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TODAY

SCREENINGS

» Page 16

‫סרט הפתיחה‬ OPENING FILM

HERE AND NOW

| ‫כאן ועכשיו‬

THE UNORTHODOX

| ‫הבלתי רשמיים‬

‫קרן הקולנוע הישראלי מברכת את‬

2018 ‫פסטיבל הקולנוע ירושלים‬ filmfund.org.il ‫המועצה‬ ‫הישראלית‬ ‫לקולנוע‬

The Israel Film Council

RED COW

| ‫פרה אדומה‬

THE ISRAEL FILM FUND CONGRATULATES

THE JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL 2018

ECHO

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JFF gala sets tone with Malka’s The Unorthodox Chantal Akerman

Akerman and Petzold receive festival tributes

BY TOM GRATER

Chantal Akerman, who died in October 2015, will be the subject of a farewell tribute programme during this year’s festival. JFF is screening eight of the Belgian filmmaker’s features as well as several of her shorts, and will host a special event on Friday with cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, with whom Akerman had a close relationship and who will perform live during a screening of the filmmaker’s Blow Up My Town (1968). “[Chantal] was a very good friend of the festival,” says JFF artistic director Elad Samorzik.

Also in the JFF spotlight will be Christian Petzold, whose retrospective forms part of the festival’s German focus this year. Four of the director’s features will be screened, including Transit, which premiered at this year’s Berlinale, and Petzold will be in attendance at screenings on Friday and Saturday. “It’s been a dream of mine to bring him to Jerusalem. I really appreciate his work,” says Samorzik.

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

The 35th edition of the Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF) kicks off under a full moon in the Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre this evening with Israeli director Eliran Malka’s debut feature The Unorthodox, exploring the untold events leading up to the birth of the Shas political party in 1980s Jerusalem.

It marks the first time a debut feature will open JFF since its launch in 1984, and is only the sixth Israeli production to be honoured with this prestigious gala screening slot to date.

JFF’s 35th edition is kicking off two weeks later than its traditional mid-July slot this year after the management team decided to shift the dates to avoid the event clashing with the World Cup and Tisha B’Av day of remembrance. Regev reveals, however, that she and her team are now mulling whether to keep the later dates, which she believes work better for local audiences. “Traditionally, the end of July has been a busier time for cinema than the start of the festival,” says Regev. “We’ll take a decision after this edition.”

Actor Lior Ashkenazi — pictured last year with JFF festival director Noa Regev — returns to host opening night

Cinephil boards Venice Isis doc Tel Aviv-based sales company Cinephil has acquired world sales to documentary Isis, Tomorrow. The Lost Souls Of Mosul by Italian filmmakers Francesca Mannocchi and Alessio Romenzi. The production, which was announced as part of the Venice Film Festival line-up on Wednesday, follows the story of radicalised child jihadists in Iraq who remain in the country to this day, long after their deadly Isis mentors have been driven out.

“We’re always happy to open the festival with an Israeli film,” says JFF festival director Noa Regev.

“Selecting the right opening film is quite a mission because we’re looking for a film that marks cinematic achievement on one hand and on the other can appeal to different audiences. We have 5,000 people in attendance on the opening night and The Unorthodox offers a great combination — it is a very Jerusalemite film and at the same time a universal story about an individual who decides to change society without being involved in politics.”

It is co-produced by Martina Haubrich at Berlin-based Cala Film who is at JFF this year with Barbara Albert’s Mademoiselle Paradis in the Masters section and documentary Hitler’s Hollywood in the JFF Classics sidebar.

Other partners on the film include FremantleMedia Italia with Rai Cinema, in collaboration with Bayerischer Rundfunk with Arte, and Italian production house Wildside.

Melanie Goodfellow

Israeli quartet prepped for Lido

BY TOM GRATER

Four Israeli titles have been announced in the line-up of the 75th Venice Film Festival (August 29-September 8). They include two projects from director Amos Gitai: feature A Tramway In Jerusalem, a comedy road movie starring Mathieu Amalric; and short A Letter To A Friend In Gaza, which is also screening at JFF as part of a double bill with a digitally restored version of Gitai’s 1980 film House.

Israel will be represented in Venice’s Horizons section by Yaron

Shani’s Stripped (Erom). The film is the first of an upcoming trio of projects badged as ‘The Love Trilogy’ in which mostly non-professional actors were asked to live the lives of fictional characters for more than a year. Shani’s second instalment, Love Trilogy: Chained, will participate in Pitch Point’s work-in-progress programme at JFF this year.

Also in Horizons is Sameh Zoabi’s Tel Aviv On Fire, the story of a Palestinian producer working on an Israel spy romance who becomes locked in a web of intrigue.

TODAY

Whitney, page 10

FEATURES The Unorthodox Eliran Malka explores the rise of Shas in his JFF opener » Page 7

Whitney Kevin Macdonald discusses his doc on late US singer Whitney Houston » Page 10

REVIEW The Wild Pear Tree Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s latest is a sobering reflection on a fatherson relationship » Page 15

Dori Media Paran basks in limelight Israeli media giant Dori Media Paran (DMP) is out in force at JFF this year as the producer of Eliran Malka’s opening-night film The Unorthodox and Amikam Kovner and Assaf Snir’s infidelity drama Echo, which is playing in the Feature Competition section.

The strong festival presence comes only five years after the Jerusalem-based company, bestknown for its high-end drama and children’s programming that sell worldwide, moved into featurefilm production in an initiative spearheaded by CEO Yonathan Paran and seasoned producer Keren Michael.

“We started working on The Unorthodox in 2013. It was one of the first developments on the DMP features label,” says Michael of Malka’s drama.

Other features on the DMP slate include coming-of-age sea adventure The Raft with Echo co-director Kovner; Eran Kolirin’s adaptation of Palestinian writer Sayed Kashua’s 2006 novel Let It Be Morning, which will shoot in October; and supernatural thriller Singular, written by celebrity mentalist Nimrod Harel.

Further projects in development include Baskin, the latest picture from Bethlehem director Yuval Adler, based on the true story of peace activist Gershon Baskin, who helped secure the release of abducted Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit.

Melanie Goodfellow

NEWS

Pitch Point, Think Fest top packed schedule

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Around 70 top film business professionals will touch down at JFF this weekend for a busy schedule of industry events, topped by the 13th edition of Pitch Point, aimed at connecting Israeli feature projects with international partners, and the second Think Fest conference, looking at the future of film festivals worldwide.

“We’ve concentrated the industry events in the first weekend so we can combine all the industry guests in the same space,” says JFF’s new industry chief Anna Kardaszewska. “The idea is that the attendees at the Think Fest, many of who are festival programmers, can also check out the projects in Pitch Point, especially those being showcased in the rough-cut screenings that will soon be ready for the festival circuit.”

Ten upcoming feature projects will be presented in a Pitch Point meeting at the Cinematheque, which is open to the public, on Friday. Cannes habitué Shira Geffen’s Masada-set coming-of-age tale A Responsible Adult and JFF winner Avishai Sivan’s “horror, fantasy, freakshow” drama Lot’s Wife

The Gospel According To My Father

— about an evil conjoined twin who attempts to turn over a new leaf when his sibling dies — are among the new projects due to be unveiled.

Projects in post-production set to be showcased in an invitationonly Pitch Point work-in-progress screening on Saturday include Yaron Shani’s innovative drama Love Trilogy: Chained, in which non-professional actors inhabited their roles over the duration of a year; Dani Rosenberg’s bittersweet father-son tragicomedy The Gospel According To My Father; and Evgeny Ruman’s eagerly awaited third feature Golden Voices, about Russian dubbing stars struggling to make a new life in Israel.

The second edition of Think Fest will tackle a raft of contempo-

rary topics including how film festivals navigate the complicated geopolitical situation, gender equality in the #MeToo era and the rise of new formats such as virtual reality (see feature, page 9).

This year’s industry programme will also feature the oneoff ‘Meet The German Film Industry’ event on Friday, aimed at deepening the strong connections between the Israeli and German film industries.

“For many years, there has been a unique ongoing relationship between German and Israeli filmmakers and producers, proved by successful co-productions such as Ofir Raul Graizer’s The Cakemaker and Samuel Maoz’s Foxtrot,” says Kardaszewska.

Other industry events include the music-focused 3rd Character initiative, aimed at connecting Israeli filmmakers with renowned international composers, and the third edition of The Hop, Skip & A Jump, Jerusalem Film & Television Fund’s special event aimed at building an animation industry in the city, which will be attended by executives from Sony Pictures Animation, Nickelodeon and Technicolor.

Cannes stars grace Jerusalem

BY TOM GRATER

The line-up of festival guests at this year’s JFF will include Italian actor Marcello Fonte, who is jetting in for Matteo Garrone’s dark drama Dogman, in which he stars.

