Israeli Film Update

August 3, 2007 at 8:10 pm | In Art & Cinema | Send to a friend

Today we clipped some Hollywood

Fests applaud new Israeli directors
Diverse stories sell globally
By ALI JAAFAR

LONDON — Gobbling up prizes on the fest circuit, Israeli films have hit a new level of maturity.
At Cannes, Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen picked up the Camera d’Or for first film with “Jellyfish” while Eran Kolirin won the Jury Coup de Coeur in Un Certain Regard for “The Band’s Visit.” Berlin saw Joseph Cedar take home the director gong for “Beaufort”; at Tribeca, David Volach won narrative feature for “My Father My Lord”; and Shemi Zarhin won the best screenplay prize at Shanghai for “Aviva, My Love.” This year’s Sundance also saw Dror Shaul win the Grand Jury Prize for “Sweet Mud.”

This has been a banner year for Israeli cinema in other ways, too, with international co-productions up and Israeli auds flocking to see films from their own country. While the resurgence of Israeli filmmaking is self-evident, more difficult to categorize is Israeli cinema itself.

This year’s box office champ is Cedar’s “Beaufort,” an account of Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000 after 18 years of occupation. Pic has garnered more than 300,000 admissions, beating out the likes of “Spider-Man 3.” On the other hand, last year’s biggest hit, “Aviva, My Love,” which also sold better than 300,000 tickets, tells the story of a hardworking cook who dreams of becoming a writer.

Unlike Romanian cinema, for example, which has similarly won a clutch of fest awards recently and shares a certain stripped-down verite aesthetic, Israeli films are proving more noteworthy for their diversity of subject matter and themes.

“From a filmmaker’s point of view, what’s happened in the last couple of years has really improved the quality and created a dynamic film environment,” Cedar says.

“Filmmakers have to make much better films to get attention. More films are being made with more ambition. The immediate result is that more talented people are coming into the industry,” Cedar says, adding, “Just look at ‘Jellyfish.’ Etgar Keret is one of Israel’s most-loved fiction writers. I think he and his wife Shira Geffen made the film because they saw something amazing was going on right now.”

Sometimes ambition has manifested itself in filmmakers having the confidence to tell more personal, intimate stories rather than the overbearing political tracts that categorized a lot of Israeli filmmaking in the 1980s.

“There was a tradition of Israeli films that tried to tell the big narrative of the whole country in the ’80s. You’d have one character who was a soldier, a Palestinian, a Holocaust survivor. There’d be a representative of each part of society,” says Keret. “More people now are not trying to make overt political statements but are just trying to show a piece of life.”

That Israeli filmmakers seem to have achieved a better understanding of themselves and their country is playing a big part in their films resonating beyond the country’s borders.

“We shouldn’t pretend even for a minute that we’re a part of Europe or America,” says Shemi Zarhin. “Israel, for me, is a part of the Middle East. You can hear it in the accent, the language, in the food, the temperature and the climate. That’s why the conflict between the Israelis and the Arabs is so tragic. My family came to Israel from Algeria 200 years ago. My characters are like my mother, my brother. It reflects itself in my films.”

Another major factor seems to be the number of young or first-time helmers getting the opportunity to make features. In addition to the husband-and-wife team behind “Jellyfish,” David Volach made his feature debut with “My Father, My Lord,” while “The Band’s Visit” and “Sweet Mud” were the sophomore efforts of Eran Kolirin and Dror Shaul, respectively.

Many of these helmers got their training in TV in the 1990s following the introduction of commercial and cable TV. Prior to that, there had been only one state-run channel. The new nets needed to fill their skeds with hours of homegrown content, and even though many of the skeins were low-budget telenovelas and sudsers, they allowed the new generation of filmmakers to hone their skills.

“We went from 30 hours of drama a week to more than 300,” says Israeli Film Fund topper Katriel Schory. “All our scriptwriters and directors had an outlet after years of frustration. It also meant that Israeli audiences got used to watching dramas, love stories and relationships in Hebrew. I’m absolutely convinced that this had a big influence on Israeli cinema.”

