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TODAY

SCREENINGS

» Page 16

The Rabinovich Foundation Congratulates the attendants of the 35th Jerusalem Film Festival and the participating films produced with the support of The Rabinovich Foundation ISRAELI FEATURE FILMS

ISRAELI DOCUMENTARY FILMS The Oslo Diaries

Redemption

Directors: Mor Loushy, Daniel Sivan Producers: Hilla Medalia, Ina Fichman

Directors: Joseph Madmony Boaz Yehonatan Yacov Producers: Marek Rozenbaum Michael Rozenbaum Jonathan Rozenbaum

ISRAELI SHORT FILM COMPETITION Girl With a Fork in a World of Soup

The Dive

Director: Yotam Knispel Producers: Beit Berl College

Director: Yona Rozenkier Producers: Efrat Cohen, Kobi Mizrahi

SPECIAL SCREENING Voice Over

Working Woman

Director: Michal Aviad Producers: Ayelet Kait, Amir Harel Moshe Edery, Leon Edery

Directors: Avraham Heffner, Nir Bergman Eitan Anner, Tom Shoval, Sigalit Liphshitz Maya Kenig, Orit Fouks Rotem Producers: Gal Greenspan, Roi Kurland, Renen Schorr

The Jehoshua Rabinovich Tel-Aviv Foundation for the Arts In association with the Leon Recanati Foundation and the support of Israel Ministry of Culture & Sport The Israel Film Council

The Rabinovich Foundation 90 Ha'Hashmonaim St. Tel Aviv 6120301, Israel Tel: 972-3-5255020, Fax: 972-3-5255130 | www.cinemaproject.org.il

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Lot’s Wife triumphs at Pitch Point

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Avishai Sivan’s project Lot’s Wife has clinched the new $23,200 (¤20,000) Goralska Award prize at the 13th edition of JFF’s Pitch Point, aimed at connecting Israeli filmmakers with international partners.

Described by the director as a cross-genre horror, fantasy, freakshow work, the picture revolves around a Hasidic couple’s twoheaded baby. Going by the names of Noah and Lot, the heads have opposite good and evil natures.

Yaron Shani loosens his Chained

It is Sivan’s fourth fiction feature.

His last film Tikkun, about an ultraOrthodox man who reappraises his life after a near-death experience, swept the awards at JFF in 2015.

Ronen Ben Tal at Tel Aviv’s Plan B Productions is producing with the backing of United King.

Buzzy rising director Moshe Rosenthal won the Wouter Barendrecht-Lia van Leer Award of $4,600 (¤4,000) for his upcoming feature Karaoke about a nondescript, middle-aged couple who

become obsessed with a glamorous former model agent who moves into their apartment building. It is produced by Efrat Cohen at Gaudeamus Productions.

Adam Kalderon’s second feature The Swimmer — set against the backdrop of elite competitive swimming — won the DB & OPUS Award worth $15,000 (ILS55,000).

It is produced by Naama Pyritz of Ingenue Productions.

The $17,400 (¤15,000) Cinelab Award went to Oren Gerner’s debut

Ayn Bouzaglo

Paul Dano, page 8

FEATURES Rabinovich Foundation How its Cinema Project is ticking the diversity boxes » Page 6

Paul Dano Why he targeted Wildlife as his first directing project » Page 8

REVIEWS Climax Gaspar Noé gets his mojo back with this perverse horror trip » Page 12

The Children Act Emma Thompson shines in her meatiest dramatic role in years » Page 13

Filmmakers open up Bedouin community with debut Eed

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Filmmakers Kaid Abu Latif and Yousef Abo Madegem unveiled their plans for the first ever feature set against the backdrop of Israel’s Bedouin community, at JFF’s Pitch Point industry event.

Drama Eed will be set and shot in the Bedouin city of Rahat in southern Israel and revolve around an aspiring theatre director whose desire for personal freedom is compromised when his family forces him into an arranged marriage. The young artist is also coming to terms

BY WENDY MITCHELL

Yaron Shani, whose solo directorial debut feature Stripped will have its world premiere at Venice Film Festival, has revealed more about Chained, the second part of his Love Trilogy, at JFF’s Pitch Point work-in-progress. Explaining that Chained revolves around an Israeli policeman accused of a serious crime who ends up losing his job, Shani said that for authenticity he has cast a former policeman in the role.

According to the filmmaker, Chained is pitched “somewhere between fiction and documentary” and, like Stripped, featured actors living for up to a year as their characters. The film is set for delivery “in a couple of months”, says Saar Yogev, who produces alongside Naomi Levari of Black Sheep Film.

Backers include the Israel Film Fund, ZDF & ARTE and Yes. Germany’s The Post Republic co-produces. Celluloid Dreams is selling the whole trilogy, which will conclude with Reborn, which Yogev said will be finished by early 2019.

Each film in the trilogy will stand on its own, but the three stories are interconnected. For instance, the wife in Chained will become the main protagonist in Reborn. “Together they make one big, epic view of Israeli society,” the director said.

Africa about a retired engineer who retreats into the memories of a trip to Africa he took with his wife.

A total of 10 projects at the development stage and six films in post-production were presented at Pitch Point this year. The awards jury consisted of Films Boutique acquisition chief Gabor Greiner, Paris-based Croatian producer Cedomir Kolar and Kirsten Niehuus, managing director of the film-funding department of Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg.

TODAY

with being abused as a child by a man who is still part of the community. “The film will reveal a side of Bedouin society never explored on the big screen before,” said Abo Madegem, who met Abu Latif when both studied cinema at Sapir College in the Negev. “We could be condemned for this film and revealing the secrets of a very closed society.”

Shlomi Elkabetz is producing under his Deux Beaux Garcons Films, alongside Elad Peleg and Haggai Arad of southern Israeli company Daroma Productions.

Savona states case for bringing Samouni Road doc to Israel Israeli actress Yael Abecassis was at the Cinematheque this weekend with Amikam Kovner and Assaf Snir’s relationship drama Echo, in which she plays a wife whose infidelity is revealed after her death. “The screenplay avoided stereotypical portraits of Israeli men and women, and that drew me to the project,” Abecassis told Screen International.

Geffen eyes Responsible role Shira Geffen, whose debut Jellyfish won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for best first film in 2007, has revealed she might co-star in her next film A Responsible Adult, which was presented at JFF’s Pitch Point industry event on Friday. Set against the backdrop of a Bat Mitzvah trip to Masada, the storyline revolves

around 12-year-old Maya dealing with the disintegration of her parents’ marriage. “We’re currently casting the role of Maya, which is key to the film, while I might play the mother,” says Geffen. Elad Gavish and Itzik Kricheli at Marker Films are producing the $1.1m feature.

Melanie Goodfellow

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Italian director Stefano Savona, who is attending JFF with his Gaza tragedy documentary Samouni Road, says he thought long and hard about bringing his film to Israel. The hybrid work follows the fate of the Palestinian Samouni family, which lost 29 members during an Israeli Defense Forces incursion into Gaza in January 2009.

“I had to fight with most of my friends, even my Israeli ones. Most of the people who worked on the movie told me, ‘Don’t go. It’s pointless,’” Savona told Screen International after the film’s first festival screening on Friday night. “I understood their point of view but for me,

it was a priority. If I have one screening in Israel, it is more important than all the other screenings it could have in the world. To not come here would have been selfcensorship.”

His other priority screening location is Gaza, he told Friday night’s audience. Savona admitted he was nervous about the film’s JFF screening on Friday but apart from one walk-out at the end of the screening by an audience member who complained the documentary made the Israelis “look like monsters”, the documentary met with a largely positive response.

Samouni Road screens at JFF for the final time today at 10:15am.

NEWS THINK FEST 2018

BY TOM GRATER

Inaugurated at last year’s JFF, Think Fest, Jerusalem’s platform to discuss the future of film festivals, was back for its second edition on Friday (July 27). The 2018 event invited a cohort of professionals from international festivals across Europe, India and South America. Key to this year’s debate was how festivals can find their places among global upheaval and intense political climates, which moderator and Screen International contributing editor Wendy Mitchell noted was an appropriate topic to debate in the famously complex city of Jerusalem.