The film premiered in Competition at Cannes Film Festival this year, where Fonte picked up the best actor award, and plays here on July 27 and 29 (both screening in the presence of Fonte), and again on August 3.

Also attending JFF this year is the star of another Cannes Competition title, Dogu Demirkol, who leads Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s Turkish drama The Wild Pear Tree.

Ceylan’s film, about an aspiring writer who returns to his native village, plays here on July 27, 31 and August 3.

Marcello Fonte with his Cannes prize

Filmmakers heading to the festival include Rüdiger Suchsland with feature documentary Hitler’s Hollywood; Italian director Stefano Savona with animation-documentary hybrid Samouni Road; Camille Vidal-Naquet, whose Sauvage played in Cannes’ Critics Week; and Sergei Loznitsa, who will present Cannes’ Un Certain Regard inclusion Donbass, which scooped him the directing prize in

4 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

the sidebar this year, and documentary Victory Day, which played in Berlin’s 2018 Forum.

Other directors due to attend include Amos Gitai, who will present a double screening of a digital version of his 1980 work House alongside his new 35-minute short A Letter To A Friend In Gaza; Polish filmmaker Malgorzata Szumowska with her Berlin Silver Bear-winner Mug; Danish filmmaker Axel Petersen with The Real Estate; and Valeria Golino, whose Euphoria premiered in Cannes’ Un Certain Regard.

Cinématheque de Toulouse director Franck Loiret will attend a screening of the digital restoration of Henri Fescourt’s 1925 film adaptation of Victor Hugo’s Les Misérables.

Lerski With Color

Cinematheque archive unlocks its treasures

BY TOM GRATER As part of Jerusalem Cinematheque’s ongoing efforts to digitise its substantial archive, housed here in the basement (anyone who has ventured to the building’s bottom floor will recognise the vinegar smell of old celluloid), this year it opened the facility’s doors to four Israeli filmmakers, inviting them to create original shorts based on what they unearthed.

The selected quartet were Avi Nesher, Ran Tal, Moran Ifergan and the animation duo of Corrine Kitzis and Dalia Kastel. Each were asked to create 20-40 second audiovisual pieces inspired by their findings. The short films will be screened here during the festival and will be available to the general public via the archive’s soon-to-be-launched website, as well as on YouTube.

Nesher, whose films include Timebomb and The Matchmaker, chose to focus on the space where faith meets art in his short Houses Of Worship. Featuring images of people praying in synagogues and churches juxtaposed with audiences in movie theatres, the film includes a clip of a young Uri Zohar (who is the subject of JFF Documentary Competition title Zohar — The Return) and is comprised of newsreels and scenes from feature films including Raphael Nussbaum’s 1960 film Burning Sands.

Tal’s film Lerski With Color focuses on Helmar Lerski, a German-Jewish filmmaker and photographer, and includes an excerpt from the director’s 1960 work Hebrew Melody, to which Tal

has applied a unique colouring technique and updated sound.

Ifergan’s short Starting Point utilises home movies and newsreels filmed in Israel before and after independence in 1948, including from the collections of industrialist and philanthropist Fred Monson and Hannah FarkasHimsley, a PHD student who documented the people and

Houses Of Worship

landscapes of Israel in the 1940s.

The film focuses on childhood in Israel during those years.

Finally, Kitzis and Kastel have created The Swimmers In The Yarkon, an archive-animation hybrid that looks at a fleeting, seemingly marginal moment from early Israeli newsreel Yomani Moledet, which sees a family swimming for pleasure in Tel Aviv’s Yarkon river in the 1920s.

The shorts are part of an ongoing endeavour from the Israel Film Archive-Jerusalem Cinematheque to digitally restore more than 5,000 hours of audiovisual content, including rare works dating back as far as 1896.

It has been supported by the Jaglom family, Beracha Foundation, Mifal Hapais lottery, Jerusalem Development Authority, the Ministry of Jerusalem and Heritage, and Tziyunai Derech Project.

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IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE THE 2018 WINNERS 1ST FORCE OF NATURE IN FILMMAKING AWARD DIETER KOSSLICK

THE BERACHA FOUNDATION AWARDS FIRST PRIZE OF $50,000 FOR "ANATOLIAN LEOPARD” (TURKEY)

by Emre Kayis | Producer Olena Yershova

THANK YOU

THE SECOND PRIZE OF $20,000 WAS AWARDED TO

The 2018 outstanding international

“CHECKOUT” (ISRAEL)

jury chaired by Oren Moverman,

by Jonathan Dekel & Shai Satran

USA | Frederic Boyer, Joana

Producers Chilik Michaeli & Avraham Pirchi

Vicente, USA | Peter Rommel, Claas Danielsen, Germany |

“THE HEAT OF A DAY” (ISRAEL)

by Or Sinai | Producers Shlomi Elkabetz & Galit Kahlon

Georges Goldenstern, Fiorella Moretti, France | Katriel Schory, Keren Margalit, Israel

WORK IN PROGRESS AWARDS - NEW THE LAB AWARD $25,000 & ARP SELECTION $25,000 AWARD WERE BOTH AWARDED TO

To the dedicated script editors Clare Downs, Jacques Akchoti & Avi Nesher

"BORN IN JERUSALEM AND STILL ALIVE” (ISRAEL)

To our tireless scout Isabelle Fauvel

by David Ofek & Yossi Atia Producers Eitan Mansturi & Yonatan Dowek

OUR PARTNERS The Sam Spiegel Foundation

EVENTS SUPPORTERS Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Dov Baharav

Sharon Harel-Cohen

IN FOCUS ORTHODOX FILMMAKING

An orthodox

approach The secular and religious are coming together on screen at this year’s festival like never before. Melanie Goodfellow examines the rise of filmmaking that depicts religious communities and considers what it says about contemporary Israeli society

The Testament

E

liran Malka’s opening night film The Unorthodox is among a raft of pictures focused on religious characters or communities playing this year at Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF), an event that has traditionally been a bastion of the city’s secular population.

In the Israeli-focused Feature Competition, Joseph Madmony and Boaz Yehonatan Yacov’s drama Redemption stars Moshe Folkenflik as a newly Orthodox rock-band frontman battling with questions of faith after his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, while Tsivia Barkai Yacov’s coming-of-age tale Red Cow unfolds against the backdrop of a religious settlement in east Jerusalem.

In the Documentary Competition lineup, Dani Rosenberg and Yaniv Segalovich’s biographical documentary Zohar — The Return explores the career of Israel’s iconic actor Uri Zohar, who turned his back on stardom in the 1970s to become an ultra-Orthodox rabbi.

The Israeli Shorts selection includes Sali Elimelech’s Asa Turns 13 about a boy in a small religious town in southern Israel dealing with social pressures and his demanding father on the eve of his bar mitzvah.

These films and TV shows are among a growing body of work inspired by religious communities and characters to come out of Israel over the past decade. They span all for-

mats and genres, from TV dramas such as Srugim, Shtisel and more recently Malka’s Shababnikim — set in the heart of Jerusalem’s religious neighbourhoods — to features such as Amichai Greenberg’s The Testament, which premiered at the 2017 Venice Film Festival and was released in Israel in January by Gum Films; it is about an ultra-Orthodox Holocaust researcher who makes an unexpected discovery about his mother.

Diverse voices So what is the significance of this trend and what does it signal about Israeli society and the religious and secular currents running through it?

Greenberg sees it as a sign Israeli cinema is embracing voices beyond the secular one that has dominated the country’s filmography until now. “Traditionally in Israeli cinema, religious characters were stereotyped,” he says. “They weren’t created by people who were religious. Apart from [Joseph] Cedar, there were very few filmmakers who came from a religious background. Even when secular filmmakers became

6 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

Red Cow

Zohar — The Return

religious and carried on making films, their view was still one of outsiders.

“What we’re seeing today is people from the religious world making movies about religious people,” he continues.

“It’s healthy progress. It means religious characters no longer need to be extreme.

You don’t need an excuse or reason for bringing them to the big screen. They’re simply part of the filmmaker’s reality.

It’s a reflection of Israeli society and I hope we’ll see more minorities on screen, whether they’re Arab, Russian immigrant or Ethiopian, as time goes by.”

Malka echoes these sentiments: “For many years, the ultra-Orthodox world was unfairly treated. It was presented as a prison to escape from. The ultra-Orthodox formula always went something like

this, ‘Someone wants to do something that symbolises freedom, be it cook, dance, create, love... but is unable to because he is religious.’ This equation is incorrect. It’s an equation that exists in the eyes of those who from look in from outside and judge,” he says. “The ultraOrthodox story has to be told from within and with open hearts. Although I do not belong to the ultra-Orthodox world, in my eyes it is a brave and subversive world.”