Ultimately, though, it seems the old adage of success breeding success has never been truer.

“There are a lot of Israeli hits now,” Zarhin says. “It means Israeli audiences love Israeli films, which makes Israeli producers more confident in themselves and more enthusiastic to make more and more films.”
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And for some background on new and exciting film makers…

Next generation of Israeli filmmakers
Six who are taking local cinema into a new era

Joseph Cedar
Cedar has made a habit of helming thought-provoking pics that stir up boffo B.O. in Israel. Born in New York in 1968, he and his family moved to an Orthodox religious community in Israel when he was 6. The former paratrooper, who studied film at New York U., earned big box office and an Oscar foreign-language nom for his debut feature “Time of Favour” in 2000. “Beaufort,” his take on the Israeli army’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000, is the biggest-grossing pic at the Israeli box office this year; it’s also earned Cedar a director award at Berlin. He is working on a musical biopic of Shlomo Carlebach, otherwise known as the Singing Rabbi.

Eran Kolirin

Kolirin’s debut, “The Band’s Visit,” about a traveling Egyptian music troupe that becomes stranded in a remote Israeli village, is precisely the type of film that tries to bring audiences together. The 34-year-old Kolirin, who remembers spending much of his childhood watching Egyptian films on Israeli TV with his grandmother, has confessed that his dream would be for his pic to play in the Cairo Film Fest. While politics may prevent that from happening, the idealistic helmer can at least content himself with his Coup du Coeur award at Cannes as well as a U.S. distribution deal with Sony Picture Classics that may be the richest ever for an Israeli film.

Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen

Husband-and-wife team Keret and Geffen may just be the golden couple of Israeli cinema right now. Born in Tel Aviv in 1967, Keret is arguably the most popular writer among Israeli youth today, while the 34-year-old Geffen is among Israel’s most accomplished theater directors. Their debut feature, “Jellyfish,” about three women winding their way through modern-day Tel Aviv, picked up the prestigious Camera d’Or at this year’s Cannes. Keret is currently working on a book of short stories centered on a child who performs with a traveling vaudeville show.

David Volach

Volach’s life story could become a film in itself. Born in Israel in 1970, Volach was brought up, together with his 19 siblings, in an ultra-Orthodox family in the Haredic community in Jerusalem, one of the most Orthodox Jewish communities in the country. In his late teens, he studied in the Ponevezh yeshiva, one of the most famous Talmudic yeshivas in Israel. He left his religious community at the age of 25, became secular and moved to Tel Aviv, where he took up filmmaking courses. His debut feature “My Father My Lord” — shot over eight days for less than $300,000 — has picked up gongs at Tribeca and Taormina and tells the powerful story of, fittingly enough, an aging rabbi and his wife.

Shemi Zarhin

Born and raised in Tiberias, multihyphenate is a graduate of the film and television department at Tel Aviv U. He teaches filmmaking and scriptwriting courses at the Sam Spiegel School in Jerusalem. “Aviva My Love,” his fourth feature as director and writer, was the biggest film at the Israeli box office last year, garnering more than 300,000 admissions and beating out sequels to both “Pirates of the Caribbean” and “Harry Potter” for the top spot. “Aviva” won the Wolgin Award for best Israeli feature at the Jerusalem Film Fest last year as well as the best screenplay award at Shanghai, China’s only A-list fest.

Dror Shaul

The 36-year-old Shaul was already a successful commercials helmer in Israel before he turned his hand to features in 2003 with “Sima the Witch.” His third feature, “Sweet Mud,” a coming-of-age tale about life on an Israeli kibbutz in the 1970s, is indicative of a new wave of Israeli helmers seeking to distance themselves from overt politics. Pic took home the Glass Bear Award at Berlin as well as the Grand Jury Prize at Sundance.