An Oscar nominee as best foreign-language film, Israel’s “Ajami” is a reminder that things can always – always – be worse.

Set in the predominantly-Arab neighborhood of Tel Aviv known as Ajami, the film looks at the lives of an intersecting group of Israeli Arabs. The political tensions in this always tense area are a given – but, in this case, so are the factors of crime and poverty.

In other words, a world already proscribed by life as a minority in a country wrought with conflict gets harder still when you factor in these other negative variables. (More…)