Both Greenberg and Malka studied at Jerusalem’s Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts, which has been a driving force in nurturing religious filmmakers and increasing representation of their worlds on the big and small screen since its creation in 1993. Einat Kapach, director of international relations and special

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Act of faith Eliran Malka first introduced Israeli audiences to the Orthodox community with TV series Shababnikim. Now his debut feature The Unorthodox opens Jerusalem Film Festival tonight. He talks to Melanie Goodfellow

T

‘People from the religious world are making movies about religious people’ Amichai Greenberg, filmmaker

projects at the school, says she has seen a change in attitudes, within and without the religious communities with regards to their involvement in cinema: “More people from the religious communities are studying the arts. There has been a change, but the more traditional the community is the slower the change is.”

In the meantime, secular filmmakers also continue to probe the tension between the religious and secular worlds of Israel. Avi Nesher’s upcoming film The Other Story (previously titled Pilgrim), for example, explores the phenomenon of ‘hazara betshuva’ (Hebrew for ‘returning to the faith’) in which a secular person become religiously devout.

In his notes describing his new film, Nesher reveals a less positive view of the tension between the secular and religious: “Just as crucial to Israel’s future and character, if less well known, is Israel’s war with itself, the volatile internal conflict between secular and religious s Judaism,” he writes. n

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he Unorthodox by Eliran Malka is an unusual opening film for Jerusalem Film Festival in more ways than one.

Not only is it the first time a feature by a debut filmmaker has opened the festival but the drama, about the creation of Israel’s controversial ultra-Orthodox party Shas, will bring the religious world to the big screen at an event renowned for its secular atmosphere.

“The story of the birth of the Shas party has never been told, at least not like The Unorthodox tells it,” says Malka. “The Shas party began as a beautiful dream and was the result of an incredible vision. Its crash against the harsh reality of politics was inevitable and has turned it into an establishment that is very difficult to relate to and like today.”

The film marks the return of ultraOrthodox actor and performer Shuli Rand to JFF for the first time in 14 years.

He last appeared here as the star of Gidi Dar’s groundbreaking comedy Ushpizin in 2004. The first ever feature to star an all-Haredi cast, the film took the festival by storm, filling the Cinematheque with an ultra-Orthodox crowd that had never before set foot in the building.

Rand stars in The Unorthodox as the forgotten figure of Ya’akov Cohen, the owner of a printworks in the Jerusalem neighbourhood of Mekor Baruch, who

Eliran Malka

was a key player in the early days of the party that would eventually become Shas, but who has since been erased from the annals of its history.

“Ya’akov was one of the Shas founders in 1983. Surprisingly, he is not mentioned anywhere on the Shas website or in leaflets. Even if you ask current Shas people, they do not know who he was,” says Malka. “This unbelievable fact — that the man who established Shas vanished, under very strange circumstances, from its biography — is the reason I made this movie.”

Shas was created 35 years ago to champion the rights of what was then a Mizrahi and Sephardic underclass, hailing from the Middle East and North

Africa at a time when the roots of Israel’s establishment were almost entirely of European origin. Today it is one of Israel’s most controversial political parties due to its neo-conservative and religious-based political agenda. The film delves into the early days of Shas, exploring its roots as a revolutionary socialist political movement.

“When I read an interview with the 1983 Shas party founders, I realised for the first time there is a charming world behind this party that I did not know,” Malka reveals. “I felt it would be amazing to revive this world through a movie.

The Unorthodox is not only about Shas, it’s a story about politics and how beautiful and inspiring ideas come to an end in a place called politics.”

Malka has given the feature a twopart structure, with the first half capturing the events surrounding the creation of Shas in 1983, and a second part looking at its “crash against the wall of politics” in 1984.

“The Unorthodox is not about the existing Shas party — rather, it’s a trip into its history and to the events that forced its establishment 35 years ago. It talks about what I call the ‘Shas of Jerusalem’ or ‘the original Shas’,” explains the filmmaker.

“In a way, the movie is about the disassociation between the original party to its realisation today. The »

The Unorthodox

July 26, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 7

Ohad Romano

IN FOCUS ORTHODOX FILMMAKING

Shababnikim

movie is about bringing to life the ‘Mizrochnik’ world and the Jerusalem vibe that existed in the 1980s, but which has faded out since then. The research for the film was mainly based on going through pictures, archives, watching videos of demonstrations and characters from that time.” A score with an oriental feel by prolific Israeli composer Ophir Leibovitch (Foxtrot), blending traditional and contemporary music, further captures the atmosphere of the time.

Religious and secular schooling Malka, who grew up in a religious Mizrahi family in the northern Israeli city of Nahariya, moved to Jerusalem 10 years ago to attend the Ma’aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts, one of the only film schools in the world offering a curriculum and teaching environment for both religiously observant and secular students.

“Ma’aleh provided me with the freedom to create. It made me feel that I didn’t need to pretend to be someone else for four years.

I could be myself without having to dance to someone else’s tune,” says Malka. His graduation work, short film 71 Square Meters about a young man’s trip down memory lane as he visits his abandoned childhood home on the eve of its demolition, played at numerous festivals including JFF in 2010.

Malka freely admits his religious background helped in getting Rand back on set for the first time since Ushpizin, but adds the latter’s decision to take on the role went beyond that.

“After six months of auditioning a number of great actors, I still didn’t feel that I had nailed the right person for this role, since he

8 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

71 Square Meters

had to hold the entire movie. There are hardly any scenes without him,” Malka explains. “At this point I tried to reach out to Shuli through my agent, Erik Kneller, who is a mutual friend. I had very little hope that he would agree but, luckily for me, he read the script and loved it, and we met. He felt a certain warmth in the film that drew him to it.”

Rand had been waiting for a role to which he could relate. “Not only from a purely religious and Halakhic [Jewish religious laws] perspective,” says Malka, “but also from the perspective of being able to identify with the character and his world of beliefs.”

Like Ushpizin, The Unorthodox was shot in a way that respected Rand’s strict interpretation of Halakha. It was a position Malka was

‘Shuli Rand and I are religious people. Our work is based on these values’ Eliran Malka

happy to join him in. “Shuli and I are religious people,” he says. “Our work is based on these values. As a writer, I will not write scenes that I won’t feel comfortable directing. I believe that Shuli feels the same. We might have different Halakhic bars, but we had set our expectations in advance and were fully aligned.

“People sometimes ask me if I feel whether being religious limits my creation,” Malka continues. “I do not see it that way at all.

These are not restrictions to the movie, but rather the way we feel comfortable to create.

This is how I live and this is what I want to bring to the screen.”

The Unorthodox was produced by Keren Michael and Yoni Paran at Jerusalem-based Dori Media Paran, and will be released by Lev Cinemas in Israel on July 26 to coincide with the JFF premiere.

Comic timing The film comes hot on the heels of Malka’s groundbreaking TV show Shababnikim about the shenanigans of four ultra-Orthodox likely lads studying at a Jerusalem yeshiva.

The TV series’ upbeat and irreverent insight into the world of the yeshiva captured the imagination of both secular and religious audiences when it aired on Israeli cable channel Hot earlier this year.

“The idea for Shababnikim dates back to 2010,” he explains. “I started writing The Unorthodox in 2015. Five years later, they ended up coming out six months apart from each other. Although they both tell a story of ultra-Orthodox people, there is really no connection between them.

“Shababnikim is a comedy about four young, handsome and stylish yeshiva guys who want to experience the world around them. The Unorthodox is a political drama about little people who go against big systems — very different perspectives of people whose only connection is that they all keep Shabbat.”

Malka suggests the TV series appeals to a curiosity among secular audiences about Israel’s ultra-Orthodox community, which he suggests is misrepresented by the media.

“For many years, secular audiences were presented with the classic ultra-Orthodox image of a closed, segregated community with political interests only,” he says. “In recent years, these secular audiences realise there is more to this community. Deep inside, the secular community in Israel really wants to know their partners in this country.”

Religious audiences loved seeing themselves portrayed on the small screen.

“Although the ultra-Orthodox do not watch TV, they watched this series in their thousands. Perhaps for the first time they felt that Shababnikim values them and makes them feel part of the game,” suggests Malka, who is now busy writing the second season.

“Every time I meet people who’ve seen the series, I’m told that they are waiting for the s second season, so I can’t let them down.” n

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THINK FEST IN FOCUS

(From left) Beta Cinema’s Cosima Finkbeiner, Locarno’s Carlo Chatrian, moderator Wendy Mitchell and EFM’s Matthijs Wouter Knol at Think Fest 2017

Festivals in the spotlight Returning for its second edition, Think Fest 2018 — JFF’s event for film festival professionals — will explore hot topics including the role of festivals in the Netflix age, how to make diversity aims count and how to navigate the obsession with premieres. Think Fest moderator Wendy Mitchell reports

T

housands of film festivals around the world host industry events for writers, directors, producers, distributors and exhibitors, but what about the film festival organisers themselves?

Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF) started Think Fest in 2017 as a hub where festival professionals “could interact, reflect and exchange ideas”, says Elad Samorzik, artistic director of JFF. “We felt there was a vacuum for events dedicated to festival people that explore the role, challenges and constantly evolving nature of film festivals.”

Smriti Kiran, creative director of Mumbai Film Festival, will attend Think Fest for the first time this year, and she suggests working together with other festivals and sharing ideas is essential: “Working in isolation and carrying on with a spirit of competition only hampers growth and solidarity, given the precarious position that festivals exist in across the world,” she says.

Gordon Spragg, partner at PR company Wolf Consultants, which has handled international press for festivals including Berlin, Cannes, Venice, Toronto and Rotterdam, agrees: “This spirit of open collaboration is a muchneeded antidote in our fragmented and

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competitive industry, and it’s a smart move [by JFF] to provide this important opportunity for analysis and problem solving.”

Festivals are always evolving and that need for an exchange of ideas is even greater as Think Fest heads into its second edition. Last year’s pilot was “very successful”, says Samorzik. “One conclusion was that we want to create more interaction between festivals and other film industry components.”

There are some returning delegates but also plenty of new ones to keep discussions fresh. Participants include producer Cedomir Kolar; sales executives Carole Baraton of Charades and Gabor Greiner from Films Boutique; lawyer Craig Emanuel from Paul Hastings; and distributor Karin Beyens from Diaphana.

Think Fest will present three panels on the afternoon of July 27. These will explore festival strategies for filmmakers; the role of festivals in the modern world; and the changing dynamics of programming. Speakers will include Charles Tesson of Cannes Critics’ Week, Sylvain Auzou of Venice Days, Anna Purkrabkova of Karlovy Vary, Kiran of Mumbai, and Gulin Ustun of Istanbul.

On Saturday July 28, Think Fest guests

‘In the long run, I hope Think Fest will help create an official association for film festivals’ Elad Samorzik, JFF

will have more informal opportunities to network, as well as watch the works in progress of Israeli films.

Samorzik was keen to add a more filmmaker-focused panel on festival strategies to the benefit of Israeli filmmakers, as well as the international filmmakers attending JFF. Spragg of Wolf Consultants will be one speaker offering advice. “A film’s launch is a cornerstone of the business, but the subject isn’t really covered in depth in filmmaking schools, or anywhere for that matter,” he says. “Our industry relies on experience in this respect, so it’s great that experts in the field can share their knowledge with new filmmakers at Think Fest.”

Last year’s hot topics included how festivals can work with platforms such as Netflix and Amazon, the pressure to secure A-list guests, and festivals

moving into year-round distribution.

“I have a feeling we will go deeper into some of what we talked about last year, while adding more topics,” says Samorzik.

Mumbai’s Kiran hopes to have discussions on issues such as “the relevance of festivals in the time of the digital and VoD boom, diversity and inclusion as more than just concepts, censorship, and the obsession with premiere status”.

Freddy Olsson, senior programmer at Sweden’s Goteborg Film Festival — one of the returning Think Fest participants — is especially keen to discuss programming and films rather than market strategies and Netflix issues.

“It is important we have the courage to present the films we really love, even if the films are from far-away cultures, directed by unknown names and are five-hours long,” he says. “If we love these films, I’m sure they will get an audience at our festivals.”

For Samorzik, the discussions on the ground are only the beginning. “In the long run, I hope Think Fest will help create an official association for film festivals. It’s time to create our own set of rules and work to ensure a bright s future for film festivals globally.” ■

July 26, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 9

Q&A KEVIN MACDONALD

Searching for

THE ‘REAL’ WHITNEY Marley and Touching The Void director Kevin Macdonald tells Orlando Parfitt why Whitney was the most difficult documentary he has ever made

Were there any legal ramifications around what you discovered?

Dee Dee Warwick is no longer alive [she died in 2008]. There is no law of libel against the dead. I was told about the abuse by Whitney’s brother, who claimed to not know it had already happened to Whitney but as soon as I heard that from a living person I thought, “I can put this in.” When the sister-in-law says that Whitney said it happened to her too, I felt, “Why would she make it up?” Then it was confirmed by somebody else. To me then, as a documentary maker, it felt like it wasn’t speculation.

‘With Whitney it took a long time to get to the truth because everybody around her lied for 30 years’ Kevin Macdonald

Whitney Vertigo Films

How did you find out about the alleged child abuse by Dee Dee Warwick in Whitney’s past?

Quite early on when I was looking at the material, I said to the editor: “Whitney looks like someone who’s been sexually abused, she has a frigidity, she’s not sexy.”

I had no idea if that was true. Then somebody told me they had been told by her she was [abused], but they wouldn’t talk about it on camera. Then I managed to get Gary, her brother, to talk about how he was abused [by their cousin Dee Dee Warwick]. His wife Pat [Houston], Whitney’s ex-manager, then talked about how Whitney had spoken about it too. Finally, three weeks before we locked the cut, I got an interview with Whitney’s long-time assistant and great confidante, Mary [Jones], who is the one who talks about this in the film.

Stefano Baroni

Why make a film about Whitney Houston?

[Producer] Simon Chinn came to me at Sundance 2016 and asked if I was interested in doing a film about Whitney Houston. I said, “Not really, no.” Then I met Nicole David, Whitney’s former manager, who was a highly regarded talent agent. It was Nicole who really intrigued me. She was so puzzled and traumatised by what had happened to Whitney and didn’t really understand it.

It was the hardest documentary I’ve done in terms of getting the truth. It was very frustrating because I interviewed 70 people, [but only] around 40 of them are in the film because so many people just didn’t tell the truth.

Director Kevin Macdonald (right) with Whitney cinematographer Nelson Hume

How did it work being ‘the authorised biopic’?

I met with the head of her estate. We shook on it. I had final cut. They saw that to be authorised doesn’t mean they have control of everything. I would never do a film like that. It’s more them trusting me and giving me what they’ve got and giving me the music. Obviously with the finished film, there are things that are quite upsetting to the family.

My experience with doc filmmaking is that most people want to talk and get things off their chest. But with Whitney it took a long time to get to the truth

10 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

because everybody around her lied for 30 years and were so used to lying that trying to get past the pat PR answers was very difficult.

Why didn’t you interview her longtime friend and rumoured lover Robyn Crawford?

I wanted Robyn to be in the film. I think she came quite close to doing it. She’d liked some of my films and was considering it but decided not to. I did actually find documentation that proves when their relationship happened but for various reasons couldn’t put it in.

There’s a lot of historical context in the film. Why was that?

Why is it that the three great black stars of the 20th century — Whitney, Michael Jackson and Prince — all died within a few years of each other because of drugs-related issues, basically living as recluses and fuck-ups? Their families moved in the 1920s, escaping racism in the south. They were the first generation to be born free of that, so their parents had this apolitical attitude. But they came out of this incredible politics of the 1960s and ’70s… that informed their attitude to the white world.

Did Nick Broomfield’s 2017 documentary Whitney: Can I Be Me affect your project?

I haven’t seen it and I deliberately didn’t want to. I know Nick, I really like him and I like his films. It’s not a competition.

When we announced our film at Cannes two years ago, I wrote to him and said mine will be so different to yours, you’ll do your own thing and I’ll do my own thing, plus mine will be out a lot later.

Was getting a cinema release important?

I feel docs can still be a cinematic experience. We’re really pleased when we took it out to Cannes it was bought almost everywhere as a theatrical proposition.

My only proviso about doing Whitney at all was I said to [sales agent and UK distributor] Altitude, “I want it to be theatrical and not sell it to a streaming giant,” not out of any feeling of disrespect to them but because I felt this subject to be s a cinematic experience. ■ Whitney plays in Gala on July 27 (Cinematheque 1, 21:30), August 1 (Cinematheque 1, 15:30), August 3 (Yes Planet 8, 19:00)

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REVIEWS Reviews edited by Fionnuala Halligan finn.halligan@screendaily.com

What Will People Say Reviewed by Allan Hunter

Dead Souls Reviewed by Sarah Ward Starting in 1957, it took less than five years for thousands of Chinese detainees to slowly starve to death in Gobi desert gulags, all victims of the Communist party’s attempt to eradicate ideological discord (the ‘anti-rightist’ campaign). It has taken Wang Bing 13 years to compile extensive testimonies that recount their traumatic ordeal, and it takes more than eight hours for his chronicle of this little-acknowledged chapter of history to unspool.

This documentary is, necessarily, unflinchingly grim — the cinematic equivalent of walking in the survivors’ shoes — and a complex, challenging but crucial viewing experience that burrows its sorrows deep into the audience’s bones. While a shorter version of Dead Souls could easily include all the relevant details, it would not have the same near-overwhelming cumulative impact.

