Gila Who Walks Alone — Avigail Gutfeld

I’m a scenic and spatial designer creating concept-driven, emotionally resonant environments through poetic, interdisciplinary, and research-led design. My process is rooted in close collaboration and sensitivity to narrative across formats.

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GILA WHO WALKS ALONE

[Year]: 2021

[Location]: Jerusalem

[Medium]: Film

[Director]: Yuval Shapira

[Film Synopsis]

A group of girls freeze in place—they’re playing statues. Gila, the eldest, watches over her younger siblings in their crowded Orthodox home. But her stillness holds a quiet longing. A date with a deaf-blind man and a nighttime walk to the tomb of Rachel the Matriarch mark her quiet steps toward something of her own.

[Design]

This design approach begins in stillness—a quiet resistance formed within tightly controlled spaces. The beehive geometry of Ramot Polin and the walled passage to Rachel’s Tomb mirror Gila’s confined world: ritualistic, airless, and shaped by control. I designed from within that tension—grids, barriers, and textures that both reflect and heighten the conflict. As the day unfolds, surreal disruptions emerge: time loosens, boundaries blur, like the fish that thrashes in a bathtub. In these moments, the film makes space for Gila’s quiet revolt—not through spectacle, but through presence reclaimed.