Coexistence, My Ass! (2025)

Screening as part of Doc Edge 2026

Noam Shuster Eliassi grew up the literal poster child for the Israeli-Palestinian peace process before making a hard pivot to stand-up comedy and political satire. Raised in a bilingual Israeli-Palestinian village — the only intentionally integrated community in the country — Noam grows disillusioned with traditional peace activism. As the region sinks deeper into devastating violence, she must meet the moment by challenging her audiences with hard truths that are no laughing matter.

There are documentaries that signal their intentions from the start, and then there are films like Coexistence, My Ass! that lure you in with humour before revealing the depth of the wound underneath. What begins as a lively portrait of a comedian navigating identity, politics, and performance gradually transforms into something far heavier. The shift is so stark that it feels like watching two different films stitched together, one playful and one devastating, both orbiting the same person who refuses to look away from the truth.

The early stretch is deceptively light. Noam Shuster‑Eliassi steps onto stages with a kind of restless charm, using comedy as a tool to poke at contradictions she grew up surrounded by. Her childhood in a community built on the idea that Israelis and Palestinians could live together shaped her worldview long before she ever held a microphone. She carries that upbringing into her routines, blending political critique with absurdity, leaning into the contradictions of being raised in a place designed to prove coexistence was possible.

These early scenes feel almost cosy. We see her backstage, rehearsing, laughing with friends, navigating the small anxieties of performance. The film moves through her early ambitions, her time in international diplomacy, her viral satire, and her growing prominence as a comedian who refuses to soften her politics. The tone is warm, observational, and occasionally mischievous. It feels like a biography with a comedic edge, a portrait of someone who uses humour to make difficult truths easier to swallow.

The visual style in this first half is uneven, but in a way that suits the material. Polished footage sits beside grainy phone recordings, archival clips, and handheld shots. The inconsistency creates a scrapbook effect, as if the film is piecing together fragments of Noam’s life from whatever sources exist. It is not always elegant, but it is emotionally effective. The roughness adds texture, grounding the film in lived experience rather than polished mythmaking.

Gradually, the tone begins to shift. The humour remains, but the weight behind it becomes more visible. Noam’s comedy is built on pain, and the film begins to reveal how much that pain has accumulated. She faces relentless backlash from people who accuse her of betrayal, who insist she cares more about Palestinians than her own community, who treat empathy as treason. The emotional toll of this hostility becomes clearer with each scene. Her routines start to feel less like performances and more like acts of endurance.

The film shows her engaging with protesters who refuse to connect their fears about authoritarianism with the ongoing destruction of Palestinian communities. She tries to explain the link between occupation and the political crisis unfolding around them, only to be dismissed. These moments are uncomfortable, not because of confrontation, but because of the refusal to listen. The film captures the frustration of trying to articulate a simple truth to people determined not to hear it.

The structure becomes more fragmented as the political situation intensifies. Comedy sets are intercut with protests, personal reflections, video diaries, and chaotic on‑the‑ground footage. The constant switching can feel disorienting, but the disorientation mirrors the world Noam is navigating. The humour becomes a pressure valve. The political footage becomes a wound. The rhythm of laughter and despair reflects the way she uses comedy to survive the unbearable.

Then the rupture arrives.

The film reaches October 7, and everything changes. The tone collapses. The documentary shifts from a lively biography into a soul‑crushing account of war, grief, and political collapse. The attack, the deaths, the hostages, and the devastation that follows are not presented as abstract events. They are shown through Noam’s eyes, through her messages, her conversations, her heartbreak, and her refusal to abandon her principles even as the world around her fractures.

She receives messages demanding she condemn Hamas immediately. She watches friends and family shift their politics overnight. She sees people who once supported Palestinian rights suddenly retreat into fear and nationalism. She is grieving, frightened, furious, and still unwilling to abandon her clarity. Her routines after the attack are hollowed out, her voice steady but her eyes carrying the weight of everything she has lost.

The film becomes heavier with each scene. The humour remains, but it is no longer playful. It is a coping mechanism. Audiences at her shows shift from laughter to tears. Her stage becomes a space where collective anguish gathers. The emotional intensity is overwhelming, and the film does not shy away from it.

The visual inconsistency becomes more pronounced in this final stretch. Some scenes are crisp and cinematic. Others are grainy, chaotic, or dimly lit. The unevenness can be distracting, but it also heightens the rawness. The film feels like it is being assembled in real time, as events unfold faster than the camera can keep up. The roughness becomes part of the experience, reflecting the instability of the moment.

What emerges is a portrait of a woman who refuses to abandon empathy, even when empathy becomes dangerous. Noam’s insistence on treating Palestinians as human beings is framed not as a political stance, but as a moral baseline. She contextualises the reality that condemning terrorism does not absolve an occupying force from responsibility. Her clarity is unwavering, even as she faces personal loss, public hostility, and political upheaval.

The final scenes are devastating. Noam stands on stage, exhausted but resolute, insisting that coexistence requires equality, and that equality has never been offered. Her message is simple, painful, and historically grounded: coexistence cannot exist between oppressor and oppressed. The film ends not with hope, but with clarity.

Coexistence, My Ass! is an intriguing, emotionally volatile documentary that begins with charm and ends with heartbreak. It is messy, uneven, visually inconsistent, and structurally chaotic. But it is also deeply human, politically urgent, and impossible to forget. It starts as a lighthearted biography and transforms into a soul‑crushing account of war, grief, and moral courage. It is not tidy. It is not polished. It is not easy. But it is honest.

Screening as part of Doc Edge 2026. Check out the films and screenings here

Review written by Alex Moulton