Canvassing more than 120 survivors but focusing on approximately a dozen subjects, primarily men, Wang dives into a climate of persecution, incarceration and statesanctioned killing. As the now-elderly interviewees recall, the 1950s regime urged party members to voice their criticisms, only to swiftly round up those who spoke out, and then condemn the outcasts to labour sites in Jiabiangou and Mingshui in the nation’s northwest. The powers-thatbe did not just insist on dispensing with the supposed 5% of dissidents within the population — they enforced that figure strictly, no matter who was caught in the fallout.

Shot by Wang with his usual naturalistic approach, the film’s subjects unburden their harrowing tales from their modest living rooms and even their beds, with sparing pans and zooms adding all the emphasis needed. While the various interviewees are distinguished by their different temperaments — all still shell-shocked, but ranging from quietly solemn to visibly angry — the writer/director reserves his own emotive flourishes for the documentary’s other inclusions. Attending a funeral service, following the return of several survivors to the site of their suffering and chatting with a farmer now living in the area, Wang’s camerawork is jerky and urgent to a subjective extreme.

The same proves true in some of the feature’s most affecting sequences: roving over the dirt of the desert and spying unearthed skeletal remains scattered across the surface (footage Wang also used in his short Traces).

12 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

MASTERS Fr-Swi. 2018. 496mins Director/screenplay/ cinematography Wang Bing Production companies Les Films d’Ici, Adok Films, Arte France Cinéma, CS Productions International sales Doc & Film International, sales@docandfilm.com Producers Serge Lalou, Camille Laemlé, Wang Bing, Louise Prince Editing Catherine Rascon

One family’s precious sense of honour exacts a brutal price from a rebellious daughter in What Will People Say. The second feature from writer/director Iram Haq, following I Am Yours (2013), is an assured piece of storytelling made all the more gripping by the knowledge that it is autobiographical. The powerful story of family conflict and a young woman’s struggle for independence is provocative, emotionally charged material handled with a maturity and confidence.

Nisha (Maria Mozhdah) is a teenage girl living in Oslo with her strict Pakistani family. At home, she is the dutiful daughter showing respect and obedience to her parents. Outside, she is a typical teenager, keen to explore and experiment with her peers. The family situation is shown as loving but suffocating, with her parents preoccupied by how others regard them.

Inevitably, the multiple deceptions and little white lies of Nisha’s double-life come crashing down. When she is caught with a boy in her bedroom, the instinct of her father Mirza (Adil Hussain) is to assume the worst despite her protestations of innocence.

Mirza’s inflexibility allied to a sense of unease fuelled

by Lorenz Dangel and Martin Pedersen’s score creates a situation in which the stomach churns with dread at what will happen next. We anticipate violence; instead, Nisha is taken to Islamabad by her father. Relatives will teach her the error of her ways, and prepare her for a life of domestic duties and motherhood rather than the career she might have desired. No matter how melodramatic the story becomes, and how much the emotions boil, What Will People Say at least tries to understand both sides of this cultural and generational divide.

Attractively photographed by Nadim Carlsen, What Will People Say makes the most of the contrast between the grey, wintry scenes in Norway and the sunlight and exoticism of Pakistan. Teenage newcomer Maria Mozhdah meets the challenge of a complex role, running the emotional gamut from despair to defence. She creates a young woman who is never a victim and maintains a spark of determination throughout everything that befalls her — human, fallible and someone who always has the viewer on her side.

IN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM Nor-Ger-Swe-Fr. 2017.

106mins Director/screenplay Iram Haq Production companies Mer Film, Rohfilm, Zentropa International Sweden, Cinéma Defacto International sales Beta Cinema, beta@ betacinema.com Producer Maria Ekerhovd Production design Ann-Kristin Talleraas, Vintee Bansal Editing Anne Osterud, Janus Billeskov Jansen Cinematography Nadim Carlsen Music Lorenz Dangel, Martin Pedersen Main Cast Maria Mozhdah, Adil Hussain, Rohit Saraf

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» Dead Souls p12 » What Will People Say p12 » Styx p13

» Lemonade p13 » Amin p14 » Lean On Pete p14

» The Wild Pear Tree p15 » Happy As Lazzaro p15

Lemonade Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou

Styx Reviewed by Ben Croll Death, and the spectre thereof, haunts Wolfgang Fischer’s Styx at nearly every point. This sobering, nearly dialogue-free drama follows a burned-out emergency medic as she seeks restorative calm on a solo yacht trip, only to find there is no escaping life’s pitiless turns.

Offering little in terms of exposition and even less when it comes to dialogue, Fischer’s sophomore effort develops character and, eventually, unsettling moral questions entirely through action.

Those moral stalemates take a while to manifest, however. After a brief, Germany-set prologue that shows the life-and-death professional routine of the protagonist (Susanne Woolf, whose character is listed in the credits as Rieke), we spend the next 30 minutes in observational remove aboard the Asa Gray, watching Rieke as she tracks a course from Gibraltar to Ascension Island.

As in Dunkirk, elemental depictions of sea, sky and survival take precedence over character beats for the first half of the film. Conflict arrives when Rieke encounters a distressed fishing trawler filled with refugees off the coast of Cape Verde. The film then eases into its more narrative second half with gradual precision, following the protagonist step-by-step as she rescues one of the boys in the water, heaves him onto her yacht and nurses him back to health.

With 14-year-old Kingsley (Gedion Oduor Wekesa) now on board, Styx enters its more pointed final third, exploring the tension between Rieke’s desire to help the young boy’s family and the uncomfortable truth that her presence might actually make matters worse. Fischer and co-writer Ika Künzel add a political component when the friendly voices the white European woman interacts with over radio — up to that point the film’s only source of dialogue — fall suddenly silent when the subject turns to saving refugee lives.

As befitting such sobering themes, the film forgoes any musical accompaniment but for a couple of mournful twangs from rock guitarist Dirk von Lowtzow that play over the end credits. Instead, the rustling wind and crashing water remain our constant companions, while cinematographer Benedict Neuenfels captures the mercurial ocean in crisp digital photography.

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IN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM Ger-Aust. 2018. 94mins Director Wolfgang Fischer Production company Schiwago Film, Amour Fou Vienna International sales Beta Cinema, beta@ betacinema.com Producers Marcos Kantis, Martin Lehwald, Michal Pokorny Screenplay Wolfgang Fischer, Ika Künzel Production design Wolfgang Fischer, Ika Künzel, Benedict Neuenfels, Volker Rehm Editing Monika Willi Cinematography Benedict Neuenfels Music Dirk von Lowtzow Main cast Susanne Wolff, Gedion Oduor Wekesa, Alexander Beyer, Inga Birkenfeld

DEBUTS

Lemonade is nothing if not topical. Its depressing tale of a Romanian woman’s attempt to obtain permanent residence in the US combines the bureaucratic nightmare faced by immigrants worldwide with a grotesque example of the male abuse of power. However, topicality alone does not make for convincing drama.

Mara (Malina Manovici) is a nurse and single mother who has come to the US on a temporary work visa, without her child. Shortly before that visa expires, she marries Daniel (Dylan Scott Smith), a former patient she has known for just five weeks. The film opens with the newly­ weds being interviewed for her green-card application.

Having been introduced through his work accident, which left him in need of dialysis, Mara and Daniel have a marriage that positively reeks of convenience: the middleaged man gets a young nurse-companion, she the ‘better life’ in the US that she craves. There appears to be little intimacy or rapport between them. None of that would matter were their relationship not under the microscope.

The pair are naively over-confident. Even before her application is concluded, Mara is full-steam ahead, flying her young son Dragos (Milan Hurduc) to join her in the US. She is inevitably heading for disappointment, though how that manifests is shocking and appalling. Exploiting the holes in her application, Mara’s predatory immigration officer, Moji (Steve Bacic), demands sexual favours for a green card. If that were not soul-destroying enough, when she informs her husband of the abuse she has just endured, he gives her a beating himself.

This may be director Ioana Uricaru’s principal theme: that after years of Romanian cinema highlighting the pervasive corruption in her country, she can report that it is no different in the land of the free. Unfortunately, that is hardly news these days. In the meantime, the dramatic impact of Mara’s experience is undermined by the calculated torrent of misfortune heaped upon her.

If the film were to have an anchor, it would be Mara herself. But the writing and Manovici’s uneasy performance have the character veering wildly between singleminded focus and stunning naiveté, nobility and her own, brutal cynicism. Like its heroine, Lemonade is ultimately unconvincing, even exasperating.