In the backdrop of Israeli culture minister Miri Regev’s controversial proposed changes to the country’s Film Law, Karin Rywkind Segal, artistic director of the Tel Aviv-based DocAviv festival, assured the audience that her event retained “complete creative and artistic freedom”.

While DocAviv is governmentfunded, she emphasised that any attempted infringements on freedom of speech would make the festival “have to think about what they’re doing”. DocAviv has yet to

Noam Preisman

Festivals fight for place in complex world (From left) Karin Rywkind Segal, Smriti Kiran, Ahmet Boyacioglu and moderator Wendy Mitchell

incur any form of government censorship, she noted, unlike its counterpart JFF, which faced pressure in 2015 to remove documentary Beyond The Fear from its programme, with Regev threatening to remove funding if the request were ignored.

Smriti Kiran, creative director of Mumbai Film Festival, explained that in India, festivals are the only places where you can watch films “as the filmmaker intended” because the events

have censor exemption. Elsewhere, all films released in cinemas are submitted to a government regulatory body, which is particularly censorius on content with a sexual theme.

While her festival does not come under political pressure since it is privately funded, Kiran believes it could be beneficial for the government to become more active in the country’s film industry.

“When you don’t have governing bodies actively trying to influ-

Think Fest experts talk impact tactics ahead of film launch

BY TOM GRATER

This year’s Think Fest kicked off with a discussion about how filmmakers can implement an effective festival strategy.

Gordon Spragg, a partner at publicity and marketing film Wolf Consultants, said that filmmakers should be thinking about festivals as early as the production stage.

However, Anna Purkrabkova, program co-ordinator at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, cautioned that applying to festivals too early is a misstep. “Programmers don’t want to see the film twice,” she said. “When it’s [picture] locked, that’s the perfect stage for us.”

The panel agreed that having the right promotional materials is key to any festival application.

Anna Purkrabkova

“You should give it as much attention as making your film. The film could stay on the shelf for the rest of its life if you don’t have anything to promote it,” commented Claudia Landsberger, executive partner, BaseWorx For Film.

“It’s one of the most essential aspects of launching a film,” added Spragg. “We discuss it with

4 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

the filmmaker and sales agent for weeks and months.”

Purkrabkova noted that Karlovy Vary will offer assistance with posters and materials, if the filmmakers require it. Also key is timing when to make your selected visuals public. Landsberger used the example of Carlos Reygadas’ Japon, on which she had worked at the 2002 edition of Cannes. On one specific day during the festival, they had taken adverts in every film-trade magazine to deliver the biggest splash possible. “Everyone was talking about it,” she recalled.

Failing to get into your firstchoice festival is also not the end of the world, with Spragg noting there are numerous opportunities to launch a film. “Every village has its own film festival now,” he said.

ence culture, it hobbles culture,” she argued.

Ahmet Boyacioglu, a Turkish director and festival organiser, highlighted that his country allows international films to play in festivals without certification, but dictates that any Turkish title must ask the Ministry of Culture and Tourism for a certificate.

However, he warned that filmmakers can use the idea of censorship to drum up interest in their film. Boyacioglu cited an incident

at the 2015 Istanbul Film Festival, which saw a screening of a documentary about the Kurdistan Workers’ party cancelled after perceived government pressure.

“The director refused to send the film to the ministry of culture and it was banned, it was a domino effect, it was not good for the reputation of the festival,” he explained. “Our ministry is clever enough not to censor anything because it becomes public and an advertisement for the filmmaker.”

Lack of equal gender representation in festival programmes and staff was in the spotlight throughout Think Fest, with debate spring-boarding from Venice Film Festival director Alberto Barbera’s comments last week in which he defended the lack of female directors in his event’s competition.

“You can’t change things from the outcome, they have to change from the start,” suggested Barbera in an interview with Screen International following the launch of the Venice programme. Boyacioglu called on festival heads to seek creative solutions: “In Turkey, we have three women’s film festivals that never show any male directors’ films; that can be a solution.”

Programmers turn up volume Often overlooked when it comes to recognising the challenges that face film festivals is the sheer volume of content that needs to be sifted through to curate a programme.

On the day’s final panel, Charles Tesson, artistic director of Critics’ Week at Cannes, said his programming team receives 850 feature submissions a year, from which they select seven films for its competition strand and a further three to four for non-competitive slots. Tesson noted the number of submissions was growing, though not at a significant pace, due to Critics’ Week’s requisite for only first and second features, as well as world premiere berths.

Ilda Santiago, festival director of Rio de Janeiro International Film Festival, programmes 200-250 films for her event’s international

strand, and another 50 in a sidebar of Brazilian titles. The increasing number of submissions made it “easier to miss a gem”, she said, adding that audiences, press and sponsors were keen to see the big hits from other major festivals, making it “challenging to keep originality” in the line-up.

Javier Porta Fouz, artistic director of Buenos Aires International Festival of Independent Cinema (BAFICI), programmes up to 400 films per year. He acknowledged that was “too many” and his team has attempted to limit the number of submissions, initially by adding an entry fee (a notion quashed by BAFICI’s government funders) and then by introducing a shorter period for submissions, which has been successful.

Tom Grater

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2018 ‫פ טיבל הקולנוע ירושלימ‬ filmfund.org.il ‫המועצה‬ ‫הישראלית‬ ‫לקולנוע‬

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THE ISRAEL FILM FUND CONGRATULATES

THE JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL 2018

ECHO

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SPOTLIGHT YEHOSHUA RABINOVICH FOUNDATION

Definition of diversity The Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts’ Cinema Project supports a huge range of productions.

Melanie Goodfellow finds out how it makes its funding decisions

T

here has been much discussion within the Israeli film industry about whether its funds reflect the country’s diverse population in their choice of awardees, amid the culture ministry’s proposed changes to film financing.

One fund that undoubtedly ticks the diversity box is the Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts’ Cinema Project.

The Tel Aviv-based entity is out in force at Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF) this year, with a trio of very different competition titles.

They include Michal Aviad’s Working Woman, about a young mother dealing with workplace sexual harassment, Joseph Madmony and Boaz Yehonatan Yacov’s secular-religious divide drama Redemption, and Yona Rozenkier’s The Dive, about three brothers who let rip on the remote northern Israeli kibbutz where they grew up ahead of military service in Lebanon.

Aviad’s Working Woman feeds into the contemporary debate around sexual harassment in society sparked by the Harvey Weinstein scandal and the subsequent #MeToo movement. Yoav Abramovich, deputy director and artistic director for feature-length films at the Cinema Project, notes the body had boarded the feature prior to the rise of #MeToo. “We’ve supported Michal’s films in the past,” Abramovich explains. “She is a very experienced filmmaker. She came to us with this wonderful script about sexual harassment and we selected it right away. We just loved it for the delicate and sensitive way it treated the subject.”

Madmony and Yacov’s Redemption is already racking up prizes following a successful world premiere at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in early July. It follows in the footsteps of another Rabinovich grantee, The Cakemaker, which enjoyed a warm reception at Karlovy Vary last year. “[Redemption] is another topical film looking at the line between religious and secular worlds in Israel. Both the director and the main character are secular people who became religious,” Abramovich explains. “The film looks at this process and what becomes of the relationships with friends left behind in the secular world.”

‘Artistic quality and whether it will be successful with Israeli audiences are the deciders for us’ Yoav Abramovich, Cinema Project

films while $960,000 (ILS3.5m) is earmarked for documentaries and $109,000 (ILS400,000) is put into student films.

The fund puts the maximum grant of $528,000 (ILS2m) into around seven or eight films a year and then supports another 15 low-budget titles by new directors to the tune of around $54,000 (ILS400,000). “We support both Israeli films and co-productions with Israeli partners,” says Abramovich.

Upcoming international productions include Nadav Lapid’s Paris-set feature Synonyms, about a young Israeli living in the French capital, and Eran Riklis’s spy thriller Spider In The Web, starring Ben Kingsley and Monica Bellucci.

Working Woman

The Dive

The Cinema Project also backed Documentary Competition title The Oslo Accords, which pieces together the tale of the secret backchannel talks held between Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat in the lead-up to the Oslo Accords in 1993. The documentary, which premiered at Sundance Film Festival earlier this year, is by Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan, the same team that made the award-winning Censored Voices.

