Screen Jerusalem Issue 5

IS SU E

5

THURSDAY JULY 17 – SUNDAY JULY 20, 2014

TODAY

The Rabinovich Foundation's Cinema Pr – Israel's Largest Film Fund

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Directors: Directors: Aharon Aharon Keshales Keshales Navot Papushado Papushado Big Bad Navot Wolves Directors: Aharon Keshales Navot Papushado

hundred different film productions in all fields and genres. Among the productions the Rabinovich Foundation supported are films such as Beaufort and The Gatekeepers, which recently competed in the American Academy Awards (Oscars) in the Best Foreign Film category and the Best Documentary category, or films such as This is Sodom, a movie targeting the local audience that has turned into the most successful Israeli movie of the last 20 years, with nearly 600,000 local viewers.

The greatest challenge currently facing Israeli filmmakers is the local challenge, and this stems from a decline in investments by local television channels. This void must be filled by local film funds; and among the two film funds supporting full length feature films – the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts and the Israel Film Fund - the Rabinovich Foundation has taken the lead in increasing the sums invested in full length feature films. This

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decision has proven itself, and was reinforced by the Ministry of Culture's Israel Film Council (the council responsible for Israeli film funds), which recently set minimum sums for financing full length feature films and documentaries.

The Rabinovich Foundation also seeks to provide these increased sums to international co-productions between Israeli producers and foreign producers, even in cases in which the Israeli side is the minor partner. In addition to the great importance the Foundation places on the very existence of these types of international cultural collaborations, it also aspires to reciprocity in these collaborations, in order to ensure that they will be long-term and fruitful for both sides.

Another noteworthy trend in Israeli cinema over recent years is the wider range of genres and styles compared to those typical of Israeli cinema in the past. This trend is also led by the Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts, which was there to support its first buds: horror movies like Rabies and Big Bad Wolves, comedies like Hunting Elephants and nature films like Land of Genesis. This trend is indicative of the evolution and maturing of Israeli cinema, which feels increasingly confident to deviate for the familiar boundaries of the past; it is also indicative of the local and international success of Israeli cinema in recent years, which set the scene for embarking into new genres. The Rabinovich Foundation believes that this trend will expand, and that Israeli cinema is in the midst of a significant change, that contributes to it and reinforces it. As the Israeli film industry persists in changing and evolving in new and interesting directions, corresponding to changing reality, so it will continue to flourish.

Israel Ministry of Culture & Sport - The Israel Film Council

IS SU E

5

THURSDAY JULY 17 – SUNDAY JULY 20, 2014

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Nils, Neta, Situation win Pitch Point

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Ram Nehari’s “eccentric” romantic comedy Nils, a youthful tale about a gifted, mentally ill classical musician, Nir Bergman’s drama Saving Neta and Elad Keidan’s Of Our Economic Situation have won the top prizes at Jerusalem Film Festival’s Pitch Point event.

The event — aimed at connecting Israeli feature projects with international producers — unfolded on Monday and Tuesday.

Nehari’s Nils took the $9,500 CNC Award sponsored by France’s National Cinema Centre (CNC).

Produced by Yifat Prestelnik, the film revolves around the romance between two young patients of a

mental hospital who escape together.

The seven-strong international jury, which included Ilann Girard of Paris-based Arsam, Diana Elbaum of Belgium’s Entre Chien et Loup and Claudia Landsberger of Netherlands’ film promotion body EYE International, said they admired the project for “the freshness, youth energy and out-of-thebox nature of this gutsy love story”.

Saving Neta, the latest film from Broken Wings and In Treatment writer-director Bergman, won the $8,000 ARTE International Prize.

Produced Avraham Pirchi, Tami Leon and Chilik Michaeli of Tel Aviv-based UCM, the film inter-

weaves the tales of five women linked by random encounters with a man called Neta.

“This project allows us to discover anew the work of an established director through an innovative narrative construct that gives us a unique window on its protagonist and his journey through random interactions,” said the jury in a statement.

Keidan’s Of Our Economic Situation was awarded the $6,800 Van Leer Foundation prize for the most promising work in progress. Set in the northern Israeli city of Haifa, the story revolves around a chance meeting between old acquaintances on the famous 1,000 steps

staircase running up Mount Carmel. Eitan Mansuri of Spiro Films produces.

The jury said it appreciated what the director was trying to address and “his effort to reveal different multi-layers of society through the landscape of the city of Haifa”.

A special mention was also given to Joseph El Dror’s No Blood, about an introverted man who is forced on a journey of self discovery when he unwittingly falls for a woman who smuggles drugs across the Israeli-Lebanese border.

Liran Atzmor produces.

The jury described it as “a subtle tale about hidden truths and selfdiscoveries”.

Nir Shaanani

Nina Menkes

NEWS Taming the Minotaur Nina Menkes plans a retelling of Theseus’s battle, set against the Israeli-Palestinian conflict » Page 4

INTERVIEW The face of the festival Meet festival founder Lia van Leer » Page 7

PROFILE The original Oldboy Park Chan Wook on crossing borders » Page 9

Final print daily This is Screen’s last print daily of Jerusalem 2014. For the rest of our festival news, see ScreenDaily.com

Dancing Arabs moves indoors

BY WENDY MITCHELL

Spike Jonze

Jonze cancels masterclass

BY WENDY MITCHELL

Spike Jonze cancelled his Jerusalem Film Festival masterclass scheduled for Wednesday night because of the current conflict.

Jonze travelled to Jerusalem but decided not to go ahead with the event. He said in a statement: “Dear film-makers and film-goers, I apologise for not being there with you tonight. It felt like the wrong time for me to be talking about movies with everything going on. I hope you understand. I will come back again and screen movies and talk film with you when the time is right. My heart is with you and everyone who is suffering right now.”

The festival said it appreciated Jonze coming to Jerusalem and understood his decision.

Noa Regev, director of the festival, said: “We respect Mr Jonze’s decision and we apologise to the many people who were looking forward to this event.”

The festival has offered refunds to masterclass ticketholders.

TODAY

Jerusalem mayor Nir Barkat joins festival director Noa Regev at the reception on Tuesday night held at the city’s new Waldorf Astoria hotel.

Thursday night’s rescheduled screening of Dancing Arabs will be held at the Cinematheque instead of the Sultan’s Pool.

The festival had been scheduled to open on July 10 with 6,000 people attending a Sultan’s Pool screening of Eran Riklis’s latest film. Due to security risks, that screening was postponed to July 17, but the festival has now confirmed the outdoor screening will not be held at all.

Instead, Dancing Arabs will screen on Thursday night at the Cinematheque at 19:15.

The festival said the decision was “due to the escalation in the security situation and in accordance with instructions from the home-front command”.

Nancy Spielberg eyes fiction feature spin-off of Israeli air-force doc

BY ANDREAS WISEMAN

Nancy Spielberg, sister of Steven, is readying a feature about Second World War pilots who volunteered to fight for Israel in the War of Independence.

The feature is inspired by the producer’s documentary Above And Beyond: The Birth Of The Israeli Air Force, directed by Roberta Grossman, which screens this week at the festival.

“I’ve just started talking to people about making the documentary into a [fictional feature] film,” the producer told Screen. “It would make a great feature. This may

sound Spielbergian but I see it as a combination of Catch Me If You Can, Indiana Jones and Saving Private Ryan. “It has adventure, heart, sex, everything — it’s universal.”

Brother Steven could be in the frame as a potential collaborator on the feature: “Steven will get his shot, just like everybody else,” said Spielberg. “That would be wonderful; I’m going to shoot high. I’m hoping to do it in a big way.”

Documentary Abov e And Beyond, co-produced with the Katahdin Foundation, will play at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival later this month.

Nancy Spielberg

The film marks the first producer credit for Spielberg, who previously served as consultant on documentary Chernobyl Heart and executive producer on TV doc Elusive Justice: The Search For Nazi

War Criminals. “I have held back on so many film projects because the whole Spielberg thing gets in the way,” she admitted. “But this one felt so right for me.”

Spielberg is in discussion with potential distribution partners for the film, while also cooking up future documentaries.

She will produce or executive produce Grossman’s Mimi And Donna, about the relationship between a mother and her disabled daughter, and Who Will Write Our History, a documentary about Emanuel Ringelblum’s diaries on life in the Warsaw Ghetto.

News

Itzik Lerner breaks into political prison

By Melanie Goodfellow

Director Itzik Lerner has gained unprecedented access to Israel’s notorious Nafha political prison and its Palestinian inmates, including key figures from the militant group Hamas, for his upcoming documentary Secret Link. Jerusalem-based documentary sales agent Ruth Diskin is backing and handling international sales on the project.

“It took Itzik six years to gain permission to shoot in the jail, which is one of the most protected facilities in Israel,” said Diskin, who works under the Ruth Diskin Films banner.

Lerner has been filming sporadically in the jail in southern Israel since April. Access has been denied during the current escalation of the conflict. More than 5,500 Palestinian political prisoners are being held in Israeli jails. “We already have some rough footage,” said Diskin. “Itzik has unique access to both the prison and the inmates, some of them Hamas militants.”

Israeli documentary channel Yes Docu and the New Fund For Cinema & TV have boarded the project, which is also attracting interest from abroad. Long-time collaborator and documentary maker Dan Setton is also attached as a producer. Lerner’s recent credits include the four-part series Holy Blood, looking at the role of religion and tradition in the Middle East conflict.

Diskin also recently acquired Yossi Aviram’s The Polgar Variant, about a 1970s family of Hungarian chess prodigies, which premiered in Jerusalem Film Festival’s Israeli Documentary Competition on Tuesday. The documentary, produced by Tel Aviv-based Lama Films, follows on from Aviram’s fiction feature debut The Dune, which premiered at San Sebastian last year.

Other new titles on Diskin’s slate include Gad Aisen’s Waves Of Memory, about a Jewish refugee boat that sank off Greece in 1946; and Inna Rogatchi’s Lessons Of Survival: Conversations With Simon Wiesenthal, consisting of interviews with the Nazi hunter.

‘Cinema will bring us together’

By Edna Fainaru

One of the Cinematheque and festival’s indispensable interns is Raya Darwish, a 17-year-old girl from the Arab village of Beit Safafa, a few miles outside Jerusalem. She has just graduated from high school and, among her many talents, speaks three languages and is a gifted violinist.