Rom-Can-Ger-Swe. 2018. 88mins Director Ioana Uricaru Production companies Mobra Films, Peripheria, 42film, Filmgate Films, Film i Väst International sales Pluto Film, info@plutofilm.de Producers Cristian Mungiu, Tudor Reu, Yanick Létourneau, Eike Goreczka, Christoph Kukula, Arne Kohlweyer, Sean Wheelan Screenplay Ioana Uricaru, Tatiana Ionascu Production design Sylvain Lemaitre Editing Mircea Olteanu Cinematography Friede Clausz Music Olivier Alary Main cast Malina Manovici, Steve Bacic, Dylan Scott Smith, Ruxandra Maniu, Goran Radakovic, Milan Hurduc

July 26, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 13

REVIEWS

Lean On Pete Reviewed by Wendy Ide

Amin Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou A work of tender humanism and stultifyingly good intentions, Amin explores the plight of people like eponymous immigrant Amin (Moustapha Mbengue) who, for various reasons, find themselves distanced from their family and loved ones. Compassionate but laboured, this is a film to file alongside the work of Ken Loach and Stéphane Brizé.

Like the best of Loach’s films, it is empathetic and socially aware; like the worst of them, it bludgeons home its plot points a little too emphatically with thudding, declamatory dialogue and wildly variable performances.

The film’s main asset is Mbengue in the central role of Amin, an immigrant labourer in France with a wife and three children back home in Senegal. He is a man of decency and dignity, but the nine long years of exile have left him hollowed out. It is a performance that exudes warmth and solidity. He is the central axis point about which the other characters gravitate.

Early scenes, during one of his rare visits back to Senegal, are impossibly poignant. Amin greets his children with a torrent of jovial banter. He cannot risk an awkward silence — that would be an admission the children who smile so shyly are virtual strangers to him. His wife Ayesha (Mareme N’Diaye) encourages the children to lobby for the family to move together to France. But Amin insists gently that it is not the promised land they believe it to be.

Back in France, Amin lives in a hostel inhabited by men from around the world. It is here the screenplay exhibits its most schematic tendencies. Several of the supporting characters seem entirely constructed to illustrate aspects of the migrant condition. There is the young man who visits prostitutes for momentary relief from the drudge of work and loneliness. And there is Moroccan worker Abdelaziz (Noureddine Benallouche), torn between two lives: his family in Morocco and his two daughters in France. Hapless Abdelaziz has the thumbprint of tragedy upon him from pretty much the first scene.

Amin’s work for divorcee Gabrielle (Emmanuelle Devos), herself estranged from her vindictive ex and struggling to maintain a connection with her daughter, leads to a tentative relationship between the two. Though pivotal to the story, their bond is curiously underpowered. But it is entirely possible that this is the intention.

They are, after all, two lonely souls flung together temporarily; two people whose hearts are elsewhere.

14 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

IN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM Fr. 2018. 91mins Director Philippe Faucon Production company Istiqlal Films International sales Pyramide International, avalentin@pyramidefilms. com Producer Olivier Pere Screenplay Philippe Faucon, Yasmina NiniFaucon, Mustapha Kharmoudi Production design Manuel Swieton Editing Sophie Mandonnet, Matilde Grosjean Cinematography Laurent Fénart Cast Moustapha Mbengue, Emmanuelle Devos, Mareme N’Diaye, Noureddine Benallouche, Moustapha Naham, Jalal Quarriwa, Fantine Harduin, Samuel Churin

A 15-year-old boy and a broken-down racehorse find themselves travelling companions in the fourth feature from Andrew Haigh, adapted from the novel by Willy Vlautin. This sparse, evocative portrait of lives of quiet desperation juxtaposed against the endless possibility of America’s wide open western vistas is a striking change after the deft intimacy of Weekend and 45 Years.

There is a wistful quality to the storytelling, which softens some of the sharper edges of tragedy and hardship in this undeniably affecting picture. It is a clear demonstration of filmmaking versatility from Haigh, although some might argue that, given his status as one of the more distinctive voices emerging in UK cinema, it is a demonstration that is perhaps unnecessary at this point in his career.

Charlie (Charlie Plummer) is a disarmingly sweet central character. Not yet hardened by the betrayals of his early life — his mother walked out on him as a child; his father struggles to put food on the table — Charlie’s dreams have been downgraded to something as inconsequential as the chance to stay at one school long enough to play on the football team. On one of his daily runs through the industrial sprawl of Portland’s suburbs, Charlie stumbles on a racetrack. There he meets unscrupulous horse owner Dell (Steve Buscemi, all hard vowels and harder drinking), who offers Charlie some casual work. In Dell, the boy finds a dysfunctional father figure, but it is in his horse, a chestnut gelding called Lean On Pete, that Charlie finds a purpose.

The bond between desperate human and animal is just one of the similarities the film has with Kelly Reichardt’s Wendy And Lucy, another being the clear-eyed insight into the hand-to-mouth existence that can topple under onetoo-many pieces of bad luck. For Charlie, this moment comes when his father falls foul of his girlfriend’s ex. To make matters worse, the horse faces an uncertain fate. On impulse, Charlie takes Dell’s truck and trailer and drives east with Lean On Pete, hoping to reconnect with his aunt.

Magnus Joenck’s cinematography makes striking use of various permutations of the boy-and-horse-silhouettedagainst-the-skyline shot. But it is in the more intimate camerawork that we find the heart of the film: in Charlie’s heartbreaking, hopeful profile; in a shot of him scrutinising his own face in a mirror to see if the horrible things he has had to do to survive have started to leave their mark.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION US-UK. 2017. 119mins Director/screenplay Andrew Haigh Production company The Bureau International sales The Bureau Sales, sales@ lebureaufilms.com Celluloid Dreams, info@ celluloid-dreams.com Producer Tristan Goligher Production design Ryan Warren Smith Editing Jonathan Alberts Cinematography Magnus Joenck Music James Edward Barker Main cast Charlie Plummer, Steve Buscemi, Chloë Sevigny, Travis Fimmel, Steve Zahn

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Happy As Lazzaro Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

The Wild Pear Tree Reviewed by Dan Fainaru Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan (Winter Sleep, Once Upon A Time In Anatolia) has never been known either for his brevity or accessibility. True to form, his latest work puts even more demands on his audience — a sobering, beautifully shot, existential confrontation between a son and his father that deals with much more than the generation gap.

Sinan (Aydin Dogu Demirkol) is a young man about to graduate from college but anxiously looking for a way out of the fate that seems to be mapped out for him: following in the paternal tracks to become a school teacher.

On a visit home, he finds out his father, Idris (Murat Cemcir), is drowning in debt due to a gambling obsession he never fully admits. Sinan’s mother, Asuman (Bennu Yildirimlar), drowns her bitterness in the endless telenovelas on Turkish TV. Passionate about becoming a writer, Sinan looks for a way to publish his first novel — but his clumsy, idealistic pitch fails to obtain any kind of sponsorship, meaning that he ultimately has to pay for the publication out of his own pocket.

As for Idris, his main concern is the country home in a nearby village where he intends to withdraw once his teaching career is over. Every single weekend he goes there, obstinately digging a well that his own bellicose father, living next door, and the rest of the villagers predict will stay dry. But despite the downbeat mood of his family, and very much unlike his son, Idris is always charming and sunny; a jolly facade to dissimulate the disappointments of a wasted life hiding behind it.

Ceylan’s script reveals a stagnating provincial world, the characters all handling their thwarted hopes and inevitable resignations in their own way. Traditional sources of inspiration (Chekhov and Dostoyevsky are among those credited) add more weight to the marathon dialogues, while the Canakkale location (near the ancient city of Troy and the far more recent First World War battle of Gallipoli) contributes a number of historical references. Performances are all admirable.

This is a very long picture, containing images that are indeed unforgettable. But faced with an ample text and subtitling in which every word counts, one cannot help but wish, every once in a while, for a chance to rewind and listen again.

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INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION Turkey-Fr. 2018. 188mins Director/editing Nuri Bilge Ceylan Production companies Zeyno Film, Memento Films Production, Detail Film, RFF International, Sisters and Brother Mitevski, 2006 Produkcija Sarajevo, Film i Väst, Chimney Pot International sales Memento Films International, sales@ memento-films.com Producer Zeynep Ozbatur Atakan Screenplay Akin Aksu, Ebru Ceylan, Nuri Bilge Ceylan Production design Meral Aktan Cinematography Gokhan Tiryaki Music Mirza Tahirovic Main cast Aydin Dogu Demirkol, Murat Cemcir, Bennu Yildirimlar, Hazar Erguclu, Serkan Keskin, Tamer Levent, Akin Aksu, Oner Erkan, Ahmet Rifat Sungar, Kubilay Tuncer, Kadir Cermik, Ozay Fecht, Ercument Balakoglu, Asena Keskinci

IN THE SPIRIT OF FREEDOM

Italian rural realism with occasional magical inflexions may have lost two of its great exponents recently with the deaths of Ermanno Olmi and Vittorio Taviani, but Alice Rohrwacher proved herself a worthy inheritor with second feature The Wonders in 2014. That film had its eccentric tendencies, but it looks like rigorous naturalism compared to the delirious brew of modernism, folktale and fabulist invention seen in Happy As Lazzaro (Lazzaro Felice), which unravels with a Pinocchio-like logic that comes across as perplexing at first, then proves spellbinding.

