Hot Docs 2025: Coexistence, My Ass Review

This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Hot Docs Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.

Comedy is an art that welcomes subversiveness. It shines a light on society as it is, challenging the status quo, allowing the room for comedians to experiment with new ideas and points of view. Israeli comedian Noam Shuster-Eliassi uses comedy as a platform to subvert zionist ideas. She grew up in a village named Oasis of Peace, where Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs would live together. Her family’s political views influenced how she grew up, and her education made her into a speaker for peace, spending her early professional years working for the United Nations. However, she found out that she could reach even more people through her comedy. Therefore, she would get on to be invited by Harvard to speak on peace-building communities, and there, she would write her show, Coexistence, My Ass. The name of that show would serve as inspiration for the latest documentary by Amber Fares (Speed Sisters) about Shuster-Eliassi .

Coexistence, My Ass follows Noam’s career shift and her subsequent rise in the comedy scene. Onstage she was raw, speaking on the contradictions of the Israeli State, informed by the clashes in her personal life and career. The timeline of the film begins months before the COVID-19 pandemic, after October 7th, 2023. This time frame allows Fares to explore and expose how Noam’s career skyrockets in Israel and the Arab world. She is part of the 1% of Israeli Jews who speak Arabic, with most using it for espionage. A crucial segment of the film features her sketches and how they mock Benjamin Netanyahu’s policies toward the Arab community, using them for voting purposes. The tone of her comedy in Israel becomes vital to understanding what is coming next with the involvement of the far-right in protecting his Prime Minister role.

Structurally, the film mixes stand-up clips and documentary footage. It is an efficient blend of artistry that propels the film and its intentions. In moments, it reminisces about Jerry Seinfeld’s excerpts from his classic sitcom Seinfeld. However, what differentiates Noam from Seinfeld is their political views; while both are Jews, Noam is anti-zionist and is better at writing comedy about politics. Notably, Seinfeld has not written new and relevant material for almost thirty years. Therefore, it is an efficacious employment and construction of storytelling. There is a context being how the name of her stand-up show came to be. Her experiences with the School of Peace, and the education center at the Oasis, led her to understand the violence of imprisonment in Gaza.

Consequently, Fares thrives in building an emotional story about Noam and her community. Meanwhile, she faces an ongoing conflict between her views and her identity. Noam knows that she is not Palestinian and does not suffer from Israel’s Apartheid policies, yet, she decides to speak out against it. Her father even believes she has a future in politics. The conflicts led by politics grow into a highly emotional third act, where audiences feel her despair and pain. Noam loses friends in the Hamas attack. Also, she sees the School of Peace raided by vandals and knows everything is changing. Accordingly, she decides to speak out against the enduring genocide in Gaza. It is a heartbreaking segment of her stand-up routine, melancholically ending the show and the film.

In the end, Coexistence, My Ass is a compelling portrayal of a young artist that decides to confront the status quo and speak out on an ongoing genocide. Director Amber Fares thrives in presenting Noam Shuster-Eliassi to the public in what would be a highly emotional journey.

Score: 80/100

*still courtesy of Hot Docs*

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Pedro Lima

Brazilian film writer. He is also a producer and executive producer for Zariah Filmes. Member of the International Film Society Critics Association (IFSCA), International Documentary Association (IDA), and Gotham and Media Film Institute.