Hakayitz Shel Aviya (The Summer of Aviya)

Summer 1951. The state of Israel is founded. Henya and her 10-year old daughter Aviya live in a dilapidated apartment in a small town. Henya is a survivor of the holocaust; plagued by the trauma of her experiences of persecution, she spent a long time in hospita! where she was treated for her mental condition. Now, at the age of 43, she is a broken woman, psychologically unstable, who, only after all this time has learnt to fend for herself once more. She no longer sends her daughter to the day-nursery and tries to earn a living as a washerwoman. Things are particularly hard for her, because not only does she suffer from the memories of the past, but the villagers mock her, calling her "the crazy woman". Aviya wants to understand her mother; she understands that she is not well and attempts, as far as it is possible for a child of her age, to appreciate what her mother has lived through. The mother-daughter relation is full of gentle affection and involuntary injury. (pressbook)