About three years ago, Miri Krichli (20) came to a lecture on behalf of the school she attended in Or Yehuda, without knowing that she was actually auditioning for a television series. During her short years, the young girl was exposed to a dark and scary world: a father who was in and out of prison for crimes of blackmail, throwing a grenade, gray market, regular visits to the prison and also policemen who come home new in the mornings at odd hours and turn him over. Her mother is a kindergarten teacher who worked hard to provide for her two daughters, while dealing with legal expenses and struggling to get her husband released on bail. It was not a picnic.
“A lecture was held and in the city they asked for students to come to it. I didn’t know why and I wasn’t supposed to be there, but one of the students broke up and I asked to go in his place. At school they objected, I made a mess, I insisted, I brought my mother and they let me,” says Krichli. “I am hyperactive. For a while they gave me Ritalin but I became a kind of plant, I was like a mummy, so I stopped. Chewing gum helped me. I came to the lecture, chewed gum and made noise. The lecturer told me to throw the gum away, I told him that his lecture was boring anyway, I threw the chair and left.”
“The Good City” | Photo: Ohad Romano, HOT
Of course, the story didn’t end there: “Outside I met Eliran Elia, it turned out that he came with two bands and told me that he was looking for me for the series he was working on. Despite my dream from the age of 13 to be an actress, the poses I made in front of the mirror and even going in secret to auditions, at the end of which I always got an answer “Negative, when the offer came, I thought what’s up with me because with me, when something good comes along, I let it go,” Krichli shares. “But Eliran insisted and told me ‘trust me’. I came to auditions introverted but he believed in me and didn’t give up on me and I couldn’t let him down. Then the corona virus started and for a whole year I didn’t know what was going on and after that I was informed that I was accepted. I made a dream come true.”
These days the drama series “The Good City” is broadcast on “Hot” (Thursdays at 20:15 atHOT3, HOT VOD and inNext TV) – The plot takes place in the periphery, and the actor Oz Zahavi plays Adam, who educates a challenging class of at-risk boys who also avoids his sexual orientation along the way. The young people who play the students of the class are not professional actors but play the difficult and complex reality of their lives. Miri Krichli is one of these young women and has a significant role in the series, which was created, written and directed by Eliran Elia and is based on his life story. Among the actors in the series are also Tiki Dayan, Imri Biton, Agam Bohbot, Lirit Belvan and Ilanit Levy.
Oz Zahavi in ”The Good City” | Photo: Ohad Romano, HOT
What was the most powerful moment for you in the process?
“We had a workshop with Maggie Ezerzer. She asked that everyone write their life story and make a scene out of it, but apart from the story of father and the prison, I had nothing to say and my father has a weakness for me, because if a hair falls from his head, I could die. It’s hard for me to get into it because it meant going back a few years to the situation that broke up our family and ruined my childhood. I started writing page after page and I shed tears and I didn’t know whether to write the truth or a lie because not everyone is sensitive to the world I lived in. After all, not everyone knows policemen knocking on the door early in the morning and a door being broken, to this day this whole issue is traumatic for me. In the end I wrote the truth. Participating in the series is the corrective experience of my life.”
“I had the privilege of playing alongside professional actors, who were not condescending and did not act snobbishly”
Is the story you tell in the series the story of your life?
“One by one. They didn’t change anything. In last week’s scene, for example, they saw me sitting with friends and someone offered me vodka. I told him, ‘Let go of me, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, and I have to go home, my mother is waiting for me and I can’t go back It’s late. This is my life.”
Miri Krichli. The story of her life Photo: HOT relations
So we can conclude that you are the best girl.
“I have always been religious, today I keep a touch and get stronger.”
How does she summarize the experience of participating in the series?
“I’m still completely in the clouds. A central role in the series is something I dared to dream about since I was 13 when my father was in prison and I was no longer afraid that he would say no to me. I had many concerns because my father is very primitive, but I have now fulfilled my dream. I played myself and those around me told me You can see that I’m authentic and don’t have to make an effort. I hope it’s just a stop on the way. We finished filming and I’m already feeling homesick, I got to play alongside professional actors, who didn’t condescend and didn’t behave snobbishly, during the filming we felt like one big family. Last week I was with a friend and someone who was At home he pointed at me and said, ‘This is the one from the good city,’ isn’t it? I was excited.”
What are you doing these days?
“I serve in the National Service as a medical secretary and am learning the profession. I really wanted to enlist as a regular soldier, but from my father’s point of view it was out of the question. He didn’t want me to be in the company of men and my mother said that if anything, National Service, it would be better if I did something that would give me a profession. I’m graduating The service at the end of September.”