Further films backed by the Cinema Project that are not screening at JFF, but

6 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

are expected to make a festival splash soon, include Israeli-Ethiopian filmmaker Alamork Marsha’s debut feature Fig Tree, a drama based on her own experience growing up in war-torn Addis Ababa in the 1990s, and Avi Nesher’s Jerusalem-set The Other Story, exploring the clash between secular and religious values in contemporary Israeli society.

Celebrating its 30th anniversary this year, the Cinema Project has $7.6m (ILS28m) to invest annually. The lion’s share, $6.5m (ILS24m), goes to feature

Animation funding The fund is also involved in two highprofile animation productions: Ari Folman’s Where Is Anne Frank?, a feature inspired by Frank’s diaries, and Gidi Dar’s ambitious Legend Of Destruction, retelling the story of the ruin of Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70AD, to which respected Waltz With Bashir animators David Polonsky and Michael Faust are attached.

“It’s a fascinating project,” says Abramovich of Legend Of Destruction. “While looking at history, it also delves into modern-day politics and warfare and asks whether it could happen today.”

Abramovich suggests that the variety of the projects it selects is due to the cultural mix of its script readers. “The artistic quality of the project and whether we think it will be successful with Israeli audiences are the most important deciders for us,” he explains. “And then [there is] the diversity of our readers, representing many different communities here in Israel, which means diversity s comes naturally.” ■

www.screendaily.com

Q&A PAUL DANO

Wildlife is based on a novel by Richard Ford about an unhappy couple whose marriage unravels in 1960s Montana.

Why did you want to make it into a film?

I read the book several times and was really haunted by it. Once I thought of the ending, the last shot, I thought, “This could be a film, I think I can write this.” Then Zoe [Kazan] and I optioned it by ourselves [in 2012] so we didn’t have anyone to answer to. I wrote a first draft, which Zoe tore apart, and we traded it back and forth. Finally, I got to the point [in 2016] where I said, “Okay, I gotta go make this.” I had wanted to make a film for a long time. I brought on my friend Oren Moverman [as producer]. Having someone who I trusted was important. We sent it around to some financiers and Alex Saks [CEO of June Pictures, whose credits include The Florida Project] said she wanted to do the whole thing.

Then it was about trying to cast the film. The film is pretty dependent on its cast. It’s shot in an economical and spare way. I needed to be able to lean on their faces and the spaces between the lines. Really that was an essential part of not just funding the film but the creative process. Luckily we got incredible actors [led by Jake Gyllenhaal, who is also a producer on Wildlife, and Carey Mulligan] to do the film. I’m the leader of the Carey Mulligan fan club. Her work is really special in the film, she gave me so much.

(From left) Carey Mulligan, Ed Oxenbould and Jake Gyllenhaal in Wildlife

Running wild

Did you enjoy co-writing the screenplay with your girlfriend Zoe Kazan?

We get along well. We’re partners in life.

We worked in a way that was really healthy for us. We would sit down, talk about it, maybe daydream together, then one of us would go off and write. It’s not like we sat in a room together and wrote, I think that would be hard. Zoe is an incredibly good creative partner for anybody, not just myself. She’s really smart.

I loved working with her but we can’t do it all the time. We will do it again, I’m sure, in some capacity.

Did you find it hard when she first criticised your work?

The first time I was pretty vulnerable. It was my first time trying to write. Criticism doesn’t feel good but you know the intent is good. That’s one of the nice things about working with someone you trust. I could take it and give it.

We had our moments, but we could handle it.

You were a producer on the film as well.

How did you find the business side of directing?

It was a challenge because the film takes

Taylor Jewell/Invision/AP/REX/Shutterstock

US actor Paul Dano talks to Orlando Parfitt about his directorial debut Wildlife, including how he came to cast Jake Gyllenhaal and Carey Mulligan and the joy of co-writing with his girlfriend Zoe Kazan Paul Dano

place in 1960, so doing anything period with a limited budget is hard because you have to control everything. I wanted to be responsible with how we made it because I want to make many films!

The hardest thing was the idea of com-

8 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

promise that starts to happen when money is involved. For example, the film takes place in Montana, but they have no tax incentive, so we did four days of shooting in Montana, the rest in Oklahoma.

‘We got incredible actors. I’m the leader of the Carey Mulligan fan club. Her work is really special in the film, she gave me so much’ Paul Dano

Will you direct again?

I have thoughts about directing again but nothing concrete. Hopefully it won’t take long. It’s without question something I’m going to be working towards, I really enjoyed the process.

Seeing something like this through, it was a big experience. It’s beautiful to put a band together and make something. It has to be something you want to fight that hard for. It’s nice to have some encouragement to keep s trucking. ■ Wildlife plays in Gala on August 1 (Cinematheque 3, 20:00) and August 2 (Yes Planet 8, 19:30)

www.screendaily.com

LUKAS DHONT INTERVIEW

Chorus of approval G

hent-born Lukas Dhont was an 18-year-old student, who was still closeted about his own homosexuality, when he read a newspaper article about a girl in Belgium who had been born in a boy’s body, but wanted to become a ballerina.

“This story struck me so much. This 15 year old has the courage not only to say, ‘I was born in the wrong body,’ but also to strive for this high form of femininity, to be a ballerina. She was a hero,” Dhont recalls. “I said, ‘If I make a feature, I want it to be about this.’”

Dhont got in touch with the girl, Nora, and there was an immediate kinship between the two. When Dhont graduated from film school in 2014, he came back to the idea for his debut feature, which he co-wrote with Angelo Tijssens.

The pair were keen to take a very careful approach and spoke to a number of transgender people and their families, as well as psychologists and doctors who have expertise in gender transitioning.

“I wanted the audience to understand what it’s like to be born in a body that’s not yours,” Dhont explains. “A lot of people have a body they don’t feel fully connected to. I wanted to talk about the relationship with the body, and next to that, I really wanted to show the fatherchild relationship. The conflict is not between them, there is no question at all from the father’s point of view whether the child should do this. This is a supportive character who shows a lot of love.”

The film is also realistic about “the medical aspect of transitioning”, Dhont explains. “I really wanted it to be accurate, accurate, accurate. I’m happy on a technical level but also on an emotional level.”

Genderless casting It was crucial to find the right actor to play the lead. “She or he needed to be able to dance at a very high level, and there are difficult acting scenes going deep into the characters’ emotions,” Dhont explains.

“We didn’t know if we wanted a boy, a girl, a transgender girl, someone that represents this identity in a way that wouldn’t be like a gimmick, they could be beautiful and complex at the same time.

“So we did a genderless casting,” he continues. “We said, ‘We are looking for a 15 year old who can dance.’”

www.screendaily.com

(From left) actors Arieh Worthalter and Victor Polster with director Lukas Dhont during May’s Cannes Film Festival

Victor Polster as Lara in Girl

‘I wanted the audience to understand what it’s like to be born in a body that’s not yours’ Lukas Dhont

The filmmakers saw 500 young people aged between 14 and 17 but found that most were stronger at acting or dancing, not both. “We started to cast the young dancers that would form the rest of the class,” Dhont explains. “We did group castings. In one of those groups there was this young boy [Victor Polster]. He entered the room, he looked like an angel. He danced and I said, ‘It can only be him.’” Dhont paired Polster with the actor playing Lara’s father, Arieh Worthalter, and instead of a traditional audition, “I let them cook a meal

together just to see how the dynamic would be. They were so right together.”

(Dhont reveals the salmon pasta they cooked was less impressive.)

The young actor, who is 16 now but was 15 when the film shot, did not need much convincing to take on the complex role. “He read the script and very early on he said, ‘Yes, I want to portray this role.’

His parents also read the script and said, ‘We stand behind it, we think it’s a story that needs to be told.’”

The film was also developed at Cannes’ Cinefondation Residence, a useful experi-

ence for Dhont. “It was six months in Paris with other directors. It really helped me on a personal level. I was away from my natural home and surrounded by people from around the world who were trying to do the same thing, to make a first feature, and that struggle with it.”