Darwish comes to the festival and Cinematheque as part of the work of UK-headquartered Films Without Borders, founded by British documentary film-maker Jill Samuels as a non-political organisation working with teenagers in areas of conflict.

“When Jill Samuels visited our school and asked who would be interested to make movies, it sounded very intriguing,” says

Raya Darwish with Aviva Meirom

Darwish. “Though my ambition is to study engineering, I thought I’d give it a try. I started as a producer, working with a friend, Ihab Jadallah, on a short film about my sister, Ahlam, who is a pianist.” The film was good enough to be screened in New York this year for students and the media.

Darwish is proud of her job as an intern at Jerusalem Cinematheque. “I meet a lot of new and

interesting people here and it opens many doors into the world of media.”

And how does she feel, these days, coming every day to work?

“Here I am neutral. We can only hope that at the end of the day, cinema will bring us all together.”

And isn’t she afraid? “Why should I be afraid in my own country?”

Films Without Borders trains educators to work with young people between the ages of 15-18 and introduces them to the first stages of film production. The group has offices in both Israel and Palestine, and given the present circumstances, there was ample reason for them to worry.

But at least in the case of Jerusalem Cinematheque, the worry was unnecessary.

Cinematheque was a natural fit for Films Without Borders, as it is one of the few places where Jews and Arabs traditionally meet, in a kind of no man’s land, to talk to each other not as belligerent parties but as human beings.

“We’re a pluralist institution, we work with people of all religions and all ethnic origins,” says Cinematheque’s events manager and co-ordinator Aviva Meirom, who now counts Darwish as her trusted assistant. “We aim to be the home of every single person in Jerusalem, without distinction.

“When Jill Samuels approached us to help, we felt the best way would be to find these young people, working under the foundation’s umbrella, something to do here in the Cinematheque.”

Nir Shaanani

Schedule changes

» The screening on Thursday of omnibus film Cathedrals Of Culture has been moved to Sunday at 19:00. » The gala screening of closing film The Wind Rises, directed

by Japanese master Hayao Miyazaki, will start at 22:30 on Thursday.

Princess actress Keren Mor (left) and director Tali Shalom-Ezer at the festival reception on Tuesday night at the Waldorf Astoria hotel. See profile, page 8.

» Fringidaire events will now be held on Friday instead of Thursday.

Menkes develops a modern-day Minotaur

By Melanie Goodfellow

Experimental film-maker Nina Menkes is developing a new film examining the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through a loose retelling of the Greek myth of Theseus and the Minotaur, set against the backdrop of the Old City of Jerusalem in contemporary times.

Entitled Minotaur, the film revolves around a Christian Palestinian working with tourists in the Old City, who embodies both Theseus and the Minotaur, which manifests itself as a Hebrewspeaking beast that attacks visitors in the crypt of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. He has a

4 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

mother called Pasiphae and falls for a waitress called Ariadne.

“First and foremost, it’s an emotional story about the process of confronting the self and not living in denial, which I think is a big issue around here… but it’s also a political story about the country we live in,” explained Menkes.

Palestinian actor Ziad Bakri, recently seen in Shira Geffen’s Self Made, has signed to play the lead, opposite Russian actress Svetlana Khodchenkova (The Wolverine) as Ariadne.

The director, whose credits include Dissolution, Phantom Love and Massaker, presented the

$800,000 project at the Israeli feature-focused Pitch Point event this week.

Israeli Palestinian producer Tony Copti of Jaffa-based Fresco Films, who worked on Dissolution, is producing Minotaur.

“I’d like to emphasise the combination of a Palestinian producer and Israeli director,” said Menkes, who is also American. “It was extremely important for me that the structure of the production reflected the politics in the film.”

“We’re still in the financing stages. We have applications out to the Jerusalem Film Fund, as the film will be shot in the city, and

the Israel Film Fund,” said Copti.

To date, Menkes has secured a $50,000 development grant from the New York-based fund Creative Capital.

Fresco, which line produced Ziad Doueiri’s The Attack and Rani Massalha’s Giraffada, is in post-production on Israeli director Yaniv Berman’s Land Of The Little People, about a group of wayward teenagers living on an army compound.

Other upcoming productions include Nazareth-based director Maha Assal’s Personal Affairs, intermingling contemporary stories around one central character.

www.screendaily.com

Those at the Ostrovsky Family Fund congratulate the 31st Jerusalem International Film Festival staff, participants and supporters and announce a new publication: George Ostrovsky Retrospective downloadable in August at ostrovsky-family-fund.com

GEORGE OSTROVSKY | RETROSPECTIVE

Foreword by Ron Pundak

Origins, Legacy and the Founding of the Jerusalem Film Center

Interview Lia van Leer

The queen of the scene Lia van Leer, the very life and soul of the Israeli film industry, talks to Edna Fainaru about forging her own path, building the national film archive and launching Jerusalem Film Festival

‘‘F

www.screendaily.com

Lia van Leer with Robert De Niro…

… and the Dardenne brothers Nir Shaanani

or many years, they used to say in Cannes that when I go to sleep, there’s nothing more happening in town!” says Lia van Leer, Israel’s pioneering film archivist and programmer, often referred to as the first lady of Israeli cinema.

Today she is sitting back in her office at Jerusalem Cinematheque and is reminiscing about her action-packed life at the heart of the Israeli film scene.

Van Leer started Israel’s first film club in Haifa in 1955, building it into Haifa Cinematheque and adding her family’s private collection of 16mm films, which became the basis of the Israel Film Archive.

She opened a second Cinematheque in Tel Aviv before moving to Jerusalem in 1967 to officially found Jerusalem Cinematheque, the archive and Jerusalem Film Festival. The latter is now celebrating its 31st anniversary.

For many years, van Leer was the factotum who kept the whole organisation moving.

Running from one festival to another, from one capital to the next, begging, pleading and collecting films wherever she could find them. She seemed to be on the move 24 hours a day, chasing her one fix: films.

It was not a serious endeavour, some people would say, including her husband’s mother, Polly van Leer — the founder of the Van Leer Foundation — who considered films to be, at best, an entertainment.

“When I got an honorary PhD from the Hebrew University for my activities, everyone was impressed, except her,” says van Leer.

Mother-in-law or not, Lia van Leer is credited as a founder of film culture in the country. Wandering around the world with her late husband, Wim, who was always by her side, often seemed to be her main occupation. “Every year, we would start in Athens and then make our way from one country to the next, stopping wherever there were films to be found, and wouldn’t stop for three months,” she remembers.

If she was keen, there was little that would prevent her seeing a film. “We were in Rome when La Dolce Vita opened, I tried to get in and they told me there were no more seats. I answered that I don’t mind sitting on the floor but they claimed it was against the law.

‘All right,’ I said, ‘I’ll sit on the floor and you call the police.’ That’s how I saw La Dolce Vita,” says van Leer.

She has always enjoyed being around

(Left) A greeting from the late Anthony Minghella.

(Above) checking messages before Tuesday night’s Pitch Point prize-giving ceremony

young people and nurturing new talent. She discovered the late Wouter Barendrecht, who was to become the co-founder of Fortissimo Films. At the time he was a young intern at the Berlinale Forum. She invited him to Jerusalem.

“He would have long conversations with Wim in Dutch,” says van Leer. “They got along famously and soon he was referring to him [Wim] as his adoptive father.”

Equal opportunities Van Leer has always forged her own path — she turned a deaf ear to the Jewish Orthodox community when they objected to keeping the Cinematheque open on Shabbat — and has been determined to make both Jews and Arabs feel at home there.

“The year Elia Suleiman’s Chronicle Of A Disappearance was shown at the festival in 1996, on the day we were about to announce the award he got for the film, a bus was blown up by terrorists in Jerusalem,” she

‘“All right,” I said, “I’ll sit on the floor and you call the police.’”

That’s how I saw La Dolce Vita’ Lia van Leer

says. “When I was attacked for giving such a film a prize in these circumstances, my answer was that these people live here, next door to us. They have no country and no army to defend them, this is their only way to resist the occupation and they have a right to express themselves.”

The response was a host of angry and often threatening phone calls and letters from right-wing hardliners. But she was undeterred.

Age has not slowed down van Leer, at least not her spirit. Now aged 93, she has finally renounced her position as CEO of Jerusalem Film Festival but remains president of the three Cinematheques, the archive and the festival.

She pledges to go on, every night of the festival, travelling around town from one watering hole to another, making sure her guests are happy and comfortable, and treated as they should. Woe betide those who s stand in her way. n

July 17-20 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 7

PROFILES Tali Shalom-Ezer Princess Nir Shaanani

BY SARAH COOPER

Tel Aviv-based writer-director Tali Shalom-Ezer made waves on the international circuit with her 2009 midlength film Surrogate, which screened at Edinburgh International Film Festival and won the top prize at the Israeli International Women’s Festival, while her 2006 short film Living Room screened at Cannes. Now she is back with her first full-length feature, Princess,, a hard-hitting family drama involving 12-year-old Adar whose relationship with her step-father takes a sinister turn when her workaholic mother is away. Adar goes on to meet a young boy who closely resembles her and brings him into the family, with tragic consequences.

“I’m obsessed with those adolescent

years, that coming-of-age moment when you discover the curious, exciting and scary world of adults, and I knew my first feature would touch on that subject,” says Ezer, who developed the project at Binger

Filmlab in Amsterdam, with funding from the Rabinovich Foundation in Israel.

Starring Keren Mor and Ori Pfeffer, together with newcomers Shira Haas and Adar Zohar Hanetz, the film’s taboo subject matter made the production process particularly challenging. “It is a sub(Left) Princess; (above) Tali Shalom-Ezer

ject close to my heart and I knew when I started work on the film that this would be a long, dark journey,” says ShalomEzer, who set out to make a film from the point of view of the children involved.

“There is so much pain, suffering and repression regarding sexuality in the family and sexual abuse that the subject is hardly ever talked about. I couldn’t go through with this journey if I didn’t wholeheartedly believe this is a story worth telling,” adds the director, who cites Gus Van Sant, Ingmar Bergman and Wim Wenders as influences.

Both Surrogate and Living Room also screened at Jerusalem Film Festival, while Ezer has previously sat on the festival jury.

“It’s like a second home for me, so naturally I feel greatly connected with the event and I’m happy to have my first feature presented within the official competition,” says the director, who is already working on her next feature. “It’s still in the earliest stages of development but I can definitely say my next project will not be as dark.”

