Eight Twenty Eight

What’s left of the ideals of the kibbutz? Former kibbutz resident Lavi Ben Gal returns with his camera and goes looking for the community feeling of old.
A close and personal poetic look at what is left of the essence of the kibbutz today. The film is made up of impressions, feelings and random conversations with old acquaintances and friends of Lavi Ben Gal, the filmmaker, who once used to live here himself. According to kibbutz regulations, at 28 each member has to decide whether to stay or leave. Lavi left but comes back with his camera. On the paths of the kibbutz he meets people who share their feelings and fears with him regarding the many uncertainties in their new lives. The kibbutz is no longer what Lavi remembers it to be. The fundamentals on which it was built have slowly been blurred in modern times. The partnership and the socialist ideas have been replaced by capitalism. The community is no longer the pumping heart feeding its limbs – everyone is on his own. Anonymity and individualism have reached the core of this communal society. Though always present in each frame, Lavi is never seen. His bodily absence is meant to increase the sense of a search for the home that lives in his longing postcards.
Eight Twenty Eight is a journey to a home one cannot leave, but to which one can never really return.

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