It also helped the visibility of Girl, which in 2017 won work-in-progress awards at Flanders Image’s Connext event in Ghent and also at Les Arcs. The film went on to screen in Un Certain Regard at Cannes, where it won a slew of prizes including the Camera d’Or for a first-time feature filmmaker.

After all these years, Dhont still sees that 15-year-old ballerina as a hero.

“There’s a value to showing young people that defying ‘normal’ is important. Angelo s and I say this is our superhero movie.” ■ Girl plays in Debuts on July 30 (Cinematheque 3, 22:15) and August 4 (Cinematheque 1, 21:45)

July 29, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 9

Hubert Boesl

Belgian writer/director Lukas Dhont tells Wendy Mitchell about striving for accuracy — both physically and emotionally — in his Cannes prize-winning story about a young transgender ballerina

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LEAN ON PETE SPOTLIGHT

Charlie Plummer in Lean On Pete

Racing certs Andrew Haigh and Tristan Goligher follow the Oscar-nominated 45 Years with Lean On Pete, the Oregon-set story of a teenage lad and a race horse. Tom Grater talks to the director-producer duo

Peter Searle

F

ilmmaker Andrew Haigh was on a plane while touring with his microbudget hit Weekend in 2012 when he first read Willy Vlautin’s novel Lean On Pete, on the recommendation of his partner. He immediately saw the feature film possibilities in this story of a teenage lad who takes a summer job with a washed-up race horse trainer, forming a bond with a failing animal, the titular Lean On Pete.

However, deciding with his regular producer partner Tristan Goligher of The Bureau that the US-set story would be too big a leap in scale for his third feature (Haigh’s debut was little-seen 2009 docudrama Greek Pete), he initially developed the project in parallel with 45 Years. That acclaimed drama went on to premiere at the Berlinale in 2015, where it won its two leads, Tom Courtenay and Charlotte Rampling, the Silver Bear acting prizes and eventually garnered an Oscar nomination for Rampling.

In the process of adapting Vlautin’s text, Haigh went to stay with the author in Oregon, who took him around the local race tracks that had inspired the novel, introducing Haigh to personalities in that community. Vlautin was initially nervous about assigning the film rights, and insisted Haigh needed to understand that world if he were going to direct the film.

“I knew nothing about horse racing,” Haigh recalls. “It wasn’t glamorous, highstakes horse racing, it was country fairs.

I couldn’t write anything unless I experienced some elements of that world.”

www.screendaily.com

‘It wasn’t glamorous, high-stakes horse racing. I couldn’t write anything unless I experienced some elements of that world’ Andrew Haigh, director

Seeking further inspiration, the director set off on a three-month road trip across the Pacific Northwest, retracing the journey that protagonist Charley takes in the novel. Haigh stayed in many of the same motels and camped in locations from the book, writing along the way. He encountered a tight-knit working-class community that had, for generations, been working in the horse-racing business. “There’s a real sense of community that exists there but it’s not an easy life.

These aren’t people that make a lot of money,” Haigh adds.

Leading boy Casting began in earnest in early 2016 when Los Angelesbased casting director Carmen Cuba was enlisted to fill the lead role of Charley. She whittled down the field to a pool of around 200 actors who were shown to Haigh.

(Right) Andrew Haigh

Charlie Plummer, an emerging US actor whose roles included HBO series Boardwalk Empire, was one of the first tapes shown to the director, and he instantly caught the eye. Haigh was further impressed when Plummer sent him a letter detailing his connection to the story and the character.

“He’d moved around a lot as a child and ultimately Lean On Pete is about a boy searching for a home,” says Haigh.

“He was able to identify with the idea of somebody transient who is reaching for stability in life.” It was a major decision but Haigh says they felt confident “pinning the entire movie” on Plummer, whose character appears in every scene.

Steve Buscemi and Chloë Sevigny, who Haigh calls “the king and queen of American independent cinema”, were cast in other key roles, as the washed-up trainer and one of his jockeys respectively.

The majority of the $8m budget came from the British Film Institute and Film4, which were both involved in the development process. Financing was completed by Oregon Film Office’s tax credit, the UK tax credit and a US presale to A24, which Goligher secured at Toronto International Film Festival in 2015,

where 45 Years screened. “A lot of it came together because of the momentum of 45 Years,” the producer recalls.

The production shot in the US for eight weeks in summer 2016, often filming at locations detailed in the novel. The major production challenge was working with horses, which Haigh admits “scare the shit” out of him. As a producer, Goligher was also acutely aware of the dangers of working with animals and actors at the same time. The pair agree that one showpiece scene at a race track, which involved multiple horses and hundreds of actors, was the most demanding they have shot in their careers to date.

Further production challenges included the temperature, which regularly topped 40°c, and natural hazards including sandstorms and wildlife. Filming in the desert necessitated hiring an animal wrangler who, ahead of filming a night sequence, removed scorpions and a rattlesnake from the shooting path.

Lean On Pete had its premiere at Venice in 2017, and has gone on to play festivals around the world, including Jerusalem where it first screened on Friday. It has been released in territories including the US via A24 (grossing $1.2m) and the UK via Curzon Artificial s Eye (grossing $582,000). ■ Lean On Pete plays in International Competition on July 30 (Lev Smadar, 22:00) and August 4 (Yes Planet 8, 14:30)

July 29, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 11

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

Climax Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

Whitney Reviewed by Tim Grierson Sadness imbues Whitney, a sombre documentary about pop superstar Whitney Houston, whose miraculous voice and ubiquitous hits could not stem the tide of drug addiction and personal demons that contributed to her death, in 2012, at the age of 48. Both tragic and eerily familiar to other recent portraits of talented, doomed artists including Nick Broomfield’s Whitney: Can I Be Me only last year, Kevin Macdonald’s film does its best to wrestle with conventions, offering a broader cultural perspective on Houston’s life and achievements. But what stands out most strongly is the sense that this joyous singer was, perhaps, fated from an early age to lead an unhappy life.

The documentary boasts a relatively straightforward structure, cutting between talking heads and archival footage. However, Macdonald (One Day In September) is not just after a highlights reel, instead seeking to understand why Houston chose such a self-destructive path after she attained superstardom by the early 1990s.

Whitney is strongest when it connects Houston to the larger history of black America, illustrating how this glamorous performer grew up in poverty and never entirely escaped the obligation of helping to pull up her underprivileged family members. In addition, as a lightskinned woman Houston was teased by African-American classmates because she supposedly wasn’t ‘black’ enough, and the singer’s inner tension over learning how to interact with both black and white audiences provides a wary undercurrent throughout much of Whitney.

The dissection of race and class is informative, as is the movie’s sensitive examination of a previously unrevealed childhood trauma that seemingly haunted the singer for all her life. Macdonald also investigates the rumours she was secretly gay (as did Broomfield’s doc), but he does so with tact, respectfully suggesting that her discomfort with her sexuality was another example of how her stardom was a strategy for escaping parts of herself.

The director inserts clips of current events happening alongside the rise of her career. As she becomes a late’80s pop juggernaut, the montages are interspersed with footage of everything from Ronald Reagan to Madonna to Public Enemy, in an attempt to elucidate the political, social and cultural fabric of the times.

12 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

GALA UK. 2018. 120mins Director Kevin Macdonald Production companies Lisa Erspamer Entertainment, Altitude Film Entertainment, Lightbox International sales Altitude Film Sales, mikerunagall@ l films l s.com Producers Simon Chinn, Jonathan Chinn, Lisa Erspamer Editing Sam Rice-Edwards Cinematography Nelson Hume Music Adam Wiltzie

France’s wave of Extreme Cinema was getting suspiciously quiet recently, and even the movement’s figurehead Gaspar Noé seemed to have mellowed — his 2015 3D sex film Love coming across more as a depressive mope than the confrontational number that was expected.

Rest assured that French cinema’s imp of the perverse has got his distinctly nasty mojo working again with Climax, a blazingly original, extremely disturbing film that’s something quite new: a psychotropic street-dance movie that turns halfway into an orgiastic horror trip.