At first, we think we’re in familiar folkloric territory as a young man serenades his beloved in the night-time countryside, with traditional bagpipe backing. Bit by bit, however, things become less clear. We are definitely in the present day, as mobile phones, headphones and hiphop reveal, but these people are living in another era.

There are 26 inhabitants of various ages crammed into one house in a tiny village symbolically named Inviolata, all toiling to harvest tobacco for a haughty marchesa (Nicoletta Braschi) who lives in a nearby mansion. It turns out the families on her estate are essentially modern-day serfs or sharecroppers, forever in debt to their feudal exploiter, but blithely unaware of it.

Something of an outsider within the community is a gentle, childlike, otherworldly young man named Lazzaro (Adriano Tardiolo), whom everyone fondly tolerates and occasionally exploits. He ends up forming a bond with the marchesa’s spoilt, foppish son Tancredi (Tomasso Ragno), who mounts a fake kidnap plot to get back at his mother. It misfires, and baffled police round up the villagers and take them to, supposedly, a better life.

It would be a shame to reveal the audacious change of register that follows, dominating the film’s second half.

What started as eccentric, seemingly nostalgic realism shifts into a dreamlike, satirically inflected mode with echoes of Fellini’s La Strada and early Pasolini, in both its humour and its bleakness.

Shot beautifully on Super 16, Happy As Lazzaro, with its richly textured images, does feel at times like a retrieved and rather miraculous relic from a lost era of cinema. Although it is fair to say it is also very much of its own moment.

It-Fr-Ger-Switz. 2018.

126mins Director/screenplay Alice Rohrwacher Production companies Tempesta, Rai Cinema International sales The Match Factory, info@matchfactory.de Producer Carlo CrestoDina Production design Emita Frigato Editing Nelly Quettier Cinematography Hélene Louvart Music Piero Crucitti Main cast Adriano Tardiolo, Agnese Graziani, Alba Rohrwacher, Luca Chikovani, Tommaso Ragno, Sergi Lopez, Natalino Balasso, David Bennent, Nicoletta Braschi

July 26, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 15

SCREENINGS Edited by Paul Lindsell

» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press but subject to alteration.

paullindsell@gmail.com

THURSDAY JULY 26 10:30 DEAD SOULS (PART I)

(France, Switzerland) Doc & Film. 250mins.

Dir: Wang Bing.

Mandarin (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Survivors give their testimony on the Chinese labour camps, in which suspected ‘extreme rightists’ were imprisoned by Mao’s regime and left to die.

Masters Cinematheque 2

11:00 LES MISERABLES

(France) 359mins.

Dir: Henri Fescourt.

French intertitles (Hebrew subtitles).

Victor Hugo’s novel comes to life in a spectacular digital restoration of Henri Fescourt’s 1925 silent-film adaptation. The screening will be accompanied by live music performed by esteemed French pianist Jean-Francois Zygel.

JFF Classics Cinematheque 1

15:00 OUR NEW PRESIDENT

(US) Third Party Films.

78mins. Dir: Maxim Pozdorovkin. Russian, English (Hebrew, English subtitles).

The 2016 US presidential elections were far more distorted in Russia than in the US. This film reveals how Putin’s ownership of the media nurtured conspiracy theories, and audiences with an insatiable appetite for propaganda.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

16:45 DEAD SOULS (PART II)

(France, Switzerland) Doc & Film. 250mins.

Dir: Wang Bing.

Mandarin (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Masters Cinematheque 2

18:00 DJON AFRICA

(Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde) Still Moving.

THURSDAY JULY 26 20:30 THE UNORTHODOX

(Israel) 92mins.

Dir: Eliran Malka.

Hebrew, Yiddish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

When Ya’akov Cohen’s daughter is expelled from school for ethnic reasons, he decides to fight back.

It is 1983 and Ya’akov, a printer in Jerusalem, has no knowledge, no money, 95mins. Dir: Joao Miller Guerra, Filipa Reis.

Cape Verdean Creole, Portuguese (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Miguel travels to Cape Verde in search of the father he never knew. This quest turns into a bizarre odyssey.

Questions of identity and belonging are set against the magnificent landscapes of this African archipelago of volcanic islands.

Panorama Yes Planet 8

19:30 WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY

(Norway, Germany, Sweden) Beta Cinema.

106mins. Dir: Iram Haq. Norwegian, Urdu (English and Hebrew subtitles).

16 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

and loving relationship. no connections and no political experience. But he does have the will and the passion to take action, and a belief that he and other Sephardic Jews should be able to hold their heads up high. Along with two friends, he starts the first ethnic political group in Jerusalem.

Gala Sultan’s Pool

Nisha tries to obey her Pakistani-émigré parents while leading the life of a normal teenager. When Nisha’s father discovers her with a boyfriend, the two worlds collide and Nisha is taken to live in Pakistan.

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 1

20:00 AMIN

(France) Pyramide.

91mins. Dir: Philippe Faucon. French, Wolof (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Amin leaves Senegal to work in France and sends money home to keep his family afloat. On the job, he meets Gabrielle, a good-natured divorcee, and the two develop a warm

In the Spirit of Freedom Yes Planet 8

20:30 THE UNORTHODOX See box, left

21:15 THE UNORTHODOX

(Israel) 92mins. Dir: Eliran Malka. Hebrew, Yiddish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Gala Press & industry Cinematheque 2

21:45 STYX

(Germany, Austria) Beta Cinema. 94mins.

Dir: Wolfgang Fischer.

English, German (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A young European doctor decides to realise an old dream: to sail alone to the heart of the Atlantic.

But her voyage is cut short when she encounters a boat overloaded with refugees.

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 1

22:00 LEMONADE

(Romania, Canada, Germany, Sweden) Pluto Films. 88mins. Dir: Ioana Uricaru. English,

Romanian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A Romanian nurse working in the US awaits her green card. But when the process veers off course, she realises that America is not all she had hoped for.

Debuts Yes Planet 8

interviews with legendary pillars of this great institution. A celebration for lovers of opera, architecture and cinema at large.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

10:30 2001: A SPACE ODYSSEY

FRIDAY JULY 27 10:00 JOHN MCENROE: IN THE REALM OF PERFECTION

(France) Film Constellation. 95mins.

Dir: Julien Faraut. French, English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A documentary exploring the parallels between tennis and cinema.

The director combines fascinating 16mm footage featuring tennis legend John McEnroe and witty narration in a refreshing meditative polemic.

Panorama Cinematheque 3

THE OPERA HOUSE

(US) 151mins. Dir: Susan Froemke. English (Hebrew subtitles).

A fascinating chronicle of the Metropolitan Opera’s history including archival footage, recordings and

(UK, US) Warner Bros.

164mins. Dir: Stanley Kubrick. English, Russian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece follows two astronauts and a supercomputer on their journey to Jupiter. This newly restored version premiered at Cannes in celebration of its 50th anniversary.

JFF Classics Yes Planet 8

10:45 LEAN ON PETE

(UK) 121mins. Dir: Andrew Haigh. English.

(Hebrew subtitles).

Charlie, 15, gets a job at a racetrack taking care of an ageing horse named Lean On Pete. When he learns Pete is bound for slaughter, the two embark on an odyssey in search of a place to call home.

International Competition Cinematheque 1

www.screendaily.com

FURTHER JFF COVERAGE, SEE SCREENDAILY.COM

11:00

13:15

THE WILD PEAR TREE

HAPPY AS LAZZARO

(Turkey, France, Germany, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Sweden) Memento Films International. 188mins.

Dir: Nuri Bilge Ceylan.

Turkish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Sinan returns home to raise money for the publication of his first novel. But his parents’ relationship is on the rocks and his flamboyant, gambling father is deep in debt.

(Italy, Switzerland, France, Germany) The Match Factory. 125mins. Dir: Alice Rohrwacher. Italian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Lazzaro is a labourer on the Marchesa de Luna’s tobacco plantation. When her son Tancredi visits the fields, he is captivated by Lazzaro’s sincerity and kindness.

International Competition Lev Smadar

12:00

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 1

13:45 IN MY ROOM See box, below

TOKLOMATI See box, right

12:15 OBLIVION VERSES

(France, Germany, Netherlands, Chile) Urban Distribution International.

92mins. Dir: Alireza Khatami. Spanish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

When a cemetery caretaker discovers the body of a young woman, he embarks on a surreal journey in search of the circumstances of her death.

Debuts Cinematheque 2

KING BIBI

(Israel) 87mins. Dir: Dan Shadur. Hebrew (Hebrew and English subtitles).

The remarkable and controversial story of Benjamin Netanyahu’s rise to power, reflected through four decades of public appearances that changed Israel forever.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

14:30 A PARIS EDUCATION

(France) Films du Losange. 137mins.

