Director Yuval Shani says he hid behind a macho persona to fit in after enduring years of bullying; his debut feature, 'Youthful Grace,' reimagines the vulnerable, feminine boy he once was as the film's strongest characterWhen director and screenwriter Yuval Shani was a handsome teenager in Jerusalem in the early 1990s, he decorated his bedroom walls with posters of Maccabi Haifa, the reigning champion team, and one of its stars, Tal Banin.“I knew the entire lineup by heart,” Shani says with a laugh. “I would fake an interest in soccer just so I could talk about players with the boys in class. I went all in. I even went to matches, I knew statistics, I really worked at it. Even today I can recite the entire Maccabi Haifa lineup from the 1993-94 championship season, when they went unbeaten.”GalleryWhen director and screenwriter Yuval Shani was a handsome teenager in Jerusalem in the early 1990s, he decorated his bedroom walls with posters of Maccabi Haifa (Photo: Bing Basit)But you were from Jerusalem.
“Everyone supported Maccabi Haifa back then and I wanted what everyone wanted. In reality I felt a lack, like I wasn’t masculine enough, not the man I was supposed to be. So I constantly tried to be a man and imitate masculine behavior. I tried to be someone I wasn’t in order to survive and belong. I played soccer and was a goalkeeper. People always say Jerusalem belongs to everyone, but I never felt it belonged to me in any way. I felt I couldn’t become what was expected of me. I tried to imitate masculine behavior and always failed. I couldn’t become that man.”Despite Shani’s efforts to be like everyone else and “be a man,” he quickly became a target of bullying and abuse.“People always say bullies rely on physical strength, but that’s not true. Their real power is identifying weakness. They spotted my weakness immediately. They marked me. They saw me before I saw myself. They called me ‘transvestite’ before I even knew what it meant. The first time I heard that word was in sixth grade on a soccer field. It followed me throughout my childhood. Wherever I went, I felt identified.”Did you get beaten up?