A standalone prelude gives us an overhead shot of a distressed woman crawling across snow, to Gary Numan’s queasily distorted synthesiser version of Erik Satie. Noé then introduces his cast: a large group of multi-ethnic, polysexual young dancers, seen on video interviewed about their aspirations, dreams and nightmares.

In front of a glittering French flag, the dancers — at the end of a training camp in a secluded schoolhouse — do an astonishing routine to a pumped-up version of disco classic ‘Supernature’. Their differing styles are kinetic, often sexually hypercharged, and the sequence is all the more dazzling because it is shot in one extended take. Eventually they loosen up and help themselves to sangria provided by organiser Emmanuelle (Claude Gajan Maull), who has unwisely brought along her young son.

What follows is a series of dialogues: two men discuss the women they fancy in graphically macho detail, a young man named David (Romain Guillermic) emerges as a self-styled super-stud and one woman comes to the fore — self-possessed vamp Selva (Sofia Boutella).

It is some 45 minutes into the film before Noé hits us with a lurid storm of opening titles. It is his signal that the fun has ended and it is time to descend into hell. As the acid-spiked sangria kicks in, the revellers start feeling strange — and acting even stranger.

Violence breaks out and sexual tensions explode.

True to form, Noé is nothing if not sadistic towards his characters and indeed the audience. Allegedly based on events that took place in France in 1996, the film plays to unsettling and perplexing effect. It is an extraordinarily intense experience that seems at once to revel in and to deprecate the hedonistic culture that it depicts.

MASTERS

Fr. 2018. 95mins Director/screenplay Gaspar Noé Production companies Rectangle Productions, Wild Bunch International sales Wild Bunch, sales@ wildbunch.eu Producer Edouard Weil, Vincent Maraval, Brahim Chioua Production design Jean Rabasse Editing Denis Bedlow, Gaspar Noé Cinematography Benoit Debie Main cast ofia Boutella, Romain Guillermic, Souheila Yacoub, Kiddy Smile, Claude Gajan Maull

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» Whitney p12 » Climax p12 » The Children Act p13

» The Prayer p13 » Thelma p14 » Aga p14

» Ash Is Purest White p15 » Donbass p15

The Prayer Reviewed by Lisa Nesselson

The Children Act Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan Emma Thompson loses herself in The Children Act, subsuming all her natural lightness to embody one of novelist Ian McEwan’s more interesting central characters, a British High Court judge charged with implementing the titular Children Act in family court. When the remote, humane but unheedingly autocratic Justice Fiona Maye slips and allows herself to connect on a human level with one of her cases, tiny cracks form at the edge of her carefully controlled existence, threatening to shatter it.

Director Richard Eyre has guided Thompson to a strong performance in McEwan’s elegant adaptation of his own book, with the actress bringing some of her most engrossing work since The Remains Of The Day. Eyre takes his cues from the formal, almost anachronistic environment in which Justice Maye works at the Royal Courts of Justice, presenting a restrained, tasteful piece that, while it may be too classical for wide consumption, will draw many admirers.

While the UK’s 1989 Children Act holds the welfare of the child to be paramount in all cases, the unthinkable decisions Justice Maye has to make on a day-to-day basis are taking a psychological toll. The biggest casualty is her, ironically childless, marriage to Jack (Stanley Tucci).

When Jack announces he is about to embark on an affair, and the controlling Fiona tells him to leave their home, the emotional turmoil opens her up to making a rare misstep in court and she arbitrarily decides to visit a young patient in hospital. Adam (Fionn Whitehead), just shy of 18 years old, has leukaemia and has decided, as a Jehovah’s Witness, not to receive a life-saving blood transfusion. His devout parents support his actions, and the hospital has come to court looking for a decision.

The innately talented Whitehead (Dunkirk) conveys the febrile anxiety of a bright boy who is aflame with noble desires. Justice Maye’s visit changes his life and redirects his zeal, but it also alters hers, jolting her back into an unwelcome human connection that cannot be easily managed.

Thompson subsumes herself in the role. There is the sense she is relishing this rare opportunity to present the audience with a complex, intelligent and commanding woman of a certain age, and never lets her character down.

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GALA

UK. 2017. 105mins Director Richard Eyre Production company Toledo Productions International sales FilmNation Entertainment, nyoffice@filmnation.com AA, filmsales@caa.com Producer Duncan Kenworthy Screenplay Ian McEwan, from his novel Production design Peter Francis Editing Dan Farrell Cinematography Andrew Dunn Music Stephen Warbeck Main cast Emma Thompson, Fionn Whitehead, Stanley Tucci, Ben Chaplin, Anthony Calf, Jason Watkins

After a heroin overdose, 22-year-old Thomas (Anthony Bajon) is deposited at an isolated residential community in the mountains of Isere, where he will go cold turkey to kick his habit. Several seasons pass during the course of The Prayer, which shows how Thomas struggles to set himself free with the tough love of his companions, and let the alleged power of prayer infuse him.

Watchable but not transcendent, Cédric Kahn’s character study builds via landscape, work, prayer and friendship. Since Thomas is not particularly interesting, it is the determination of his dedicated fellows that can make him so. The proceedings consist of plenty of manual labour and prayer, song and public exercises in thanks and humility.

Ambivalent about his own self-destructive tendencies, Thomas decides early on that the strict regimen is not for him. He demands the return of his meagre belongings and sets off on foot for the nearest town, where he is taken in for the night by a farming couple.

Their daughter, Sybille (Louise Grinberg), an archaeologist waiting to be assigned to a dig, is visiting her parents. She tells Thomas that others before him have landed on their doorstep and that she strongly recommends he swallow his pride and return to the programme.

Thomas takes her advice, and from this first encounter a relationship blossoms. Although their overtly carnal connection in the wake of a tragedy is fetchingly filmed, there seems to be no better reason for their mutual attraction than that he is male and she is female.

The obviously well-researched proceedings at the facility are completely convincing but only mildly engaging most of the time. And a sequence in which the allmale wing picnics with the all-female wing — during which residents give testimony about their backgrounds and demons — has a ring of truth. For some, the isolated community will probably be the only way they can stay clean because the real world, with its demands and temptations, is simply too dangerous for them to live in.

Whether Thomas can replace drug use with love — numinous or earthly or both — is the ever-vacillating question at the heart of the film.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION Fr. 2018. 107mins Director Cédric Kahn Production company Les Films du Worso International sales e acte, contact@ le pacte.com Producers Sylvie Pialat, Benoit Quainon Screenplay Fanny Burdino, Samuel Doux, Cédric Kahn Production design Guillaume Deviercy Editing Laure Gardette Cinematography Yves Cape Music Thibault Deboaisne Main cast Anthony Bajon, Damien Chapelle, Alex Brendemühl, Louise Grinberg, Hanna Schygulla, Antoine Amblard, Magne-Havard Brekke, Maité Maillé

July 29, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 13

REVIEWS

Aga Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou

Thelma Reviewed by Tim Grierson A sheltered, sexually repressed young woman discovers she has startling telekinetic powers in Joachim Trier’s Thelma. It knowingly echoes fright-night classic Carrie, settling into its own odd rhythms while never quite escaping its predecessor’s mighty influence. Partly intriguing because it represents a conscious change of pace for the director of Reprise and Oslo, August 31st, this chilly existential horror movie judiciously spaces out its elegant shocks.

Eili Harboe plays Thelma, who moves from the countryside to Oslo for university, only to find herself intimidated by the big city and her more outgoing peers.

Befriending the beautiful Anja (Kaya Wilkins), Thelma realises her classmate has romantic feelings for her — a revelation that upsets this devout Christian. But a series of epileptic seizures soon take hold of Thelma, which seem inexplicably connected to a newfound ability to control nearby events with her mind.

Thelma boasts an almost clinical tone, which gives the occasional fantastical moment a queasy strangeness.

Trier and regular cinematographer Jakob Ihre present a realistic world, emphasising the frigid landscape around the young woman’s rustic home and the sleek interiors of her school and the hospital where she is examined.

Meanwhile, the director’s longtime composer Ola Flottum provides an ominous score that hints at terrors happening beneath the surface of the smooth images.

Because the screenplay so blatantly cribs from Carrie, Trier seems to be toying with his audience, practically daring us to see the comparisons and then letting us wonder where he will deviate from the Brian De Palma film. There is, however, a ceiling on how engaging these gambits can be.

