(L-R) Amber Fares and Noam Shuster Eliassi attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Coexistence, My Ass! at the Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
By Shelby Shaw
I forgot my piece of paper of all the people I'm supposed to call up, so hopefully I remember everyone, director Amber Fares admits to the audience at the January 26 post-premiere Q&A for her documentary, Coexistence, My Ass! First of all, Noam Shuster Eliassi, she says, and the crowd roars with applause as Eliassi makes her way to the stage.
Amber fucking Fares, Eliassi replies into the mic after they hug. The crowd's enthusiasm does not let up for either of these women.
Eliassi is the subject of Fares' film, premiering in the World Cinema Documentary Competition at the 2025 Sundance Film Festival. Let's begin with my ass, Eliassi says when starting one of her stand-up routines in Coexistence, My Ass!. The film uses a blend of documentary crew footage of Eliassi's one-woman show of the same title, personal diaristic videos by Eliassi, and news clips in which she speaks about politics and/or comedy, both of which are the fields where she's been making her name and spreading her messages for peace. There is nothing radical about demanding equality between Jews and Arabs! she says in the film; later, she remarks, The road to coexistence is not paved with oppression. Throughout, Eliassi wields humor to encourage a different, honest, and objective conversation about peace and equality between Israelis and Palestinians. Sometimes she gets laughs from her audience, sometimes she is just getting their attention.
Born to an Iranian Jewish mother and a Romanian Jewish father, Eliassi was raised in Oasis of Peace, a half-Jewish half-Arab community of Israelis who want equality between their peoples and all peoples. Progressive and provocative as an alternative education and cultural hub, Oasis of Peace drew attention from the likes of Hillary Clinton and Jane Fonda, who have visited the village in the past. At 15, Eliassi went on a speaking tour about peace; at 21, she got a full scholarship to Brandeis University as a peace activist; and at 25, she met the Dalai Lama. Eliassi has been engaged in politics and working toward peace for most of her life.
Now, Fares stands onstage surrounded by a large number of her filmmaking colleagues who helped Coexistence come into existence. She explains the genesis of the project to the post-premiere audience: After meeting Eliassi in 2013, when she was working for the U.N. and Fares was working on her film Speed Sisters, they hit it off and kept in touch, with Fares watching Eliassi's use of social media trend toward comedy as the years passed.
I wasn't sure she was funny, Fares says, of when Eliassi visited her in Brooklyn one weekend and invited her to see the Coexistence, My Ass! show, which Eliassi had been performing at Harvard. Fares went to Boston the following weekend to see the stand-up routine. It led her from a general interest in Eliassi's humor to making a film about the performer's move from a political background to comedy.
Thank God I came to New York that weekend, Eliassi jokes.
I'm going to say something that is a bit of a clich , but it's true, says Eliassi. When Amber and I met and I made the decision that that's the woman, we're embarking on this journey, I'm going to commit to this, she's going to document me - I felt something very, very strong in my gut. Beforehand, an Israeli cisgender male - like a heterosexual, heteronormative how-boring-is-that male - wanted to make a film about me. And something didn't feel right.
Fares' film Speed Sisters had been a big influence on Eliassi, and the comedian considers the director someone whom she's been a fan of, but also a friend to, for a long time. She was the right collaborator for Eliassi to partner with.
Trusting Fares let Eliassi open up within her commitment to the project - almost too much. Boy, did I commit to being exposed on-camera, Eliassi continues. It didn't make it into the film, but I froze my eggs, basically took the film into my ovaries. And one time I had a colonoscopy, I thought of calling [the film crew]. I thought, maybe I'll just tell the doctor to send them the footage or something. It's Coexistence, My Ass! right?
The night, however humorous, did not ignore the gravity of the politics that Eliassi's comedy is targeting. Fighting back tears, Eliassi thanks her collaborators, namely her editor, Rabab Haj Yahya, and Fares, who committed to working on the film in spite of the atrocities of war going on. There were so many moments in the past year where I was realizing, Eliassi begins, pausing to catch her breath, that they're making this film about me while watching Israel practice so much horror and violence on their people. But we stayed together because we need to not give in to the very powerful forces that are trying to silence us. We have to voice a voice of resistance to what is happening. We just have to.
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(L-R) Amber Fares and Noam Shuster Eliassi attend the 2025 Sundance Film Festival premiere of Coexistence, My Ass! at the Egyptian Theatre on January 26, 2025, in Park City, UT. (Photo by Andrew H. Walker/Shutterstock for Sundance Film Festival)