Efrat Corem Ben Zaken

BY EDNA FAINARU

“This is the kind of film that expects its viewers to have the patience to listen and watch, even if they don’t agree with what they see on the screen,” says Efrat Corem, writer-director of Ben Zaken, one of the first two films to come out of Sapir College, in the south of the country and very close to Gaza.

For the last five years, Corem was artistic director of Festival Darom (Cinema South Film Festival), an event organised by her alma mater and Sderot Cinematheque for the benefit of a population deprived of the film luxuries that abound in cities such as Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and Haifa.

Cannes screened Corem’s first short film, Your Younger Daughter Rachel, in 2007, but embarking on a feature film was a completely different matter.

“Moving from a graduation short to a full-length feature was a major step, mentally. It took me no less than six years to write the script, and once I met

Ben Zaken

my producer, Itai Tamir, I needed yet another year to organise the pre-production, cast the picture and shoot it, though that was the shortest process of them all — only 16 days.”

The funds to complete the film, $335,000 (ILS1.14m), came from several sources. “Israel Film Fund was one of them, the Gesher Fund whose purpose is to encourage productions in the peripheries, added their contribution and even Festival Darom and my school, Sapir Col-

8 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

Efrat Corem

lege, pitched in with a grant, which was very encouraging,” Corem says. Last year, she won another grant at Jerusalem Film Festival’s Pitch Point, which allowed her to move into the actual production.

The entire story takes place in one of the more deprived corners of her home town, Ashkelon, next door to Sderot. It is her very personal universe. “The elementary school you see is the one I went to; everything around there is painfully familiar to me,” she says.

The plot follows the relationship between a middle-aged single father and his 11-year-old daughter, and their respective attempts to break out of their circle of misery, just like all their neighbours.

“There is nothing heroic about the main character, barely making a living as a night guardian and still living with his own mother, at a loss to assume his responsibility as a parent,” she says.

“Only when he is separated from his daughter does he really become a father in the true sense of the word.”

The entire cast consists of non-actors and her main goal was to make it all look almost, but not quite, a documentary, certainly different from any other film of this kind. Her minimalist approach means each scene consists of only one shot.

As for the future, Corem has no intention of moving out of Ashkelon. “This is my world and I want to go on exploring it. When you hold the ball in your hand, you want to take it as far as it goes.”

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Reviews, page 10

Park Chan Wook Masters Korean director Park Chan Wook is tired of being asked about vengeance… understandably, since he finished his ‘vengeance’ trilogy with Sympathy For Lady Vengeance nearly a decade ago.

“I get asked a lot why vengeance is so important in Korean cinema, so I flip the question, ‘Why are foreign distributors only interested in films that deal with vengeance?’ There are many Korean films to choose from, such as comedies and romances.”

He is both surprised and thrilled that a film like Oldboy (2003) still draws crowds — as it did with a screening here at Jerusalem Film Festival.

“I couldn’t dream it. I didn’t expect this response after 10 years,” he says, adding that he does think about such things when planning his films. “I keep asking myself [while making each film] whether it will stand the test of time. Will cinematheques be showing it in 50 years? But you don’t know, even if you have that in mind.”

Park recently made his first foray into

Nir Shaanani

By Wendy Mitchell

Park Chan Wook

English-language features with the wellreceived Fox Searchlight project Stoker; he plans to work again in English in the future but has not yet decided what his next film will be (he definitely wants to make a 3D film at some point). “I do have many plans to work more in English, but also in Korean. It’s about a good script, whether that’s in Korea, America, France, Italy or Japan.”

‘I ask myself whether the film I’m making will stand the test of time.

Will cinematheques be showing it in 50 years?’

Park Chan Wook, film-maker

He says working on a US film meant there was nothing lost in translation.

“When I make Korean movies, even with very good translation, the audience is reading subtitles and sometimes they aren’t aware of cultural differences. With Stoker, there’s no cultural or language misunderstanding.”

For all of his films, he thinks of the audience. “It’s important to think about how international audiences will respond to my films,” he says. “I try not to use Korean cultural particularities like jokes that can only be understood by Koreans.”

While in Jerusalem, he has seen only one Israeli film so far, Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado’s thriller Big Bad Wolves. “I know a little bit about kidnapping and torture,” he says with a smile, “but that film broke my expectations.”

The unflappable Park seems unfazed that his masterclass at JFF was interrupted by an air-raid siren. “Korean people can get used to this type of situation better than any other people,” he says with a laugh.

Makram Khoury Achievement Award It has been a busy two years for actor Makram Khoury, a recipient of one of the festival’s Achievement Awards this year.

“I’ve done eight projects in two years, which is a lot. Three of them were leading parts and some were lovely small parts in a number of international films,” says the 69-year-old actor, who is also sitting on the jury of the festival’s In the Spirit of Freedom sidebar.

His recent work includes international films such as Fatih Akin’s The Cut, Natalie Portman’s Amos Oz adaptation A Tale Of Love And Darkness and Richard Raymond’s Iran-set Desert Dancer, as well as Israeli comedy Sukaryot and Magic Men, for which he won an Israeli Film Academy award as best actor last year.

Prior to that, Khoury was touring with Peter Brook’s theatre production 11 and 12, revolving around the theme of religious tolerance.

“Honestly, I don’t know what they’re giving me the award for,” says self-depre-

www.screendaily.com

Nir Shaanani

By Melanie Goodfellow

Makram Khoury at Jerusalem Film Festival

cating Khoury. “Lia van Leer called me and said, ‘We want to give you an award.’

I guess it’s for my achievement in cinema and life, which is nice coming from Lia van Leer, someone who I really respect as an example of a beautiful human being.”

Looking at Khoury’s filmography, however, it is not difficult to see why he is being honoured. The Palestinian actor, who was born in Jerusalem in 1945 but grew up in Haifa after a brief period in a refugee camp in Lebanon, is one of the

‘The experience of a Chinese or Japanese person, though we may look different, can be exactly the same as mine. People are people, we have the same needs’ Makram Khoury, actor

most celebrated actors in Israeli cinema today. A true chameleon, Khoury’s past roles range from playing a Holocaust survivor to an Israeli prime minister, and an Iraqi prime minister to an Israeli Arab wheeler-dealer.

The actor says that after 50 years’ work on the stage and big screen, the process of transformation is second nature to him now.

“Michael Chekhov the great actor, director and teacher, in the introduction of one of his books on acting theory, says, ‘An actor is the closest thing to God.’ This sentence took me years to understand.

“I eventually realised the meaning was that as an actor you have to be almost every human being. The experience of a Chinese or Japanese person, though we may look different, can be exactly the same as mine. People are people — we have the same needs,” says Khoury. “As an actor you have to be open and understanding and not judge the characters you’re playing.”

July 17-20, 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 9

REVIEWS

Reviews edited by Mark Adams mark.adams@screendaily.com

The Fake Reviewed by Mark Adams

Maidan Reviewed by Dan Fainaru When the Maidan Square protests broke out in late November 2013, in protest against the widespread corruption and the pro-Russian, anti-EU stance of former president Viktor Yanukovych and his government, Ukrainian director Sergei Loznitsa followed events closely. He soon decided he needed to chronicle the history that was unfolding in the square, and from midDecember up to and including the violent denouement of these ‘Euromaidan’ demonstrations in February 2014, he was there with a camera crew, among the protestors and, when things turned sour, in the thick of the action.

But Maidan is less breathlessly immersed in the melee than one might expect. Loznitsa and his crew filmed events inside the square and in the protestors’ HQ from a series of fixed camera angles, leaving the camera running so we get a long, busy tableaux of the Euromaidan movement, in which we have time to observe characters, details and interactions as if scanning a painting. There is no voiceover narration: all we are given are a handful of sparing intertitles that explain the basic facts and chronology of the protest.

The film opens on a crowd singing the Ukrainian national anthem, then charts the community spirit of the early days of the protest in a series of fixed shots, some lasting several minutes, filmed both in the square and in what appears to be the Kiev City Council building, which was occupied and turned into the protestors’ central HQ. The mood appears peaceful, constructive and even festive, especially with the approach of Christmas.

It is almost an hour in, with a shot showing a line of ambulances, that the mood changes. Helmets and gasmasks begin to appear, and the demonstrators pass broken pieces of pavement from hand-to-hand to use as weapons. Soon the director’s impassive camera is recording mayhem as protestors surge this way and that, throwing stones and choking on tear gas. A few of the sequences in this darker part of the film are masterful pieces of cinema that should be required viewing for any director wanting to understand how rioters move and behave.

n 10 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

In the spirit of freedom Neth-Ukr. 2014. 134mins Director Sergei Loznitsa Production company Atoms & Void International sales Atoms & Void, atomypustota. info@gmail.com Producers Sergei Loznitsa, Maria Choustova-Baker Cinematography Serhiy Stefan Stetsenko, Sergei Loznitsa, Mykhailo Yelchev Editors Sergei Loznitsa, Danielius Kokanauskis

Yeon Sang-ho’s strikingly dark and violent follow-up to his pioneering South Korean animation The King Of Pigs (2011) is a similarly bleak and harrowing tale that confirms his reputation for making pure and uncompromising animation for grown-ups, again focusing on an unlikely subject for animation.

The Fake (Saibi) looks at how religion can be manipulated to control the desperate or the innocent, focusing on a small South Korean town set to be flooded due to a hydroelectric dam, with the church — in the form of a new pastor named Sung — offering help to the confused locals, naturally in exchange for their life savings.

The film also features one of the most unlikely of antiheroes: a brutal, thieving, drunken and violent man who abuses his wife and daughter but who takes on the wrongdoing of this evangelical church just to prove a point, not for any moral or ethical reason.

Min-chul arrives back at his home and casually steals the money his daughter, Young-sun, has been saving for her college education and drunkenly blows it gambling.

After getting into a fight with suave but violent businessman Choi — who happens to be behind the church/cult — Min-chul is picked up by the police. While at the station he recognises a picture of the con-man who is posing as a church elder, and sets out to track him down — just to prove himself right and not through any feelings of support for the parishioners. Min-chul is subsequently caught up in the kind of organised crime that puts his family in mortal danger.

Despite his innately evil nature Min-chul veers on the accidentally heroic at times, but his sheer selfish unpleasantness makes him a supremely vile and shocking lead character.

The Fake is a dark, dour and depressing film and while challenging and thought provoking it is never fun.