Harboe capably portrays a woman whose repression is at war with deep stirrings that threaten to tear her apart. But the fragile performance often seems in service to Trier’s meticulous approach, which intentionally leaves character motivations hazy. The strategy keeps us beguilingly off-balance.

As Thelma’s parents, Henrik Rafaelsen and Ellen Dorrit Petersen are effective, and we assume they have stifled their child’s development for selfish, misguided reasons. Only as Thelma moves forward do we realise our mistake.

14 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

MASTERS Nor-Swe-Fr-Den. 2017.

116mins Director Joachim Trier Production companies Motlys, Film i Väst, Le Pacte, Filmpool Nord, Snowglobe, B-Reel Films, Don’t Look Now International sales Memento Films International, sales@ m m o films.com Producer Thomas Robsahm Screenplay Eskil Vogt, Joachim Trier Production design Roger Rosenberg Editing Olivier Bugge Coutté Cinematography Jakob Ihre Music Ola Flottum Main cast Eili Harboe, Kaya Wilkins, Henrik Rafaelsen, Ellen Dorrit Petersen

A fiction with a documentarian’s eye and feel, Bulgarian director Milko Lazarov’s second feature is an exquisitely shot and very moving film about an ageing couple who appear to exist alone on the edge of the world, stoically surviving on the icy tundra in a way of life that may be about to end.

The film is not explicit about its setting, though Yakutsk, in Siberia, seems a good bet. It opens with a slice of cheerful entertainment, as an old woman resplendent in traditional costume gives a virtuoso performance on a mouth harp. Lazarov then switches mode from the sweet to the near mythic, and an image of a man alone in the wilderness. In the far distance, Nanook (Mikhail Aprosimov) sleds across a wintry landscape in which it is difficult to tell where the land stops and the sky begins.

Nanook cuts a hole in the ice, fishes and returns to an isolated yurt and his wife Sedna (Feodosia Ivanova). In contrast to the tundra, the yurt’s interior is on a spectrum of browns, reflecting the warmth of the couple’s simple domesticity. A storm is a reminder that they are always at the mercy of the elements.

But their way of life is changing. It is warmer, he says, “Spring comes earlier every year.” Reindeer, once an integral part of their existence, have all but disappeared. And human contact is getting scarcer, as the younger generation embraces change. Their one link to the outside world is a morose young man, Chena (Sergey Egorov), who arrives by snowmobile with firewood, kerosene and news of their daughter Aga, who is working at a diamond mine, many miles away. When Sedna recognises that she is dying, she declares her desire to reconnect with her daughter.

This is no relation to Nanook Of The North. The cast is composed of actors (even if Aprosimov, with his tough hide of a face, seems to have stepped right off the tundra), who convey brilliantly the physicality and intimacy of people content in their isolation.

Lazarov and his cinematographer Kaloyan Bozhilov never cease to amaze, not least when they reveal the diamond mine as a mirror of Nanook’s fishing hole, magnified to the size of a giant crater, with a town hanging on its lip — a grim view of the dehumanisation that comes with industry. Penka Kouneva’s beautiful score adds to the sense of majesty and loss.

INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION 2018. Ger. 2018 96mins Director Milko Lazarov Production company Red Carpet International sales Beta Cinema, beta@ betacinema.com Producer Veselka Kiryakova Screenplay Milko Lazarov, Simeon Ventsislavov Production design Ariunsaichan Dawaachu Editing Veselka Kiryakova Cinematography Kaloyan Bozhilov Music Penka Kouneva Main cast Mikhail Aprosimov, Feodosia Ivanova, Galina Tikhonova, Sergey Egorov, Afanasiy Kylaev

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Donbass Reviewed by Jonathan Romney

Ash Is Purest White Reviewed by Allan Hunter Jolting, seismic shifts in 21st-century Chinese society are viewed through the bittersweet ebb and flow of an epic love story in Ash Is Purest White. The latest state-of-thenation report from Jia Zhangke gives the viewer plenty to chew over and is suffused with a mournful melancholy.

There are similarities with the director’s more ambitious Mountains May Depart in terms of its time span, structure and focus on the way that individuals reflect the wider currents within their country.

Ash Is Purest White begins in 2001 in Shanxi, a mining hub in northwest China that is threatened with the prospect of becoming a ghost town. The story introduces the formidable Qiao (Zhao Tao), a woman who greets her lover, local mobster Bin (Liao Fan), with a playful bite.

When Bin is stopped by a gang of bikers and beaten severely, it is Qiao who intervenes, firing off an illegal gun. She claims ownership of the firearm and is sentenced to five years of imprisonment. When she is released in 2006, she goes in search of Bin, expecting to resume their life and assuming things can just go back to the way they were. She is soon to discover that nothing stays the same and there is no going back.

The meandering narrative sprawls like a great Charles Dickens novel but individual encounters and elements all reflect back on the greater themes. Trains become faster, technology advances, swathes of the population drift towards burgeoning cities the size of small countries but values are eroded and certainties sacrificed.

Jia’s first collaboration with French cinematographer Eric Gautier results in a film that is rich in atmosphere.

Both men have an eye for faces and places. The film’s earliest scenes use footage the director shot in 2001 of ordinary people on a bus: stoical, lost in thought, oblivious to what might lie ahead. Gautier captures a sense of place, from the muddy ground near a rainswept power station to the snow-blanketed courtyard of the prison where Qiao is incarcerated.

Jia has suggested Ash Is Purest White in some way reflects a sense of his lost youth, and there is a palpable feeling of nostalgia and even an uncharacteristic underlying sentimentality. He has created a fantastic showcase for the skills of his wife Zhao, whose character is the film’s purest spirit, seeking to recreate something that has already vanished and can never be again.

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INTERNATIONAL COMPETITION China-Fr. 2018. 141mins Director/screenplay Jia Zhangke Production companies Xstream Pictures, Huanxi Media Group International sales mk2 Films, intlsales@ mk2films.com Producer Shozo Ichiyama Production design Liu Weixin Editing Matthieu Laclau, Lin Xudong Cinematography Eric Gautier Music Lim Giong Main cast Zhao Tao, Liao Fan, Xu Zheng, Casper Liang

MASTERS

Industrious Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa has delved before into the murkier regions of human behaviour. But even by the standards of his caustic debut My Joy (2010) or last year’s descent-into-hell drama A Gentle Creature, Donbass comes across as savage stuff. A sprawling black comedy with a vast ensemble cast, it evokes a chaotic state of social breakdown in the Donbass region of Ukraine, often with virtuoso brilliance, but its sometimes overstretched vignettes can tax the overwhelmed viewer.

Loznitsa’s parallel career as a documentarist — most recently with this year’s Victory Day about a Russian patriotic ceremony — means that his features often walk a teasing line between fiction and pitilessly observed reality. That is again the case in a film populated by a cast that is apparently a mix of actors and non-professionals.

The background is the conflict in Donbass between the Ukrainian Army and Russian-backed separatist militia.

Working once again with star Romanian cinematographer Oleg Mutu, Loznitsa gives us 13 episodes based on real events. In a pre-title sequence, we see people being made-up in a trailer to be film extras or possibly fake voxpop interviewees for TV reportage. We then see a meeting of officials interrupted when a woman dumps a bucket of faeces on the chairman’s head; a burly man, a politician or a gangster or both, soft-soaping the staff at a maternity hospital in a verbose tour de force; and travellers on a bus being harangued by a woman officer at a military checkpoint.

A long sequence tours an underground hovel inhabited by refugees from shelling in the city, while the film’s most brutal moment shows a lone soldier tied to a lamppost and left to the mercies of an angry mob out for blood. These moments are painful, but elsewhere Loznitsa doesn’t know when to stop: a sequence depicting a raucous wedding under the flag of Novorossiya goes on relentlessly, and its grotesqueness suggests that the director’s eye for baseness is all but crossing the line into contempt.

Certainly, Loznitsa’s black humour belongs to an established Eastern tradition and therefore may not click with everyone. But even in this context, Donbass often feels overwrought. The final sequence packs a genuine shock — all the more so for being artfully understated — but the virtuoso choreography of the extended closing shot makes its point before the credits roll.

