Starring Shahir Kabaha and Scandar Copti. In Arabic and Hebrew with English subtitles. Out on DVD on August 24

The entire Arab-Israeli conflict is boiled down to an interfaith crime drama in Ajami , a powerfully realistic tale shot mostly in the mixed Jaffa neighbourhood from which it takes its name and its mostly nonprofessional actors.

Nominated for a foreign-language Oscar last year, the film begins simply, and brutally, with a random-looking drive-by shooting. Turns out this is payback for offence taken by a violent Bedouin clan that now wants revenge against an Arab Muslim family.

Although this background is somewhat explained by glancing at a child’s hand-drawn comic book, things eventually settle on that kid’s older brother, Omar (Shahir Kabaha), a soulful teenager who is trying to protect his fatherless family. This gets him hooked up with a seemingly sagacious café owner (Youssef Sahwani) who specializes in collecting debtors in desperate need. Adding trouble to the mix is Omar’s budding romance with the man’s daughter (Ranin Karim). What’s wrong with that? Her family is Christian.

Also at the restaurant is a gentle lad (Ibrahim Frege) who sneaks across the border from occupied Palestine to wash dishes—but he needs to raise more money for his sick mother’s operation. And one cook is the bohemian Binj, a more assimilated Palestinian played by Scander Copti, who codirected this tough, energetic first feature with Jewish filmmaking partner Yaron Shani.

The movie makes you privy to intimate neighbourhood politics, then shifts focus to the family of a Jewish cop (Eran Naim) torn up over the mysterious disappearance of his soldier brother. The narrative is further fragmented by time shifts that eventually make you see the same events from different perspectives. And that, apparently, is the only way to grasp what the hell is going on in the Holy Land.