But it is a finely crafted and absorbing movie that — as with The King Of Pigs — offers a stark and tough insight into modern South Korea.

Panorama

S Kor. 2013. 101mins Director/screenplay Yeon Sang-ho Production company Studio Dadashow International sales Finecut Co Ltd, www.finecut.co.kr Producer Cho Young-kag Executive producer Kim Woo-taek Editor Lee Yeunjung Production designer Byun Ki-hyun Voice cast Yang Ik-june, Oh Jung-se, Kwon Haehyo, Park Hee-von

www.screendaily.com

Screenings, page 12

The Wonders

Panorama

Reviewed by Lee Marshall

Gett, The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem Reviewed by Dan Fainaru The third part of a trilogy that started 10 years ago with To Take A Wife (2004) and followed by 7 Days in 2008, Gett, The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem by siblings Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz puts a resounding final touch to the ferocious portrait of a woman desperately fighting Jewish religious dictates to regain her freedom from an arranged marriage she never wanted in the first place.

Shot entirely in a bland, bare rabbinical courtroom with only occasional exits into the reception next door, the audience is forced to face the full impact of what looks like an outdated medieval procedure, but is in fact an authentic replica of the only kind of process available to Jewish Israeli women wishing to obtain their divorce.

Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) had been given in marriage, as was the custom of the Moroccan Jews, to Elisha Amsalem (Abkarian), an upstanding member of the community. Despite being asked repeatedly for a divorce, Elisha will not grant one under any condition. Jewish religious laws cannot compel him to, as long as he provides for her and does not physically assault or harm her. Left with no other choice, she leaves home and moves in with one of her brothers.

The rabbinical court is asked to intervene, but since they are supposed to defend the family institution at any cost, they suppose the woman is always at fault. The court demands that Viviane abide by the man of the house and return to him, again and again, despite her protests.

The film is a long series of court deliberations spread over a period of five years, with postponements, delays, outbursts and crises that threaten several times to interrupt the procedure altogether. Tension mounts with every new session, as does sheer fatigue, frustration and despair. The dialogue is quick, tough and unpredictable, and unveils how deeply ingrained are the prejudices against women; their rights, their capacity to fend for themselves and their inferiority to men.

The price Viviane must pay could well be enough to ruin the rest of her life.

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Feature Competition Fr-Isr-Ger. 2014. 115mins Directors Ronit Elkabetz, Shlomi Elkabetz Production company Elzevir et Compagnie International sales Films Distribution, www. filmsdistribution.com Producers Marie Masmonteil, Sandrine Brauer, Shlomi Elkabetz Cinematography Jeanne Lapoirie Editor Joelle Alexis Main cast Ronit Elkabetz, Simon Abkarian, Menashe Noy, Sasson Gabai, Eli Gorstein, Rami Danon, Roberto Pollack

A rich, strange mix of coming-of-age film and troubled modern pastoral, The Wonders proves Alice Rohrwacher’s spikily original feature debut, Corpo Celeste, was no flash in the pan. Delving partly into the director’s own family background, The Wonders (Le Meraviglie) captures something profound about the passage to adulthood as a mix of hormonal drama and dream state.

Anchored by a fine cast, dominated by the performance of first-time actress Alexandra Lungu, this resonant film will place Rohrwacher firmly in the canon of Italian directors to watch, a decade on from the emergence of festival darlings Paolo Sorrentino and Matteo Garrone.

Monica Bellucci’s turn as a past-her-sell-by-date TV soubrette should not kid anyone about The Wonders’ target audience: it is resolutely arthouse, though at the wider end of the spectrum, and with solid international potential for curious, patient viewers.

On one of its many levels, The Wonders is a film about growing up in an unorthodox family. Twelve-year-old Gelsomina (Lungu) is the oldest daughter of a couple of former student revolutionaries who have moved to the Tuscan countryside to keep bees and build a private version of utopia. But it is under threat from hunters, from non-organic neighbours whose weedkillers kill the bees, from health and safety bureaucrats, and most of all from the unremitting drudgery of farm work.

Family patriarch Wolfgang (Louwyk) is a taut, feral soul at war with the world and the daughters he loves; the mother, played by the director’s sister Alba, is stressed and overworked, and Gelso (as she is abbreviated) has stepped into the breach, mothering her sisters and helping with the bees.

Rohrwacher listens to her characters and lets them take the story in unexpected directions, at the same time building resonance out of recurrent symbols. One of these is the slow drip of honey from a vat into a bucket that needs changing before it is full — a country ritual, a promise of sweetness but also a distillation of paternal tyranny.

It-Switz-Ger. 2014.

110mins Director/screenplay Alice Rohrwacher Production companies Tempesta, Rai Cinema International sales The Match Factory, www. the-match-factory.de Producers Carlo CrestoDina, Karl Baumgartner, Tiziana Soudani, Michael Weber Cinematography Hélene Louvart Editor Marco Spoletini Production designer Emita Frigato Main cast Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Alba Rohrwacher, Sabine Timoteo, Agnese Graziani, Luis Huilca Logrono

July 17-20, 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 11 n

Screenings

» Screening times and venues are correct at the time of going to press

Edited by Paul Lindsell paullindsell@gmail.com

who founded the Women on Waves organisation, which operates a ship that enables women around the world to have abortions when the laws in their own countries forbid it.

Thursday July 17 09:30 Zip & Zap and the Marble Gang See box, right

10:00

In the Spirit of Freedom in Memory of Wim van Leer

Castle in the Sky

(Japan) Orlando Films, Tel Aviv. 124mins. Dir: Hayao Miyazaki. Key cast: Keiko Yokozawa, Mayumi Tanaka, Kotoe Hatsui.

Corrupt government agents, wild air pirates, a coveted necklace and a fairytale castle in the sky — Miyazaki spins these into an adventure fantasy.

After escaping her captors, a young girl named Sheeta falls from the sky into the arms of Pazu, a young coal miner. Together, the two set out on a path full of dangers, hoping to find the floating isle of Laputa and perhaps also discover Sheeta’s true identity.

Cinematheque4

Paris, Texas

(US, France, UK, Germany) Hollywood Classics, London.

147mins. Dir: Wim Wenders. Key cast: Harry Dean Stanton, Hunter Carson, Dean Stockwell.

An amnesiac man wanders out of the Texas desert into a godforsaken town and collapses. The mystery behind his disappearance four years earlier will not dissipate — not after his brother comes to pick him up, not when he returns to Los Angeles to reunite with his young son, and not even when goes to track down his wife and try to understand how his marriage fell apart.

Classics Cinematheque2

10:15 Black Coal, Thin Ice

(Hong Kong, China) Fortissimo, Amsterdam.

Dir: Diao Yinan. Key cast: Liao Fan, Gwei Lun Mei, Ni Jingyang, Wang Xuebing, Wang Jingchun, Yu Ailei.

A small town in northern China, 1999. A coal miner is brutally murdered and his body parts are

Cinematheque4

12:45 War and Peace, Part 1

Thursday July 17 09:30 Zip & Zap and the Marble Gang

(Spain) Film Factory, Barcelona. 106mins.

Dir: Oskar Santos. Key cast: Javier Gutierrez, Daniel Cerezo, Raul Rivas.

Twins Zip and Zap are sent to a strict boarding school run by the evil principle Falconetti. Zip and Zap establish the discovered hundreds of kilometers apart throughout the region. The police investigation reveals a potential suspect, but the attempt to capture him takes a heavy toll: two police officers dead and one badly injured. Zhang Zili, the injured officer, is suspended from duty and has to take a job as a security guard at a factory.

Five years later, when a series of mysterious murders once again plagues the region, Zhang decides to investigate the murders on his own. After discovering that all of the victims were connected to a beautiful young woman who works at a dry-cleaning store, he decides to pose as a client in order to follow her. Soon enough he begins to fall in love with the woman, until one winter night it all becomes clear and he

n 12 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

Debuts Competition

Marble Underground, whose goal is to unseat Falconetti, who makes the kids’ lives miserable.

Thanks to a lot of pluck and courage, they discover a mysterious secret hidden between the walls of the institution and embark on a journey that will become the adventure of a lifetime.

JFF Kids Cinematheque1

realises that his life is in imminent danger.

Panorama Cinematheque3

South is Nothing

(Italy) Doc & Film, Paris. 90mins. Dir: Fabio Mollo. Key cast: Miriam Karlkvist, Vinicio Marchioni, Valentina Lodovini.

In a small coastal town in southern Italy, a workingclass family tries to survive following the death of their son, Pietro. The widowed father, unable to cope with the loss of his son, does his best to make ends meet at his fish shop, whose existence is threatened by the local Mafia. Rebellious tomboy Grazia lives in the shadow of her older brother and is drawn to a young dealer who promises to take her to find him.

Lev Smadar

11:30 Lilting

(UK) Protagonist Pictures, London.

91mins. Dir: Hong Khaou. Key cast: Ben Whishaw, Pei-pei Cheng, Andrew Leung.

The sudden death of Kai, a young Londoner, comes as a blow to his mother, Joan, and immerses her in grief. It also shatters Richard, Kai’s partner, who feels responsible for the bereaved mother.

He arrives at the house where she is staying and attempts to comfort her, but the mother, a ChineseCambodian who barely speaks English, scarcely hides her dislike for Richard. To communicate with her, he hires a young translator. The mismatched pair attempt to carry on a dialogue and bridge cultural and linguistic gaps through memories of the man who was so dear to them both.

A drama about two strangers who are unable to communicate but draw closer to one another through their shared grief.

Panorama Cinematheque1

12:15 The Fake

(South Korea) Finecut,

Seoul. 101mins. Dir: Yoen Sang-ho. Key cast: Voices: Yang Ikjune, Oh Jungse, Kwon Haehyo.

A new hydroelectric dam is about to flood the homes of the inhabitants of a small South Korean village. The villagers put their trust in a church elder, who promises to relocate them in the present and to secure them a place in heaven in exchange for their savings.

Ex-con Min-Chul stumbles upon incriminating evidence in the corrupt priest’s past and tries to rouse the villagers’ resistance to the priest and the church. But MinChul does not have much credibility among the villagers, himself a thug who regularly beats his wife and young daughter.

Things take a darker turn when the corrupt priest kidnaps Min-Chul’s daughter and forces her into prostitution. MinChul goes on an obsessive quest for revenge.

