Anyone doubting the transformative power of art, take note. Israeli filmmaker Eran Riklis (Zaytoun, The Syrian Bride) is in familiar territory with his newest film, Dancing Arabs, which tells the semi-autobiographical tale of Eyad, a Palestinian-Israeli youth who wins a scholarship to a prestigious Jewish school in Jerusalem. There, Eyad struggles with his Arab identity while growing close to a Jewish schoolmate suffering from muscular dystrophy and closer still, hormonally speaking, to a beautiful student whose prosperous family would prefer to beat her suitor with a stick.

On first blush, the great achievement here is in imbuing an edgier-than-average period coming-of-age tale—the first Gulf War is a backdrop to some early scenes—with so much warmth and entertainment value.

Riklis, calling the Georgia Straight from Toronto, notes that he had no trouble securing financing for the project.

“It’s based on a very popular book, and [screenwriter] Sayed Kashua is a very popular writer in Israel, so that’s one thing,” the filmmaker explains. “He manages to write about Arab issues and yet the Jews love him because he’s funny and accessible. And then my record is such that I’m known for dealing with complicated issues, yet my films are normally quite popular because I think they come from a place where it’s not about the politics.”

That said, Dancing Arabs, opening Friday (May 15), makes a clear statement about Arab-Israeli tensions. In the film’s most electrifying scene—which comes with one of the best and most unexpected payoffs we’re likely to see this year—Eyad schools his humanities teacher on the subtle racism he detects in even the finest of the region’s literature and arts.

“If I was teaching this scene, I’d say this is a perfect match between writing, performance, and execution,” states Riklis, who cops to being rightfully proud of the results on-screen. He also acknowledges that actor Tawfeek Barhom’s magnetism as Eyad is largely responsible for the success of the film, which has been enthusiastically received by both Jews and Arabs back home.

“It’s very difficult to hate Eyad. It’s very difficult to resist him. It’s very difficult to resist what’s happening in the story,” Riklis says. “The extremists, this is not a fight they could pick.”

Not that they didn’t try. Dancing Arabs ended up receiving perhaps its greatest tribute from one of its own cast members, a young extra who taunts Eyad with an anti-Muslim song at one point. “The actor who played the guy who sings this song is actually a local kid from Jerusalem who’s very much like that in reality,” Riklis says. “And he saw the film in Jerusalem, at the premiere, and he wrote to me. A text message. I remember it was 6 o’clock in the morning. He wrote to me: ‘Eran, you know I don’t like Arabs, and you know that I’m a hardliner, I’m a right-winger, but I wanted to write to you to say that yesterday I saw the movie and I cried for two hours. So I want to say thank you to you.’

“And I felt, ‘Wow, that’s the whole point.’ ”