Saint Clara () is a 1996 Israeli film directed by Ari Folman and Ori Sivan with a screenplay by Folman based on the novel The Ideas of Saint Clara by Pavel Kohout. The film takes place in 1999 in a small Israeli town, in which a young girl called Clara Chanov (Lucy Dubinchik) discovers that she has paranormal powers that allow her to predict the future.
The film was selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 69th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.
Plot
The film opens with Eddie Tikel and "Rozy" Rosenthal running towards their classroom in the Golda School just a few moments before Headmaster Tissona and Zvi Munitz, the classroom's homeroom teacher, arrive with the math results: the entire class got a perfect 100% on their test. After sarcastically "praising" the class, Munitz and Tissona proceed to denounce this as "an act of rebellion" and that the ringleader confess his or her action. As each of their classmates begin to be called up, Tikel and Rozy decide to take pills to help them avoid the interrogation. Elinor Galash, a math prodigy, is singled out as the person who helped solve the questions in the exam, though Tissona doesn't punish her and offers her sympathy. Next to be interrogated is Rozy, whom he attempts to plant the seed of doubt by falsely hinting that Rozy will be sold out, but when asked who blackmailed Elinor into solving the answers of the test, he is met by silence. Next up is Tikel, to whom Tissona tells him about a dream he had with Édith Piaf, then about an experience about his youth with a love interest, in an attempt to get him to confess to his "pathetic act of rebellion". Tikel, however, denies that he organised the act. Eventually, Galit Biron helps track Munitz and Tissona down to Clara Chanov, who almost immediately reveals that she gave the numbers of the test to the kids, and also that she had "an idea" as to which numbers would be given on the test, revealing that she has clairvoyance.
The next morning, Tikel and Rozy attempt to burn Galit Biron alive in retaliation for telling Munitz and Tissona about Clara. Galit, however, reveals that instead of the Sports period that day, they will have another math test, and that Clara told her about it. Tikel asks Clara about it, and she gives them 5 numbers from the book. As expected, Tissona and Munitz attempt to do a raffle pop-quiz to see if the last test was a fluke; Elinor Galash picks the 5 numbers from the book, as Clara predicted: 99, 404, 111, 890, and 1000. After the entire class finishes the quiz, Tikel is accosted about it by Tissona, who begins to suspect that he and Rozy are taking pills to avoid talking to the school authorities. After school, Tikel, Rozy, and Liby, a friend of theirs, talk about the events, and that Clara is too smart to guess the numbers of the test twice. As they walk away from the school grounds, the anarchist friends resolve to "do something real heavy that will put [them] in the country's history books." As they go their separate ways, Rozy tells Liby that Tikel is in love with Clara, and (erroneously) that Tikel might be a double agent for Tissona.
Later that afternoon, Munitz and Tissona go to Clara's house, and attempt to disprove that Clara has clairvoyance. Clara's family, however, insist that she is, even in the face of Munitz's scepticism. However, Clara and Tissona call the meeting short, as Clara has a vision: the kids' action, as revealed, was to hang the statue of school namesake Golda Meir in their homeroom classroom and set it on fire, something Clara, as her family is implied to be devotees of Golda Meir, takes as a deep insult. Tissona, now convinced that Clara does have clairvoyance, proclaims that she and him will lead the revolution that Tissona had been actually expecting for years, and warns her not to fall in love, for if she does, she stands to lose her powers.