Panorama Lev Smadar

12:30 Vessel

(US, Portugal, Spain, Poland, Tanzania) Cinephil, Tel Aviv.

90mins. Dir: Diana Whitten.

Rebecca Gomperts is a socially active physician

(Russia) Mosfilm, Moscow. 142mins. Dir: Sergey Bondarchuk. Key cast: Sergey Bondarchuk, Lyudmila Saveleva, Vyacheslav Tikhonov.

A $100m budget, five years of filming, 170 locations — these are just some of the larger-thanlife statistics connected to the grandest Soviet production of all times.

The film’s production lasted seven years and its price-tag (with inflation it came to about five times that much) was unprecedented.

JFF Special Cinematheque2

Self Made

(Israel) MoviePlus Productions; United King Films. 89 min. Dir: Shira Geffen. Key cast: Sarah Adler, Samira Saraya.

Michal is a renowned Jerusalem artist. One morning, her bed breaks, she falls and consequently loses her memory. She orders a new bed and discovers that a screw is missing. She complains to the furniture factory, leading to the dismissal of Nadine, a young Palestinian woman, who works packing screws into plastic bags. This event signals a point of no return for both women until their fates cross again at a border checkpoint. A soldier’s mistake sends Michal to Nadine’s refugee camp and Nadine to Michal’s home in Jerusalem. The switch leads them to discover their innermost desires, the ones they could not access in their previous lives.

The Haggiag Awards for Israeli Cinema — Full Length Films Cinematheque3

Further JFF coverage, see screendaily.com

regular job doesn’t really suit his personality.

13:15 Refugee

Panorama

(France, Argentina) Memento Films, Paris.

90mins. Dir: Diego Lerman. Key cast: Julieta Diaz, Sebastian Ezequiel Molinaro.

Nobody came to pick up seven-year-old Matias from his friend’s birthday party. When one of the mothers volunteers to take him home, they find his mother unconscious and severely beaten on the floor. The man behind this brutality is Matias’s father. This time, the mother decides to act: she takes the child and flees, via shelters for battered women and a series of secret apartments. It isn’t easy, particularly for the little boy, and the film manages to capture the complexity of the love between mother and son, the day-to-day problems they encounter, and the constant tension of living in fear of the father, who only appears in the film as a voice but who casts a dark shadow over mother and son.

Cinematheque2

Panorama Cinematheque1

14:15 Cracks in Concrete

(Austria) Films Boutique, Paris; Austrian Film Commission, Vienna.

105mins. Dir: Umut Dag. Key cast: Murathan Muslu, Alechan Tagaev, Magdalena Paulus.

Ertan is released from prison after 10 years.

Welcomed back with open arms by old acquaintances, and rejected by some family members, Ertan still feels pangs of conscience about his past and tries to find his way back into society as an honest citizen.

Mikail, his 15-year-old son, unaware of his father’s identity, is trying to launch a career as rapper. He also works as a petty drug dealer and gets into debt. Ertan decides to try and help Mikail without revealing his identity to the boy, but

16:30 Rohmer in Paris

(France, UK) Pascale Ramonda, Paris. 67mins.

Dir: Richard Misek.

A love letter to the legendary French New Wave director Eric Rohmer, and to Paris, the world capital of cinema.

Cinemania Cinematheque4

Sacro GRA

Thursday July 17 15:00 How I Live Now

(UK) Lev Films, Tel Aviv. 101mins. Dir: Kevin Macdonald.

Key cast: Saoirse Ronan, Tom Holland, George MacKay, Anna Chancellor, Corey Johnson.

Daisy is a young New Yorker who is sent from the big city to visit relatives in rural England. Armed with sunglasses and earphones, she of course

finds himself watching helplessly as his son repeats all the mistakes that he himself made in the past.

Panorama Lev Smadar

14:30 O Samba

(Germany, Switzerland) 82mins. Dir: Georges Gachot.

If you didn’t overdose on football or samba during the month of the Mundial in Brazil, you will may be interested in the people behind the famous Brazilian rhythm — above all, 78-year-old composer and vocalist Martinho da Vila.

Director Georges Gachot and his crew accompany the beloved musician on

feels like a fish out of water, but this turns out to be the least of her troubles. Soon enough (the film takes place in the not-distant future) World War Three breaks out. While white dust fills the sky and the army is evacuating the cities, Daisy will have to try to survive the catastrophe and to find comfort with people whom she hardly knows.

Gala Cinema City 11

his journey from the Vila Isabel Samba School in Rio de Janeiro to his birthplace and to Paris, where da Vila recorded his big hit “Canta, Canta Mi Gente” with Greek vocalist Nana Mouskouri.

Da Vila, patron of samba philosophy, incorporates desire and suffering, sadness and joy in his works; samba is a way of life, poetry, text, language — far more than quivering hips and dressing up for Carnival.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque4

14:45 The Trick (El Truco)

(Israel) 50mins. Dir: Cecilia Lewinzon.

Carlos is obsessed with the incessant documentation

of his life, from the inception of his family till its disintegration, while simultaneously teaching his little daughter, Cecilia, how to film and document.

He aspires to eternalise memory and nullify the oblivion. Cristina, the mother, fights to isolate herself from the filmed entanglements without much success. A dramatic event shakes their lives.

After several years, Cecilia returns with her own camera and tries to weave the family story through her own lens.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

15:00 How I Live Now See box, above 15:15 Natural Sciences

(France, Argentina) Urban Distribution International, Paris.

71mins. Dir: Matias Lucchesi. Key cast: Paula Hertzog, Paola Barrientos, Alvin Astorga.

We first meet 12-year-old Lila as she scrapes a piece of rusty metal from an old electrical pole and rides a horse towards the remote boarding school where she lives. After that we see repeated attempts by the girl to run away from the boarding school to try and find out the identity of

her father, with the piece of metal as her only clue.

Lila’s mother shows little interest in the girl, but a kind teacher agrees to go with her on a journey in search of the father, a journey that turns out to be longer than expected.

Panorama Cinematheque1

16:00 Free Range: Ballad on Approving of the World

(Estonia) Homeless Bob, Tallinn. 104mins. Dir: Veiko Ounpuu. Key cast: Lauri Lagle, Jaanika Arum, Roman Baskin.

Fred is a non-conformist hipster type with a pessimistic attitude. We watch him as he is fired from his newspaper job after publishing an unconventional film review and getting caught using the office photocopier to copy a novel he wrote. A short time afterwards his girlfriend Susanna, the daughter of the newspaper’s editor, informs him that she is pregnant and is planning on keeping the baby. He runs away into the arms of an ex-girlfriend, but later returns to Susanna to try to have another go at functioning in the real world. He decides to support his family as a forklift operator, but it seems that every kind of

(Italy) Doc&Film, Paris.

93mins. Dir: Gianfranco Rosi.

After documenting life and death on the Ganges River, an assortment of characters in the California desert and a hired assassin working for the Mexican drug cartels, documentary film-maker Gianfranco Rosi decided to return home to Italy. Over the course of two years he drove up and down the Gra, the giant ring road that encircles Rome, and documented encounters with people from all walks of life who live or work near the highway.

Int. Documentaries Lev Smadar

17:00 She’s Lost Control

(US) SLC Film, New York. 90mins. Dir: Anja Marquardt. Key cast: Brooke Bloom, Marc Menchaca, Dennis Boutsikaris.

Ronah is a sex therapist who teaches inhibited men to deal with the thing they fear most: intimacy. The film takes us along with Ronah — between clients, down hotel corridors, amid claustrophobic shots of Manhattan, into professional arguments, and through disturbing phone conversations with her brother, in which Ronah chooses to remain oblivious to their mother’s deteriorating state. It’s hard to place a finger on the precise moment in which she loses control.

But it has to do with »

July 17-20, 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 13 n

SCREENINGS

a new client, Johnny, a shy and intelligent, but somewhat hostile doctor who causes her to let down her professional guard.

Panorama Cinematheque3

17:15 tribute to micha shagrir Cinematheque1

17:30 The Immigrant

(US) United King, Ramat Hasharon. 120mins. Dir: James Gray. Key cast: Marion Cotillard, Joaquin Phoenix, Jeremy Renner.

1921. Ewa, a beautiful young Polish woman, sails with her sister Magda from Europe to the United States in the hope of a better life. At Ellis Island, the authorities suspect Magda of having tuberculosis and quarantine her. On the brink of deportation, the desperate Ewa meets Bruno, a charming man who offers to help her and takes her under his wing. But it soon becomes clear that Bruno wants something in return: first Ewa is forced to perform in a burlesque show; and the way from there to prostitution is very short.

Thursday July 17 18:00 Let’s Go!

(Germany) Eikon Film, Berlin. 90mins. Dir: Michael Verhoeven.

Key cast: Alice Dwyer, Maxim Mehmet, Katharina Nesytowa.

In 1968, 20-year-old Laura returns to Munich to attend her father’s funeral. Overcome with grief, Laura and her mother must face the family’s traumatic

in neighbouring Russia, and more.

Gala

In the Spirit of Freedom in Memory of Wim van Leer

Cinema City 11

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18:00

18:30

Let’s Go!

The Rover

See box, above

(US, Australia) Lev Cinema, Tel Aviv.

102mins. Dir: David Michod. Key cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy.

Three delinquents on the run steal a car. But Eric, the car owner, refuses to give in and a wild chase ensues. In this postapocalyptic era, following the disappearance of state institutions, in the heart of a burning and sparsely populated desert, Eric locates the fourth gang member and forces him to join the chase, hoping that the confused and wounded guy will lead him to his goal.

18:15 Ukraine Is Not a Brothel — The Femen Story

(Australia, Ukraine) Cinephil, Tel Aviv.

78mins. Dir: Kitty Green.

The female members of Femen in the Ukraine are feminists, but with a twist. They gained notoriety when they began holding bare-breasted demonstrations against their country’s image as a source of women for sale throughout Europe. The provocation worked and they received international publicity and suffered persecution by the regime and its supporters. The themes of their protest expanded: they began to protest male hegemony, the persecution of Pussy Riot

Gala Lev Smadar

19:15 The 50 Year Argument

(US) 97mins. 97mins.

n 14 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

history: having survived the Holocaust, Laura’s parents stayed in post-war Germany to start a new life. However, their horrific experiences of genocide and concentration camps loomed over their daily lives. Now, in the face of another tragedy, will Laura come to understand her parent’s traumatic past?