“The Good City” | Photo: Ohad Romano, HOT
She was born and raised in a religious home in Or Yehuda, the eldest of two daughters. Her parents have been separated since she was 12, living in separate homes but not officially divorced. “I’m a combination of Moroccan-Tripolitan and Georgian. Beautiful? Beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” she says, “I’m satisfied with my appearance but I have a little sag because of my weight. I was thinner, so now I’m not at a level that I’m satisfied with and the issue of weight is a bit unsettling to me.”
“I’m glad that today he is rehabilitated. Father sees me as if he sees God”
Krichli’s mother, Natalie, is a kindergarten teacher. Her father, Alik Krichli, was a criminal known to the police who became famous, among other things, in the “Pomegranate Tree” case, in which he was accused with a group of other criminals of extortion by force and threats, conspiracy to commit a crime and other crimes. “Dad spent several times in prison, four or five years in total. Many people will not justify me, but I am proud of my father from beginning to end. Not for his actions, but he knows he was wrong and he expresses remorse and my love for him is unconditional and without limits and in all situation, I will be behind him,” says Krichli honestly.
You didn’t go through any stage of anger towards your father?
“No. I love him more than anyone in the world. We have an extraordinary connection, a connection on a crazy level, of course I talked to him that this is not life for me and for mother, and he said I was right. I’m glad that today he is rehabilitated. Father sees me as if he sees God, there is We have ten conversations a day, have you eaten, drank, where are you and what are you doing. He is 42 today, mother is 41, he lives a minute from our house. They are separated but I don’t see mother going out with another man. I will not let a foreign man who is not Father, he will set foot in our house and she won’t allow it either. A man is a man, but until they are divorced I am not ready to see a relationship between them.”
Miri’s father, Alik Krichli, told us: “Miri loves me and I love her twice as much. She is my life and I don’t want to let her down anymore. I saw the series and it pinches my heart. Even though she’s been through hard things I’m proud of who she’s grown to be. Not every child who grows up on a certain planet follows a different path. When I look back, I know that I have many mistakes, but it is important for me to be a normative father and to serve as an example for my daughters. Miri received an education in values, even though her father was in prison, I always tried not to bring the crap into the house. Today I live calmly, I have a cafe, I think about the rest of my life. Miri’s mother and I are in the process of divorcing, I think I will start a family again one day. I believe Miri will be successful in whatever she chooses to do. For me, my Miri is an angel and she will always remain my life teacher.”
On the question of how her childhood years passed, she says that “there are people who live a normal life without knocking on the door, for me to this day the knocking on the door is a trauma, I have never been woken up by an alarm clock, only by the police. I remember my pregnant mother, with a headscarf, so far away From Dad’s world, sitting and folding the clothes again, after another search that turned our house upside down. I grew up with Dad in prison, my sister, who is seven years younger than me, didn’t understand. When we went to visit him, we told her we were going to visit Dad at work. In the end, she understood. Every child understands what a policeman is. I’m glad there are only two of us, even though dad wanted a son. I wouldn’t want anyone else to experience what I experienced and have a scar like I have.”
The Good City I Photo: From the Good City courtesy of HOT
Krichli does not remember family meals and also remembers that there were children who stayed away from her. She changed schools several times, including a school in Rishon Lezion, far from home, because she did not get along with the setting. ,I was a problematic student,” she says, “There is not a 40-minute class that went smoothly for me and there is hardly a day that my mother was not invited to school. The teachers were always looking for me. I graduated from Beit Eckstein High School in Or Yehuda including matriculation (it is a school for those with normal intelligence with attention and concentration problems and learning disabilities – DBA). My poor mother. She took several buses from Or Yehuda to the Zalmon base in the south to bring me home.”
What could you have done to get kicked out?
“We were in order and instead of saying “yes, the commander”, I said, “yes, the retarded one”. I blurted out, but the truth is that she really annoyed me, she was just a year above me and was constantly throwing orders. Do you think she will tell me what to do?”
As someone who keeps coming, aren’t you afraid that it will limit you as an actress?
“I won’t have such a thing as a kiss scene, it’s really a shame, and no revealing clothes. Lack of religious actresses? It’s true that it greatly reduces all kinds of possible scenes for me, but I believe that God will compensate me and take me as far as possible without touching and without being exposed.”
Have you had a boyfriend before?
“Not yet. I’m waiting for one.”
Will he come in a match?
“I don’t have to. A match is four or five meetings and a wedding and I want to know more deeply who I’m going to share my life with. You can also meet someone at the grocery store, what should be mine will be mine. How will he arrive? God will decide. I went to Oman and asked him Two requests: pairing and one more request.”
What was the second request?
“To finally pass a test. I’ve already failed 21 tests, but I’m not giving up. Soon I’ll take test number 22. I drive perfectly, but because of the pressure from the examiner I fail every time, so I asked God to help.”
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