Ukr-Ger-Fr-Neth-Rom. 2018. 121mins Director/screenplay Sergei Loznitsa Production companies Ma.Ja.De. Fiction, Arthouse Traffic, JBA Production, Graniet Film, Wild At Art, Digital Cube International sales Pyramide International, avalentin@pyramidefilms. com Producer Heino Deckert Production design Kirill Shuvalov Editing Danielius Kokanauskis Cinematography Oleg Mutu Main cast Tamara Yatsenko, Ludmila Smorodina, Olesya Zhurakovskaya, Boris Kamorzin, Sergei Russkin

July 29, 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

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

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

SUNDAY JULY 29 10:00 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 inexcusably invades Ava’s privacy, and kindles a spark of rebellion in her heart.

International Competition Cinematheque 1

THIS IS HOME

Debuts Cinematheque 1

SEASON OF THE DEVIL

(Philippines) Films Boutique. 234mins.

Dir: Lav Diaz. Tagalog (English and Hebrew subtitles).

In the late 1970s, a militia terrorises a remote village in the Philippines. When a doctor disappears, her husband sets out to search for her and faces a community ravaged by dictatorship and violence.

International Competition Cinematheque 2

10:15 SAMOUNI ROAD

(Italy, France) Doc & Film. 128mins.

Dir: Stefano Savona.

Arabic (English and Hebrew subtitles).

On the outskirts of Gaza, the Samouni family are about to celebrate a wedding — the first celebration since the latest war.

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

Panorama Cinematheque 3

11:00 DJON AFRICA

(Portugal, Brazil, Cape Verde) Still Moving.

95mins. Dir: Joao Miller Guerra, Filipa Reis.

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

SUNDAY JULY 29 14:30 CEASEFIRE

(France) 105mins.

Dir: Emmanuel Courcol. French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

In the early 1920s, a

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 Lev Smadar

12:15 PROMISE AT DAWN

(France) 131mins.

Dir: Eric Barbier.

French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A poignant drama surrounding the life of author Romain Gary and his complex relationship with his mother — from his poor childhood in Poland and teens in sunny Nice, to flying school in Africa and the final days of his life.

Gala Cinematheque 1

16 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

today’s consumerist society. man traumatised by horrific trench warfare decides to travel to West Africa, but his adventure leads him to a dead end and back to Paris.

Special Screenings Cinematheque 2

12:45 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 3

13:00 THE PRICE OF EVERYTHING

(US) Dogwoof. 99mins.

Dir: Nathaniel Kahn.

English (Hebrew subtitles).

A deep dive into the rarefied world of contemporary art, where everything can be bought and sold. A stunning exposé of the role of art in

Panorama Lev Smadar

13:45 TRANSIT

(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.

In Marseilles, he meets a woman looking for her husband — the very man he impersonates.

Christian Petzold Tribute Yes Planet 8

15:00 THE GENTLE INDIFFERENCE OF THE WORLD

(Kazakhstan, France) Beta Cinema. 100mins.

Dir: Adilkhan Yerzhanov.

Kazakh (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Saltanat’s mother sends her to the city to marry a man who will pay off her father’s debts. Accompanied by her admirer, Kuandyk, she discovers that city men do not keep their word.

Panorama Lev Smadar

15:45 L’ANIMALE

(UK, US) 97mins.

Dir: Jesse Peretz. English (Hebrew subtitles).

The unlikely transatlantic relationship between a British woman and the American rock star her boyfriend admires.

(Austria) Films Boutique.

100mins. Dir: Katharina Mueckstein. German (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Mati hangs out with a reckless motorbike gang.

When she gets close to one of their victims, she faces a dilemma. At the same time, problems at home come to a head. This daring film explores the encounter between reason and passion.

Gala Cinematheque 1

Debuts Yes Planet 8

14:30 CEASEFIRE See box, above

14:45 JULIET, NAKED

VICTORY DAY + 2 SHORTS Panorama Cinematheque 3

17:00

(US, Jordan) The Film Sales Company. 91mins.

Dir: Alexandra Shiva.

English, Arabic (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Since 2011, 5 million people have fled Syria.

Some 400 arrived in Baltimore. A sensitive and accurate portrayal of the complex interaction between ill-fated immigrants and the reality behind the American dream.

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

17:30 SAUVAGE

(France) Pyramide.

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 3

TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD

(France, China, Belgium) Orange. 103mins.

Dir: Guillaume Nicloux.

French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

1945, Indochina: French soldier Robert Tassen survives a massacre in which his brother is killed.

But his plans for revenge are swayed when he meets a local girl.

Masters Lev Smadar

17:45

DOGMAN

THE INTERPRETER

(Italy, France) Rai

(Slovakia, Czech www.screendaily.com

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Republic) Celluloid Dreams, Pascale Ramonda. 113mins.

Dir: Martin Sulik. Slovak, German (English and Hebrew subtitles).

An 80-year-old man sets out to take revenge on the SS officer who executed his parents, but instead, finds his 70-year-old son who avoided his father throughout his entire life.

The two old men embark on a bittersweet journey to meet surviving witnesses of the wartime tragedy.

Panorama Yes Planet 8

18:45 BRAZIL: BREAKING BOUNDARIES

73mins.

Several works by Brazilian women artists, created under the dictatorship.

Intersections Cinematheque 2

19:30 REDEMPTION

(Israel) 104mins. Dir: Joseph Madmony, Boaz Yehonatan Yacov. Hebrew (English subtitles).

Menachem, a former frontman for a rock band, is now religious. When his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, he must find a creative solution to fund the treatments. Menachem reunites his band for one last tour.

of smell. When she encounters a mysterious man who resembles her, these special skills are compromised, and she develops a strange obsession towards him.

International Competition Yes Planet 8

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

Panorama Lev Smadar

(Poland) Memento Films International.

91mins. Dir: Malgorzata Szumowska. Polish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A Polish metalhead works in construction, building the world’s largest statue of Jesus. Following an accident, he has a face transplant — a lifealtering circumstance that unveils unpleasant truths.

Masters Cinematheque 3

20:15 EXPERIMENTAL COMPETITION

70mins.

The annual Experimental Cinema and Video Art Competition.

Intersections Cinematheque 2

22:00 HANNAH

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

Panorama Cinematheque 2

22:15 ZOHAR — THE RETURNING

HERE AND NOW MUG

team, which struggles against a Congress riddled with corruption

See box, below

LET THE CORPSES TAN

(France, Belgium) BAC Films. 90mins.

Dir: Hélene Cattet, Bruno Forzani. French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A bohemian author and his muse enjoy a tranquil vacation on a desert Mediterranean village when an armed gang appears with some stolen gold. A fast-paced neoWestern featuring riveting cinematic techniques.

(Israel) 67mins. Dir: Dani Rosenberg, Yaniv Segalovich. Hebrew (English subtitles).

Decades after leaving entertainment to become a rabbi, Uri Zohar, a pioneer of Israeli cinema, is directing once again. As he tells the story of a dancer who discovers her faith, we get a glimpse into his own personal journey.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

MONDAY JULY 30 10:00 FLAVOR OF GREEN TEA OVER RICE

Panorama Yes Planet 8

THE TRIAL

(Brazil, Germany, Netherlands) 139mins.

Dir: Maria Augusta Ramos. Portuguese (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A fascinating look at the impeachment of Dilma Rousseff, Brazil’s first female president. The film portrays the ‘judicial political’ trial, focusing on the president’s defence

(Japan) Shochiku Co. 115mins. Dir: Yasujiro Ozu. Japanese (English and Hebrew subtitles).

In 1950s Tokyo, a sophisticated woman grows tired of her arranged marriage to a man focused on his work.

JFF Classics Cinematheque 1

THE RAPE OF RECY TAYLOR

(US) Wide House.

91mins. Dir: Nancy

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 1

19:45 DON’T WORRY, HE WON’T GET FAR ON FOOT

(US) FilmNation.

113mins. Dir: Gus Van Sant. English (Hebrew subtitles).

After an all-night drinking binge, cartoonist John Callaghan finds himself confined to a wheelchair.