The Jewish Experience Cinematheque2

Dir: Martin Scorsese, David Tedeschi. Key cast: with: Noam Chomsky, Michael Chabon, Norman Mailer.

Rides the waves of literary, political and cultural history as charted by its subject; the influential publication “The New York Review of Books”. America’s leading journal of ideas for more than 50 years, this provocative film explores the power of these ideas in shaping history.

Masters Cinematheque3 Dancing Arabs

(Israel, France, Germany) 105 min. Dir: Eran Riklis. Key cast: Tawfeek Barhum, Yael Abecassis, Ali Suliman.

An Arab boy from the Arab-Israeli town of Tira is sent by his parents to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem, where he finds himself struggling with questions of language, culture and identity. He

develops a bold friendship with Yonatan, a boy with muscular dystrophy, and falls in love with a Jewish girl named Naomi. The years pass, Israel goes into the shelters under the threat of Saddam Hussein’s Scuds, and Iyad continues to feel like he doesn’t fit in. He realises that in order to be accepted as an equal, in or to allay other people’s suspicions, in order to work, to love and, most of all, to have a sense of belonging, he will have to make personal sacrifices.

Examines the complex fabric of relations between Jews and Arabs in Israel, the impact of regional events on the people here, and the journey of one young man looking to break out of a life seemingly foretold.

Gala Cinematheque1

20:00 Still the Water

(Japan, France, Spain) MK2, Paris. 118mins.

Dir: Naomi Kawase. Key cast: Jun Yoshinaga, Nijiro Murakami, Tetta Sugimoto.

Kyoko, a 16-year-old girl with great self-confidence and intelligence, falls in love with the neighbours’ sullen son, Kaito. Her mother is suffering from a fatal illness; his parents are divorced. Following a typhoon, Kaito finds the body of a tattooed yakuza who was having an affair with his mother.

Together, they depart on a challenging adolescent journey and examine

through Zen wisdom the circles of life, death and love.

Masters Cinematheque2

When Jews Were Funny

(Canada) Film Sales, New York. 89mins. Dir: Alan Zweig.

We all know Jewish jokes, but what is it about Jewish humour that makes it so unique?

Is it the mamalochen?

Is it the rhythm? The kvetching? The selfobsession? Acclaimed documentary filmmaker Alan Zweig sets out on a journey into the heart of Jewish humour.

The Jewish Experience Cinematheque4

Obvious Child

(US) The Exchange, Los Angeles. 83mins. Dir: Gillian Robespierre. Key cast: Jenny Slate, Jake Lacy, Gaby Hoffmann, Gabe Liedman, Richard Kind, Polly Draper.

Donna Stern is a young, sharp-tongued comedienne. On stage, she projects total sincerity, captivating her audience by sharing the most intimate details of her life. Over a period of a few days she manages to get dumped by her boyfriend, loses her job and gets knocked up from a casual encounter.

She decides to have an abortion and on the way perhaps become better acquainted with the guy who got her pregnant.

Gala Cinema City 11

20:45 The Skeleton Twins

(US) Sundance, San Francisco, Sydney.

88mins. Dir: Craig Johnson. Key cast: Bill Hader, Kristen Wiig, Luke Wilson.

Milo and Maggie are estranged twins who live at opposite ends of the country. Disturbing circumstances bring Milo for an extended stay at Lance and Maggie’s house, where the two grew up. Both twins are lost causes: Maggie, who works as a dental hygienist, is forced to deal with her troubled marriage to Lance, who is so nice that he is unbearable; while Milo digs into his past and finds his highschool English teacher, the man with whom he had a scandalous affair.

Gala Lev Smadar

21:30 Suicide

(Israel) Zefania Productions. 129mins.

Dir: Benny Fredman. Key cast: Mali Levi, Rotem Keinan.

An action thriller that depicts the final hours of Oded Tsur before he must end his life. Oded was in financial trouble with his failing business and was forced to take out a loan from a ruthless loan shark, Muki Zaken.

Muki forced Oded to purchase a life insurance policy and commit suicide by 9pm that day in order to repay his debt. Failing to do so by exactly that

time would result in Muki killing his wife and kids as well.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

22:00 The Babadook

(Australia) Entertainment One, Montreal. 92mins.

Dir: Jennifer Kent.

Key cast: Essie Davis, Noah Wiseman, Daniel Henshall.

“Do you want to die?”

Samuel asks his mother Amelia, who in turn wonders whether the question is a threat or a warning. Throughout her son’s seven years, Amelia has dealt with his volatile temper, and now it seems Samuel has begun to turn his violent behaviour on her. But when a strange children’s book entitled “Mr Babadook” appears on his bookshelf, foreshadowing horrors for mother and child, Amelia begins to wonder whether some creature is actually lurking in the dark corridors of their house.

Into the Night Cinema City 11

The Distance

(Spain) AM Films, Barcelona. 80mins. Dir: Sergio Caballero. Key cast: Michal Lagosz, Alberto Martinez, Jinson Anazco.

The owner of a Siberian power station with a fetish for alien research “purchases” an Austrian performance artist and locks him up in a barn next to the station. Even after the death of the oligarch, the artist remains imprisoned.

After years of captivity, he hires three short-statured criminals and gives them a week to steal “The Distance” — a mysterious object that is well-guarded by an odd security guard.

While he awaits the results of the burglary, the artist scribbles a complex mathematical equation.

Contrary to the strange occurrences described here, the film quickly finds its internal logic.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque4

22:30 A Wolf at the Door

(Brazil) United King,

Ramat Hasharon.

100mins. Dir: Fernando Coimbra. Key cast: Leandra Leal, Milhem Cortaz, Fabiula Nascimento.

Something terrible happened in Rio de Janeiro: a little girl disappeared. Someone simply took her and left. The police rush to summon the mother, the father and his lover. Roza, the lover, quickly becomes the main suspect and is the most interesting of the protagonists. At first, everything is confused, each presents a different version of what transpired.

But as the investigation progresses, the events become clearer and the tension nearly breaks.

Then, suddenly, surprising twists in the plot emerge.

Debuts Competition Cinematheque2

The Wind Rises

(Japan) Orlando Films, Tel Aviv. 126mins.

Dir: Hayao Miyazaki.

Key cast: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto, Hidetoshi Nishijima.

Jiro always dreamed of flying and building airplanes, but due to his poor vision he could not become a pilot. In a dream he meets the famous Italian flight engineer Caproni, who inspires him to design planes. In 1927, he joins the fighter-plane division of Mitsubishi, and soon enough it becomes clear he is a true genius.

Gala Cinematheque1

Friday July 18 09:15 Rebel without a Cause

(US) Park Circus, London. 111mins. Dir: Nicholas Ray. Key cast: James Dean, Natalie Wood, Sal Mineo, Jim Backus, Ann Doran, Dennis Hopper.

On the first day at a new high school, rebellious teenager Jim Stark gets into trouble with a bunch of popular kids. The series of confrontations leads him face to face with the question that troubles him most, in particular in light of his meek father: how to be a man. Nearly 60 years have passed since this

masterpiece was released, defining the American high school drama as we know it today.

Classics Cinematheque3

10:00 Cathedrals of Culture

(Denmark, Austria, Germany, Norway) Cinephil, Tel Aviv. 156 min. Dir: Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olin, Karim Ainouz.

JFF Special Cinematheque1

10:15 Wolfy, the Incredible Secret

(France) Films Distribution, Paris.

79mins. Dir: Gregoire Solotareff, Eric Omond.

Key cast: Voices: Malik Zidi, Stephane Debac, Anais Demoustier.

Wolfy, a mild-mannered vegetarian wolf and his friend Tom, a white rabbit, could have gone on living quietly in the carefree land of rabbits, had Wolfy not discovered that he is not an orphan as he thought, but that his hairy bohemian mother is still alive and howling. The two go to Wolfenberg in search of Wolfy’s mother, where they come upon the colorful Festival of Carnivores. Will their friendship withstand the test of the bubbling cauldron of meat, and what amazing secret will they discover about Wolfy’s birth?

JFF Kids Cinematheque2

10:30 Finsterworld

(Germany) Global Screen, Munich.

91mins. Dir: Frauke Finsterwalder. Key cast: Lautaro Delgado, Victoria Almeida, William Prociuk.

A police officer who likes wearing a furry bear costume, a young film-maker unable to find a subject for her documentary, a pedicurist in a complicated affair with an older patient, a couple having problems with their German car, high school students

on a school trip at a concentration camp, and a wild man training a raven in the forest. The characters and stories intersect at various junctures and encounters, all set in the country where everyone is careful to be beautiful, polite, successful, and happy. Except that with one small step we discover that beneath this German idyll lies a very dark side.

Debuts Competition Lev Smadar

11:30 Defense Files

(Israel) Liran Atzmor.

70mins. Dir: Moish Goldberg.

An unrepentant look at public defenders and the criminals they represent.

The series presents the criminal justice system in a hyper-realistic way. Here are the stories of a racist soccer fan who attacks Arabs, an African nanny accused of causing a baby’s death, a customs inspector charged with accepting a bribe and much more.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

12:00 The Fake

(South Korea) Finecut, Seoul. 101 min. Dir: Yoen Sang-ho. Key cast: Voices: Yang Ikjune, Oh Jungse, Kwon Haehyo.

A new hydroelectric dam is about to flood the homes of the inhabitants of a small South Korean village. The villagers put their trust in a church elder who promises to relocate them in the present and to secure them a place in heaven in exchange for their savings.

Ex-con Min-Chul stumbles upon incriminating evidence in the corrupt priest’s past and tries to rouse the villagers’ resistance to the priest and the church. But MinChul does not have much credibility among the villagers, himself a thug who regularly beats his wife and young daughter.

Things take a darker turn when the corrupt priest kidnaps Min-Chul’s daughter and forces her into prostitution. MinChul goes on an obsessive

quest for revenge.

Panorama Cinematheque2

The New Rijksmuseum

(Netherlands) Autlook Filmsales, Vienna.

216mins. Dir: Oeke Hoogendijk.

If you visited Amsterdam, chances are you visited the Rijksmuseum — one of the world’s largest and most important art temples.

Its collection includes masterpieces by Vermeer and Rembrandt. Planned in 1895 by architect Pierre Cuypers, this enormous and elaborate building underwent a lengthy and intense renovation over a period of 10 years and reopened in April 2013.

