Phobics

Menahem Lang, an actor with an extraordinary singing voice, returns to Bnei Brak, the city in Israel where he grew up and a center of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Now in his 30s, Lang left the city at 20, following years of rape and sexual abuse by elder, devout family men in the community. Yet, Lang was far from being an isolated case: his conversations with other abused young men document a cycle of sexual predators and tormented lives.

They had a fleeting vision one night during the filming of Mr. Beautiful. One of them told Selim Nassib in Arabic that she had walked from Gaza to become a transsexual in Tel Aviv. I called her La Belle de Gaza. With my camera, I looked for her everywhere.