BORDER

(Sweden, Denmark) Films Boutique. 101mins.

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

Tina is a customs officer with a unique sense www.screendaily.com

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 3

10:30 AMBIGUOUS PLACES

(Japan) 93mins.

Dir: Akira Ikeda.

Japanese (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Konoko wakes up on a beach with an insect stuck to her head and sets off to find a barber who will remove it. What appears to be a quiet town turns into a surreal fantasy.

A bewildering Japanese comedy where Kafka meets Kaurismaki not too far from Kyoto.

Intersections Cinematheque 2

11:00 FERRANTE FEVER

(Italy) The Match Factory. 74mins. Dir: Giacomo Durzi. Italian (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Author Elena Ferrante has captivated millions of fervent fans since the beginning of her career in the 1990s. But her true identity remains a mystery.

This documentary explores Ferrante’s oeuvre and attempts to identify what led to her success.

Panorama Lev Smadar

12:00

Gala Lev Smadar

20:00

Buirski. English (Hebrew subtitles).

Recy Taylor, a 24-yearold black mother and sharecropper, was gang raped by six white boys in Alabama, 1944. Common in Jim Crow South, few women spoke up in fear for their lives. Not Recy Taylor, who bravely identified her rapists.

This documentary tells her story.

SUNDAY JULY 29

HERE AND NOW

(Israel) 87mins. Dir: Roman Shumunov.

Russian, Hebrew (Hebrew and English subtitles).

Andrey, a young immigrant, forms a

hip-hop band with his three best friends.

When his family suffers a crisis, he must struggle to care for his sister, work and the band rehearsals.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 1

International Competition Cinematheque 1

12:30 LETO

(Russia, France) Charades. 126mins. Dir: Kirill Serebrennikov.

Russian, English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A musical drama that traces Soviet musician Viktor Tsoy’s attempts to make it to the top while facing cultural and personal challenges.

Panorama Lev Smadar

REDEMPTION

(Israel) 104mins. Dir: Joseph Madmony, Boaz Yehonatan Yacov. Hebrew (English subtitles).

Menachem, a former frontman for a rock band, is now religious. When his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, he must find a creative solution to fund the treatments. Menachem reunites his band for one last tour.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 2

14:00 BLACKKKLANSMAN

(US) Universal. 128mins.

Dir: Spike Lee. English (Hebrew subtitles).

In the early 1970s, an African-American police officer notices an ad for the Ku Klux Klan and contacts the advertisers. What starts out as a joke becomes an infiltration operation into the racist organisation.

Gala Yes Planet 8

14:15 IL SHORTS II

IL SHORTS I

101mins.

90mins.

The annual Israeli Short Films Competition.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

22:00

Qiao leaves home to try her luck in the big city.

She falls in love with mafioso Bin.

12:15 ASH IS PUREST WHITE

(China, France) mk2.

150mins. Dir: Jia ZhangKe. Mandarin (English and Hebrew subtitles).

14:45 HERE AND NOW

(Israel) 87mins.

Dir: Roman Shumunov.

Russian, Hebrew (Hebrew and English subtitles).

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 2

July 29, 2018 Screen International at Jerusalem 17

»

SCREENINGS

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.

15:00 SKATE KITCHEN

(US) Charades. 106mins.

Dir: Crystal Moselle.

English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Shy Camille joins Skate Kitchen — a New York posse of girl skateboarders.

Masters Yes Planet 8

Debuts Lev Smadar

LEAN ON PETE

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

(Hebrew subtitles).

Charlie, 15, gets a job at a race track 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.

TO THE ENDS OF THE WORLD

(France, China, Belgium) Orange. 103mins. Dir: Guillaume Nicloux. French (English and Hebrew subtitles).

Masters Cinematheque 1

16:30 CHANTAL AKERMAN BY CHANTAL AKERMAN

(France) 64mins. Dir: Chantal Akerman. French (English subtitles).

When Chantal Akerman was invited to participate in a series on filmmakers portrayed by other filmmakers, all the directors she chose had already been picked by others. Jokingly she suggested herself as a subject and it was accepted.

Chantal Akerman — Farewell Cinematheque 2

MONDAY JULY 30 17:15 SWEET COUNTRY

(Australia) Memento Films International.

113mins. Dir: Warwick Thornton. English, Arrernte (English and Hebrew subtitles).

strives toward liberating human intimacy.

International Competition Cinematheque 1

18:00 THE REAL ESTATE

IL SHORTS III

102mins.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

PITY

(Greece, Poland) New Europe Film Sales.

99mins. Dir: Babis Makridis. Greek (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A lawyer is consoled as his wife lays unconscious.

But as her condition improves, he slowly deteriorates.

Panorama Yes Planet 8

17:15 SWEET COUNTRY See box, above

TOUCH ME NOT

(Romania, Germany, Czech Republic, Bulgaria, France) Doc & Film.

125mins. Dir: Adina Pintilie. English, German (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A therapeutic investigation of human sexuality that

(Sweden, UK) The Match Factory. 88mins.

Dir: Mans Mansson, Axel Petersen. Swedish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

After years of revelry, 68-year old Nojet returns to Stockholm where she has inherited an apartment building.

Discovering that blackmarket crooks have taken over the seventh floor, she wages war against them.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

18:30 MEKTOUB, MY LOVE: CANTO UNO

(France, Italy) Pathé.

175mins. Dir: Abdellatif Kechiche. French, English (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A screenwriter spends the summer in his hometown.

He moves between beaches and bars, facing raw emotions and passions.

Masters Yes Planet 8

18 Screen International at Jerusalem July 29, 2018

In 1920s Australia, an Aboriginal farmhand kills a rancher in self-defence and escapes. The pursuit is a lesson for both sides in law and justice.

In the Spirit of Freedom Lev Smadar

18:45 MY WAR HERO UNCLE

(Israel) 52mins.

Dir: Shaked Goren.

Hebrew (English subtitles).

Ami was killed in the 1967 War. Fifty years later, Shaked, the film’s director and Ami’s nephew, comes upon a family secret.

In between visits to his grandma, Shaked seeks to uncover the truth behind Ami’s life and death.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 3

19:45 RED COW

(Israel) Alma Cinema.

91mins. Dir: Tsivia Barkai-Yacov. Hebrew (Hebrew and English subtitles).

As Benny’s extremist father becomes more and more obsessed with a red heifer that he believes will bring the redemption, she drifts further away and into the arms of Yael, a new woman in her life.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 1

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

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

International Competition Lev Smadar

In the Spirit of Freedom Lev Smadar

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque 1

20:15

(Norway, Germany, Sweden) Beta Cinema.

(Israel, France, Belgium) Pyramide International.

90mins. Dir: Keren Ben Rafael. Hebrew (Hebrew and English subtitles).

The rumour of a mermaid sighting brings unexpected attention to the gloomy town of Kiryat Yam.

22:15

A POLAR YEAR

GIRL

(France) Kinology.

94mins. Dir: Samuel Collardey. Inuktitut, Danish (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A Danish school teacher takes a position in a rural village in Greenland.

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

Fifteen-year-old Lara dreams of becoming a professional ballerina.

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

Panorama Cinematheque 2

AND BREATHE NORMALLY

(Iceland, Sweden, Belgium) The Match Factory. 102mins.

Dir: Isold Uggadottir.

Icelandic (English and Hebrew subtitles).

An encounter between Lara, a passport security officer, and Adja, a refugee from Guinea-Bissau, leads to a unique relationship that crosses cultural boundaries.

Debuts Cinematheque 3

22:00 CLIMAX

WHAT WILL PEOPLE SAY

VIRGINS

(France) Wild Bunch.

96mins. Dir: Gaspar Noé.

French (English and

Debuts Cinematheque 3

LOVE ME NOT

(Greece, France) Elle Driver. 99mins.

Dir: Alexandros Avranas.

Greek (English and Hebrew subtitles).

A bourgeois couple accommodates their carefree surrogate.

The days pass in silence despite the wife’s attempts to befriend her. Until one night, when the husband receives a phone call, and enters a maze of horror.

Jerusalem Cinematheque, 11 Hebron Road, 91083 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

Panorama Cinematheque 2

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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