraught quest has actually been recorded by Milstein in his documentary “Week 23,” very first screened at the Docaviv film festival. It will certainly be shown Wednesday on the Yes Docu satellite channel and will certainly later be screened at movie theaters across the country.
Milstein is a respected documentary filmmaker, yet this is the very first time he has actually recorded his own life. His earlier movies consist of “Obsession” (2008), which features people plagued by obsessions, “Systema” (2010), which documents Israel’s Olympic synchronized-swimming team, and “Planets” (2014), which shows people going with to live on the margins of society.
As in every one of Milstein’s movies, the visual aspects in “Week 23” are aesthetically pleasing. The artistic quality and cinematographic motifs are reminiscent of director Paolo Sorrentino and photographer Luca Bigazzi’s 2015 film “Youth.” An additional common theme is that a few of the plot takes place in Switzerland, along with water a visual backdrop.
Milstein recorded Rahel and your man falling in love, not merely the pregnancy. “I didn’t already know where it would certainly lead, then we found out we had identical twins,” he says. “I come from a background of art as well as film, and the tip of identical twins sounded love a great concept for making art.”
Ohad Milstein and Rahel Streiff, Jaffa, June 2016.Moti Milrod
Unaccepting Israelis
Milstein says there’s a disconnect between “parents’ gut feelings and female intuition, on the one hand, and medical procedures that don’t leave room for this. Moreover, Israeli society is wary of outliers. If you have actually an unborn kid that could not be 100 percent okay and you hope to have actually it anyway, that’s considered off the charts. Being weak and imperfect is shameful in Israel.”
Streiff says that throughout the pregnancy she had the feeling the fetus was healthy.
‘Little peanut, this is the hardest time of my life.’ Youtube
“I knew it, yet the doctors kept telling me I was wrong. That earned me doubt myself, and because there’s no method of measuring maternal intuition and there’s one for measuring medical knowledge, one tends to believe they’re right and you’re wrong,” she says.
“It’s necessary to already know that this isn’t an anti-abortion movie – we believe that each case need to be considered on its own merits. It is, however, a film that tries to support maternal intuition.”
In this case there was male intuition as well. There’s a dramatic moment where Milstein discovers that the doctors were wrong in calculating the size of the living fetus, and that the fetus was creating normally despite the predictions.
“once I discovered their mistake I couldn’t already know exactly how the picture they were painting was of something so distorted while the ultrasound looked fine,” Milstein says.
Water is a significant motif in Ohad Milstein’s documentary ‘Week 23.’Ohad Milstein
“So I went over the numbers, earned comparisons and discovered their mistake. They’d compared the size of the living twin’s head to the dead twin’s leg, which was obviously small, as opposed to to the living twin’s leg.”
My conversation along with the couple takes place in their Jaffa apartment. At the entrance I meet their son Alva, who’s almost 3. The tip that he may never ever have actually been born if his parents had listened to the doctors is inconceivable.
Streiff says maybe there’s a cultural difference between Europe and Israel.
“In Europe there’s A lot more dialogue along with the mother throughout the pregnancy. I’m from a family that’s connected to nature and to itself. I didn’t see several doctors once I was a kid and my mother constantly taught us to listen to our bodies,” she says.
“I’m grateful for that, otherwise I would certainly have actually been terrified of the catastrophe they described and would certainly have actually terminated the pregnancy. I felt egotistical in insisting on not having an abortion, because Ohad felt differently. He was rather scared and I believed it wasn’t reasonable for me to do that to him.”
Milstein says that if Points turned out poorly, they would certainly have actually moved to Switzerland so they could be helped by Rahel’s parents “and live in a society that’s A lot more tolerant of differences.”
One of the most difficult statements in the film is earned by Rahel’s father, Patrick Streiff, a bishop. He wonders at the intolerance of Israelis toward the handicapped.
Swiss Bishop Patrick Streiff.Ohad Milstein
He tells his daughter: “I’m rather surprised by exactly what you’re telling me. Don’t they have actually handicapped youngsters there? Don’t people there already know or can’t they see exactly how happy these youngsters can easily be, so capable of fully enjoying life?”
Great sex scene
In contrast, the readiness of Israelis to immediately abort fetuses once any type of suspicion of imperfection arises is represented by Milstein’s mother, Margherita.
She tells the couple as they’re driving somewhere: “I’d have actually an abortion at once, once I learned the fetus was deformed … It’s the simplest and easiest thing to do in such a case, in contrast to the risk of having a handicapped kid that could ruin your life and wreck everything. It can easily destroy a family, because a retarded kid will certainly constantly stay so, whatever his defect. For me, your fetus is not a living creature.”
And yet, Milstein’s mother is the only character in the film that undergoes a change. Later in the movie she cries once she sees Alva’s ultrasound images, confessing that she’s “full of guilt feelings” for abortions she had once she was younger. “It’s killing something incomplete, something so calm and peaceful,” she says tearfully.
Milstein says his mother is portrayed in an extreme light yet actually represents the consensus in Israel. “Everyone we consulted with, including family and friends, said unequivocally that they wouldn’t take the risk and would certainly have actually the abortion,” he says.
“Everyone said ‘what’s the problem? have actually an abortion and start over.’ because I don’t love to talk a lot, especially not in my movies, my mother served as my voice. She represents exactly what I thought. She went through a transformation, and so did I.”
Either way, the sex scene at the start is beautiful. “I’m afraid my parents will certainly see it, yet otherwise I have actually no problem along with it,” Streiff says. “I see this scene as the artistic portion of the movie.”
Milstein adds: “It was necessary for me to consist of this scene because it documents the event that led to every one of the rest. If there’s any type of demand to consist of a sex scene, this is it.”
Streiff, a graphic designer by profession, works as a language expert (she speaks German, French, English and Hebrew) on a Google project. Her narration in the film is a driving force.
“once I became pregnant I started writing Points my future kid could read once he grew up. I was after that surprised that there were two, so I wrote them the two regarding exactly how I felt having them inside me,” she says. “once the complications appeared, writing fulfilled a should get hold of Points out. It was my method of dealing along with every little thing that happened.”
So was it hard to read the diaries aloud?
“It was very difficult since it constantly took me spine to that situation,” Streiff says. “a few of it was rather personal and hard to share.”
As Milstein puts it, “I’m a strong director. I asked her to read it over and over until I was satisfied.”