Spanish architects Antonio Cruz and Antonio Ortiz were recruited for the planning, but if they had only realised what awaited them… For starters, they had to deal with the cyclists’ lobby, which mounted a major protest over their plan for the museum entrance. Another central figure in this story is museum director Ronald de Leeuw, who was faced with pressure from the curators, designers, politicians and the general public, while the cost of the project grew to an astronomical $500 million.

Dutch documentary filmmaker Oeke Hoogendijk closely followed this complex and grandiose project for nearly a decade.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque4

12:30 Yozgat Blues

(Germany, Turkey) Hokus Fokus, Istanbul.

93mins. Dir: Mahmut Fazil Coskun. Key cast: Ercan Kesal, Tansu Bicer, Ayca Damgacı.

Long-time night-club singer Yavuz’s repertoire consists mostly of songs from the 1970s. With his career in serious decline, nowadays he mostly preforms at shopping centres and gives free music lessons. Frustrated by his current gigs, he looks for work in other places and hears about a club in the city of Yozgat that is looking for singers.

To be precise, they’re

looking for a male-female duo. He proposes to one of his students to join him, and the two make their way to the small city. But in Yozgat, not everything goes according to plan.

Panorama Lev Smadar

13:15 Human Capital

(France, Italy) New Cinema, Tel Aviv. 110mins.

Dir: Paolo Virzi. Key cast: Valeria Bruni Tedeschi, Fabrizio Bentivoglio, Valeria Golino.

A real estate’s easy-going dreams of social climbing, the dream of a different life of a rich and un happy women, the true love desire of a girl oppressed by her father’s ambitious.

And then, during a cold night in December, a mysterious accident occurs.

This accident is going to complicate the lives of two very different, yet interconnected families.

Gala Cinematheque1

13:30 Congo Beat the Drum

(Israel) 51mins. Dir: Ariel Tagar-Kalbata.

Two musicians from Tel Aviv travel to Jamaica to record an album with forgotten reggae artists from the past. The film follows Ariel Tagar and Uri Wertheim, from their basement studio in Tel Aviv, all the way to the Kingston ghettos, looking for their favourite singers. In Jamaica, they encounter a strange, often challenging culture while trying to achieve their goal. A unique musical journey into the forgotten corners of reggae of the 1970s and 1980s, and a rare glimpse into the smoky, dusty world of Rub-a-Dub and its past champions.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

14:00 The Day of the Full Moon

(Russia) Mosfilm, Moscow. 93mins. Dir: Karen Shakhnazarov.

Key cast: Nikolay Chindiaikin, Natalia Fateyeva, Anna Germ.

A scriptwriter and a

July 17-20, 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 15 n

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SCREENINGS

17:45 Afternoon of a Faun: Tanaquil Le Clercq

Friday July 18 18:30 Famous Nathan

(US) Picture Palace Pictures, New York.

98mins. Dir: Lloyd Handwerker. Key cast: with Nathan, Sol and Lloyd Handwerker.

In the heart of Coney Island is a culinary institution known to every New York hotdog

lover. Nathan’s Famous, founded in 1916 by a penniless Jewish immigrant from Poland, became a celebrated US fast-food chain. The founder’s grandson has gathered archival material to chronicle the business and its employees.

Int. Documentaries Cinematheque4

director plan a film, a Mafia hit-squad shoots its victim, a man travelling on a train imagines the rape of the fat girl with glasses sitting opposite him, an official arrives at a palace with elegant offices, a grandfather tells his grandson about Genghis Khan, a boy imagines Pushkin’s visit to a Mongol tent village, a hunting dog recalls a particularly successful day, an incident from a few decades ago in which a young woman throws a cup of wine to the floor and leaves her officer boyfriend is presented from several angles, and so on — some 80 characters and situations, past and present, real and imagined, fill this magical and unusual cinematic creation.

Klein. Key cast: Wes Bentley, Vinessa Shaw, Jason Isaacs.

Bill is the American we’ve met a hundred times: working for an insurance company, living a peaceful home life, a married father of two.

But it turns out that he has recently lost his job and has not told his family. Coincidentally, he begins a career as a burglar. After his first theft succeeds, he decides to improve his technique and even begins to enjoy it. At the same time, he becomes friendly with an unusual character, Frank, a former detective with a drinking problem who seeks to restore his former glory. What will happen when Bill finds out that his friend is a dangerous thief ?

JFF Special

Debuts Competition

Cinematheque2

Cinematheque3

15:00

15:30

Things People Do

The Wonders

(US) Pascale Ramonda, Paris; Celluloid Dreams, Paris. 110mins. Dir: Saar

(Germany, Italy, Switzerland) Match Factory, Cologne.

n 16 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

110mins. Dir: Alice Rohrwacher. Key cast: Maria Alexandra Lungu, Sam Louwyck, Monica Bellucci.

Teenage Gelsomina is growing up with her sisters in a chaotic family that earns its living from beekeeping and honey production. She comes across as the most responsible person in the family and the natural successor to the family business. Despite her conservative father, she convinces the family to compete for a large cash prize on a reality show with a Felliniesque hostess.

The children are sent to carry out challenges on a desert island, intensifying the tension between the old world and today’s digital reality.

Panorama Cinematheque1

16:15 Jealousy

(France) Lev Films, Tel Aviv. 77mins. Dir: Philippe Garrel. Key cast: Louis Garrel, Anna Mouglalis, Rebecca Convenant.

In 1965, when he was only 17 years old, Philippe Garrel made a short film in which he cast his father, well-known stage actor Maurice Garrel, in the role of a father spending a weekend with his mistress when his son pays a visit. Shortly after the death of his father, Garrel decided to make an updated version

of the autobiographical short.

Masters Cinematheque2

16:30 oscars shorts Cinematheque4

17:30 Timbuktu

(France, Mauritania) Le Pacte, Paris. 100mins.

Dir: Abderrahmane Sissako. Key cast: Ibrahim Ahmed, Toulou Kiki, Abel Jafri, Fatoumata Diawara, Hichem Yacoubi.

The death of a cow in a bloody conflict between a shepherd and a fisherman encompasses the grim story of Mali, a West African country torn between religious factions, and particularly portrays Timbuktu, a former tourist destination that is today controlled by radical Jihadists. The cow, nicknamed GPS, serves as a metaphor for a country held hostage by armed religious bullies who rely upon the most advanced technology: smart phones, cars, video cameras and, of course, weapons. Under the theocratic regime it is forbidden to listen to western music, wear immodest clothing, or even play football. This is the first film made in Mali since armed militias seized control in 2012.

In the Spirit of Freedom in Memory of Wim van Leer Cinematheque3

(US) Cactus Three, New York. 91mins. Dir: Nancy Buirski.

Of all the dancers who have left their mark on the history of ballet, Tanaquil Le Clercq (1929-2000) was perhaps the most sublime. Her elongated physique and grace captivated audiences and choreographers alike. Le Clercq became a muse for two of the great choreographers of the 20th century — George Balanchine and Jerome Robbins. She and Balanchine eventually married, while Robbins made his famous version of “Afternoon Of A Faun” for her. Tanny had it all; love, glory, wealth, the position of prima ballerina of the New York City Ballet. But all this came to a sudden and tragic end when, aged 27, while on tour in Copenhagen, she was stricken with polio and became paralysed. She would never dance again, and the world of ballet is haunted by her disturbing story to this day.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque2

18:00 Bad Hair

(Germany, Argentina, Peru, Venezuela) Figa Films, Los Angeles.

93mins. Dir: Mariana Rondon.

Junior dreams of having straight hair. Just eight years old, he is determined to tame his curls for his class picture. He lives in a big Caracas housing project along with his mother Marta, a young widow who recently lost her job as a security guard, and his baby brother. Marta is distressed by her son’s obsession with his appearance, fearing early signs of homosexuality. The more the captivating boy tries to win his mother’s love and acceptance, the more she pushes him away. Junior’s paternal grandmother, a charming and vibrant woman, understands his situation and offers to take the child under her care

but Marta refuses and decides she’ll do everything in her power to put her son “back on track”.

Panorama Cinematheque1

18:30 Famous Nathan See box, left

19:45 Club Sandwich

(Mexico) Funny Balloons, Paris. 82mins. Dir: Fernando Eimbcke.

Key cast: Maria Renee Prudencio, Lucio Gimenez Cacho, Danae Reynaud Romero.

Paloma and Hector have a very special relationship.

She’s 35 and he’s 15. She’s his mother and he is her son, but by looking at them you’d think they were best friends. On vacation at a hotel, Hector meets a girl and begins to discover the world of romantic love and sexuality. Paloma must come to terms with the cracks that appear in the relationship.

Panorama Cinematheque3

October November

(Austria) Match Factory, Cologne.

116mins. Dir: Gotz Spielmann. Key cast: Nora von Waldstatten, Ursula Strauss, Peter Simonischek, Sebastian Koch, Johannes Zeiler.

Sonja lives in a large city. She is an acclaimed actress but is stuck playing superficial roles and living a hedonistic existence. Her life is in contrast to that of her sister, Verena, who lives with husband and son in the family home where the two sisters grew up in the Austrian Alps, caring for their infirm father.

If there is something the two sisters share, it is denial. While Sonja denies the identity crisis she is experiencing, Verena’s idyllic family life conceals the affair she is having with the local doctor. When the father’s condition deteriorates and Sonja arrives for a visit, it is only a matter of time before secrets from the past begin to emerge.

Panorama Cinematheque2

20:00

12:30

Calvary

The Rover

See box, right

(US, Australia) Lev Cinema, Tel Aviv.

102mins. Dir: David Michod. Key cast: Guy Pearce, Robert Pattinson, Scoot McNairy.

In this post-apocalyptic era, three delinquents on the run steal a car. But its owner refuses to give in and a wild chase ensues.

20:45 The Great Museum

(Austria) Wide House, Paris. 94mins. Dir: Johannes Holzhausen.

A look at Vienna’s Kunsthistorisches Museum, which holds one of the largest art collections in the world.

Gala Cinematheque1

Carte Blanche Cinematheque4

13:30

21:30

Radical Evil

(US) Doc & Film, Paris.

244mins. Dir: Frederick Wiseman.

What makes UC Berkeley unique? This film observes the public university through the classes, student council sessions and admin meetings, alongside scenes from cultural and sports events.

(Austria, Germany) First Hand Films, Zurich.

