The plumber rings twice

In 1992, Matti Caspi took part in a 20-minute short film by Paula Zimmerman, a third-year student in the Film Studies department at Tel Aviv University. The screenplay was written by Orly Liberman and Natan Brand. Alongside Caspi, who plays a plumber, the film also features students from Beit Zvi and students from the university’s film department.

The plot is comedic: in one apartment, three roommates live happily together, while in the other lives a married couple. The two apartments are separated by a shared wall. In the bathroom, a water pipe common to both apartments bursts. The plumber, Matti Caspi, is called in to stop the flooding. Indifferently, he declares that the repair will take two weeks and cost 1,200 shekels. Amid this chaos, an unusual relationship begins to take shape, as the woman fantasizes about the body of one of the roommates in the neighboring apartment. Gradually, the fantasy becomes reality, and a passionate affair develops between the two. As part of the repair, Caspi drills a huge hole in the shared wall—and concludes this farce by sealing it up again.

The film’s budget, shot over six days, was five thousand dollars, funded out of the director’s own pocket. Matti Caspi participated voluntarily. Tel Aviv University contributed 300 dollars. The film can be rented from The Third Ear.