Dir: Jean-Paul Civeyrac.

FRIDAY JULY 27 French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Moving to Paris to study film at the Sorbonne, Etienne meets other students who share his passion for cinema. They face heartbreak and moral dilemmas as they wander through the city, succumbing to their sexual desires.

International Competition Lev Smadar

THREE QUARTERS

(Bulgaria) Memento Films International.

83mins. Dir: Ilian Metev.

Bulgarian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A subtle drama about a Bulgarian family: a teenage daughter who dreams of becoming a pianist, her aggressive little brother and their distant father. Exemplary cinematic language renders the absent mother, the fourth quarter, present.

Debuts Cinematheque 2

15:45 HITLER’S HOLLYWOOD

FRIDAY JULY 27 13:45 IN MY ROOM

(Germany, Italy) The Match Factory.

119mins. Dir: Ulrich Köhler.

German, English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A rowdy 40-year-old Berlin photographer feels empty, until he awakens to discover that he is the only human being in the world.

Masters Yes Planet 8

(Germany) Wide House.

105mins. Dir: Rüdiger Suchsland. German (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Based on archival footage from German films produced between 1933 and 1945, this documentary debates the entertainment industry’s submission to Nazi demands and ponders its double role as a propaganda mouthpiece and escapist space.

JFF Classics Cinematheque 3

16:15 ECHO

(Israel) 98mins. Dir: www.screendaily.com

12:00 TOKLOMATI

(Israel) 65mins.

Dir: Shir Ben, Gad Aisen, David Ofek.

Hebrew, French (Hebrew and English subtitles).

Thirteen years after being kicked out of Israel for allegedly lying about his Amikam Kovner, Assaf Snir. Hebrew (English subtitles).

Avner suspects that his wife is cheating on him.

Secretly recording her phone conversations, he tries to discover her lover’s identity. But while searching for one thing, he discovers another. He doesn’t really know the woman he loves.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 1

age, African footballer Tony Toklomati will meet his son Idan for the first time. Idan’s mother will need to decide whether she wants to marry Tony, thereby allowing him to stay for good.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

HANNAH

(Italy, France, Belgium) TF1. 95mins. Dir: Andrea Pallaoro. French, English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Hannah escorts her husband to the prison gate and tries to stick to her routine as a way to face his crime and its consequences.

Panorama Yes Planet 8

17:30 GIRL

(South Korea) Finecut.

66mins. Dir: Hong Sangsoo. Korean (English and Hebrew subtitles).

In a remote alley in Seoul lies a cafe where guests sit and chat. As the hours pass, they mingle and get to know each other. A lone woman observes the others and records her thoughts.

(Belgium) The Match Factory. 105mins. Dir: Lukas Dhont. French, Flemish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Lara, 15, dreams of becoming a ballerina.

But the frustrations of adolescence intensify as she faces the challenges ballet imposes on the body of one born male.

Masters Cinematheque 2

Debuts Lev Smadar

GRASS

July 26, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 17

»

SCREENINGS

Jerusalem Cinematheque, 11 Hebron Road, 91083

FRIDAY JULY 27 19:30 DOGMAN

(Italy, France) Rai — Radio Televisione Italiana. 95mins. Dir: Matteo Garrone. Italian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

17:45

Marcello runs a dog boarding facility, but another job leads him into a dangerous relationship with a violent former boxer.

International Competition Lev Smadar

18:30

INFINITE FOOTBALL

BORDER

(Romania) mk2. 70mins.

Dir: Corneliu Porumboiu.

Romanian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Documentary following a man whose life is dedicated to developing an alternative version of soccer.

SHORT MATTERS II

(Sweden, Denmark) Films Boutique. 101mins.

Dir: Ali Abbassi. Swedish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A customs officer with a unique sense of smell encounters a mysterious man who resembles her.

Her special skills are compromised and she develops a strange obsession towards him.

94mins. Various languages (English subtitles).

International Competition Cinematheque 3

International Shorts Cinematheque 4

TRANSIT

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

18:00

18:15 AVA

(Iran, Canada, Qatar) Pascale Ramonda.

103mins. Dir: Sadaf Foroughi. Farsi (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Ava, a middle-class teenager in Tehran, is under strict supervision.

When she develops an intimate relationship with a boy, her mother invades Ava’s privacy and kindles a spark of rebellion.

Debuts Yes Planet 8

128mins. Dir: Stefano Savona. Arabic (English and Hebrew subtitles).

On the outskirts of Gaza, the Samouni family is about to enjoy a wedding — the first celebration since the most recent war.

The film conveys a deep, multifaceted portrait of a family before, during and after the tragic event that changed their lives forever.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

19:30 DOGMAN See box, above

20:00 SHORT MATTERS III

90mins. Various languages (English subtitles).

International Shorts Cinematheque 4

20:15

celebrated cellist Sonia Wieder-Atherton, intertwined with Chantal Akerman’s ‘Blow Up My Town’ (1968).

Chantal Akerman — Farewell Cinematheque 3

21:30 WHITNEY

(UK, US) Miramax.

120mins. Dir: Kevin Macdonald. English (Hebrew subtitles).

An intimate documentary that sheds light on the trajectory of Whitney Houston’s life.

Gala Cinematheque 1

21:45 SHORT MATTERS I

96mins. Various languages (English subtitles).

International Shorts Cinematheque 4

22:00

(Germany, France) The Match Factory. 101mins.

Dir: Christian Petzold.

German, French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A man escaping Paris on the eve of the Nazi occupation adopts a dead author’s identity. He then meets a woman looking for her husband — the very man he impersonates.

THE MISEDUCATION OF CAMERON POST

THE CHILDREN ACT

(US) Elle Driver. 90mins.

Dir: Desiree Akhavan.

English (Hebrew subtitles).

In 1993, a teenage girl is sent to a Christian boarding school to “treat” her homosexuality. There, she forges a path through pseudo-psychological clichés.

(UK) FilmNation.

105mins. Dir: Richard Eyre. English (Hebrew subtitles).

A family law magistrate is assigned a case involving a young man with an unusual outlook on life. Their meeting has immense emotional consequences.

Christian Petzold Tribute Cinematheque 1

International Competition Yes Planet 8

Gala Lev Smadar

19:15

20:45

22:15

SAMOUNI ROAD

CHANTAL?

SAUVAGE

(Italy, France) Doc & Film.

A performance by the

(France) Pyramide.

18 Screen International at Jerusalem July 26, 2018

97mins. Dir: Camille Vidal-Naquet. French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Leo is 22. He sells his body on the streets for cash. He yearns for love but cannot say what lies ahead. An authentic portrayal of a transparent character operating in feral regions we take care to repress.

Debuts Cinematheque 2

UPGRADE

(Australia) 100mins.

Dir: Leigh Whannel.

English (Hebrew subtitles).

In the near future, quadriplegic Grey volunteers for a chip implant that will restore his ability to move. As the line between human and mechanical blurs, an in-body power-struggle begins.

Gala Yes Planet 8

22:30 CLIMAX

(France) Wild Bunch.

96mins. Dir: Gaspar Noé.

French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A group of dancers meets to rehearse for three days. On the last night they throw a wild party.

When things spiral out of control, the dance floor becomes a hell on Earth.

Editorial Editor Matt Mueller, matt. mueller@screendaily.com, +44 7880 526 547 Reporters Melanie Goodfellow, melanie.goodfellow@ btinternet.com, +44 7460 470 434 Tom Grater, tom.grater@ screendaily.com, +44 7436 096 420 Reviews editor and chief film critic Fionnuala Halligan, finn. halligan@screendaily.com Features editor Louise Tutt, tuttlouise@ gmail.com Group head of production and art Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com Group art director Peter Gingell Sub editors Willemijn Barker-Benfield, Paul Lindsell, Tim Mawdsley Advertising Publishing director Nadia Romdhani, nadia.romdhani@ screendaily.com Commercial director Scott Benfold, scott. benfold@screendaily.com International sales consultants Gunter Zerbich, gunter. zerbich@screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 254 Hettie Halden, hettie. halden@screendaily.com Ingrid Hammond, ingridhammond@mac. com President, North America Nigel Daly, nigeldalymail@ gmail.com Sales and business development executive, North America Nikki Tilmouth, nikki. screeninternational@ gmail.com Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com, +44 7584 333 148 Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam Published by Media Business Insight Ltd (MBI) Zetland House, 5-25 Scrutton Street, London, EC2A 4HJ United Kingdom Subscriptions help@subscribe. screendaily.com

Masters Cinematheque 3

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GermanFilmsScreenJIFF2018.qxp_Layout 1 03.07.18 18:16 Seite 1

TRANSIT by CHRISTIAN PETZOLD © Christian Schulz / Schrammfilm

The cinema of Christian Petzold th at the 35 Jerusalem Film Festival

TRANSIT PHOENIX YELLA THE STATE I AM IN