The Transnational and the Transformative: Haim Tabakman’s Tu n’aimeras point and the Shifting Profle of French Cinema in the Twenty-frst Century JOE HARDWICK Abstract The transnational in French cinema has largely been examined in terms of the industry’s relation to Hollywood. This article, through a reading of the French-Israeli coproduction Tu n’aimeras point (2009) by Haim Tabakman, will ask what the transnational means when Hollywood is not in the frame. Three kinds of “trans” will be discussed. The frst is how the transnational is read in writing on French cinema. The second is translation: how the flm travels to reach a wider audience. The third is the transformative. Eyes Wide Open recounts several months in the life of Aaron, a kosher butcher whose life in transformed when he welcomes the outsider Ezri as his apprentice. In reading Tabakman’s flm in relation to transnational genres, it will be argued that the flm can teach us something about the French transnational through the themes it explores: stagnation and mobility, hospitality and hostility. In many ways, a paper on Haim Tabakman’s Tu n’aimeras point (2009) should not fgure in an academic journal devoted to French and Francophone literature and culture. One might ask what exactly is French about a flm entirely in Hebrew, directed by an Israeli, featuring an Israeli cast, set in the ultra-orthodox community of Jerusalem and which represented Israel at the 2009 Cannes Film Festival. Yet a brief internet search shows that Tabakman’s flm is most often described as a French-Israeli-German coproduction, if not as a French-Israeli or French flm. 1 Tu n’aimeras point shows that French cinema is, indeed, on the move, and one thing that French cinema is no longer necessarily is cinema in French. However, it was only just over twenty years ago, at the time of the 1993 GATT 1 For example, the flm is described as: “un flm germano-franco-israélien” by Wikipédia (https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tu_n’aimeras_point); as “Français, Israélien, Allemand” by Allociné (http://www.allocine.fr/flm/fcheflm_gen_cflm=145886.html); and as French by IMDB (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1424327/). AJFS 54.1 2017 DOI:10.3828/AJFS.2017.07