96mins. Dir: Stefan Ruzowitzky. Key cast: Christopher Browning, Ray Baumeister, Benjamin Ferencz.

What mechanisms are set in motion that make a civilised culture drift into barbarism? What lies behind the thought process of educated family members who murder women, children and babies? The perpetrators in question are members of the Nazi death squads.

Masters Cinematheque4

The Jewish Experience Cinematheque2

Short Term 12

(US) Lev Films, Tel Aviv.

96mins. Dir: Destin Daniel Cretton. Key cast: Brie Larson, John Gallagher Jr, Kaitlyn Dever.

Grace is a supervisor at a home for troubled teens.

Her job isn’t to serve as a substitute mother, teacher or psychologist for the young men and women living there, but in reality that is exactly the role for her and the staff.

Panorama Cinematheque3

Friday July 18 20:00 Calvary

(UK, Ireland) Lev Films, Tel Aviv. 100mins.

Dir: John Michael McDonagh. Key cast: Brendan Gleeson, Chris O’Dowd, Kelly Reilly.

Father James, a goodhearted Irish country priest, receives a death threat through the grille

09:45

of the confessional.

With a week to get his affairs in order, the priest re-examines his life and his relationship with his flock. He confronts questions of faith and sin, pondering his mission, the value of sacrifice and forgiveness vs. revenge.

Panorama Cinematheque1

22:00 Salvation Army

(France, Switzerland, Morocco) Pascale Ramonda, Paris. 81mins.

Dir: Abdellah Taia. Key cast: Said Mrini, Karim Ait M’hand, Amine Ennaji.

Author Abdellah Taia adapts his autobiographical book “Salvation Army” , and presents it as a twopart cinematic work. The first part covers his youth in Morocco as he develops a sexual awareness and begins to examine social codes, patriarchal brutality and poverty of his surroundings.

The second part shows an older Abdellah, now an impoverished student in Geneva where he is forced to deal with the sexual, racial, political and social aspects of his being a Moroccan homosexual in Europe.

Panorama Cinematheque2

22:15 If You Don’t, I Will

(France) Les Films du Losange, Paris. 102mins.

Dir: Sophie Fillieres.

Key cast: Emmanuelle Devos, Mathieu Amalric,

Josephine de La Baume.

Pomme and Pierre have been together for a long time. But is it still love, or has their relationship turned into a performance they go through every day? He insults her, she belittles him. It’s not so much that they can no longer stand one another, just that they’ve had their fill of being a couple. On the other hand, it’s not so simple to break up.

Gala Cinematheque1

22:30 Beyond Clueless

(UK) The Film Sales Company, New York.

91mins. Dir: Charlie Lyne.

Back in the mid-1990s a new era of teen movies was born. It was a time when Cher Horowitz was a fashion icon, Freddie Prinze, Jr was the ultimate dreamboat, and cafeteria seating orders were mapped out carefully by clique. In the decade that followed, the phenomenon consolidated into a bona fide genre.

Film critic Charlie Lyne here chronicles the postJohn Hughes teen-movie phenomenon.

Cinemania Cinematheque4

Saturday July 19 09:30 Howl’s Moving Castle

(Japan) Orlando Films, Tel Aviv. 119mins. Dir: Hayao Miyazaki. Key cast: Voices: Chieko Baisho, Takuya Kimura, Akihiro Miwa.

In a small town at the foothills of the mysterious moving castle of Howl the Wizard, Sophie works at her family’s hat shop.

One evening, after being accosted by soldiers, she is rescued by the handsome young wizard. Rumour of the meeting reaches the ears of a jealous witch, who places a curse on Sophie, transforming her into an old woman. Sophie makes her way to Howl’s castle, where, in her new form, she finds a new mission in life.

Tribute to Miyazaki Cinematheque3

Regarding Susan Sontag

(US) Nancy Kates, Berkeley. 100mins.

Dir: Nancy Kates.

Susan Sontag loved to observe. Thanks to her philosophical-literaryphotographic-cinematicpolitical-feminist contributions — and because she was never afraid to express her views — she was one of the most influential cultural icons of the 20th century.

Int. Documentaries Cinematheque2

10:00 Joachim Prinz: I Shall Not Be Silent + Reporting on the Times

(US) Menemsha Films, US. 50mins. Dir: Rachel Eskin Fisher.

A captivating portrait of Joachim Prinz — one of the most outspoken rabbis living under the Nazi regime who went on to become a leading US civil rights activist.

11:30 At Berkeley

11:45

14:00

40 Days of Silence

Gueros

(France, Germany, Netherlands, Uzbekistan) Pascale Ramonda, Paris.

88mins. Dir: Saodat Ismailova. Key cast: Rushana Sadikova, Saodat Rahimova.

(Mexico) Mundial, Los Angeles. 106mins. Dir: Alonso Ruizpalacios. Key cast: Tenoch Huerta, Sebastian Aguirre, Ilse Salas.

After Tomas is caught throwing a water balloon at a woman pushing a pram, the mother decides send the teenager off to Mexico City and his older brother Federico, who lives with his flatmate in a chaotic student flat with no electricity.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque2

12:15 The Cabinet of Dr Caligari

(France) Futurikon, Paris.

89mins. Dir: Helene Giraud, Thomas Szabo.

Leftovers from a picnic in a peaceful valley ignite an all-out war between two rival ant colonies, fighting obsessively over the same prize: a box of sugar cubes.

(Germany) FriedrichWilhelm-MurnauStiftung, Wiesbaden.

75mins. Dir: Robert Wiene. Key cast: Werner Krauss, Conrad Veidt, Friedrich Feher.

A legendary magician comes to a small German town. At the climax of his act, the doctor invites the audience to ask questions of his somnambulist, Cesare, who can predict the future. A young student asks when he will die, and the somnambulist answers: “Tomorrow at dawn.”

JFF Kids Cinematheque1

Classics Cinematheque3

The Jewish Experience Cinematheque4

10:30 Minuscule: Valley of the Lost Ants

Debuts Competition Cinematheque3

14:45 Jacky in the Kingdom of Women

(France) The Festival Agency, Paris. 90mins.

Dir: Riad Sattouf. Key cast: Vincent Lacoste, Charlotte Gainsbourg, Didier Bourdon.

In the People’s Democratic Republic of Bubunne, women hold the reins of power. They run the country and impose order, »

July 17-20, 2014 Screen International at Jerusalem 17 n

SCREENINGS

while the men — covered from head to toe with burqas — stay at home.

Into the Night Cinematheque1

15:30 Night Will Fall

(Israel, US, UK) Cinephil, Tel Aviv. 80mins. Dir: Andre Singer.

In 1945, cameramen from Britain’s Army Film Unit captured footage of BergenBelsen. Film-maker Sidney Bernstein planned to use this material to confront German citizens with their government’s crimes. Alfred Hitchcock was enlisted as editor. But due to a series of circumstances, the film was left unfinished. This is the story of “the missing Hitchcock”.

The Jewish Experience Cinematheque2

16:00 Carte Blanche: Shorts Carte Blanche Cinematheque4

16:15 There and Here

(Israel) Omer TV. 56mins. Dir: Avida Livny.

When Harry Klaussner, a Holocaust survivor who hid his past to become a pilot, went to the flight academy, he befriended navigator Shaia Harsit. The two spent hours up in the air, but only after 60 years did Harry discovered that Shaia too survived the Holocaust.

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

16:45 Love at First Fight

(France) Bac Films, Paris.

Dir: Thomas Cailley. Key cast: Adele Haenel, Kevin Azais, Antoine Laurent.

Arnaud falls in love with Madeleine, and it happens after she knocks him to the floor during a martialarts practice session. When she registers for a military training camp, he joins her and the love story develops from there.

Panorama Cinematheque1

17:30 Stray Dogs

(France, Taiwan) Urban Distribution International, Paris.

138mins. Dir: Tsai Ming Liang. Key cast:

Lee Kang Sheng, Lu Yi Ching, Lee Yi Cheng.

A father is trying to take care of his two children, homeless, on the streets of Taipei. The children spend their days in the supermarket, while the father earns money as a human billboard. The film develops at a slow pace, through long shots, never giving the audience all of the details. But the patient viewer will be rewarded with a thrilling and remarkable encounter with exhilarating images — some disturbing, others heartwarming.

the International Film Festival and Green Productions are proud to be partners in the “48 Hours” project. Israeli film-makers will compete to produce the best short in only 48 hours. With the support of the Jerusalem Initiative for Film and Television and the Jerusalem Development Authority, all of the projects will take place in the capital.

Masters Cinematheque2

(France) Films Distribution, Paris.

72mins. Dir: Tessa Louise-Salome. With: Gilles Jacob, Harmony Korine, Denis Lavant.

Tries to crack the mystery of the complex artist.

Tom at the Farm

(France, Canada) MK2, Paris. 102mins. Dir: Xavier Dolan. Key cast: Xavier Dolan, Pierre-Yves Cardinal, Lise Roy. After the death of his partner, Tom arrives at the family farm of his late friend and is shocked to discover nobody knew about his sexual orientation. As time passes, Tom feels that a dark secret looms over this family of farmers.

Panorama Cinematheque3

17:45 Life Itself

(US) Magnolia Pictures, New York. 118mins. Dir: Steve James. With: Roger Ebert, Richard Corliss, Werner Herzog, Errol Morris, Martin Scorsese.

Documentary about film critic Roger Ebert.

Cinemania Cinematheque4

19:00 Under the Skin

(UK) Lev Films, Tel Aviv. 108mins. Dir: Jonathan Glazer. Key cast: Scarlett Johansson, Paul Brannigan, Jeremy McWilliams.

A beautiful woman travelling around Scotland seduces men with sexual offers too good to refuse.

But she is in fact an alien who acts as a trap for men who meet their deaths.

Into the Night Cinematheque1

19:45

Israeli Cinema Cinematheque3

20:00 Mr leos caraX

Cinemania Cinematheque4

20:15 Charlie’s Country

(Australia) Visit Films, New York. 108mins. Dir: Rolf de Heer. Key cast: David Gulpilil, Peter Djigirr, Luke Ford.

Charlie lives in a remote Australian Aborigine community that is gradually losing interest in its native traditions.

Carte Blanche Cinematheque2

21:30

Aviv. 95mins. Dir: Lenny Abrahamson. Key cast: Domhnall Gleeson, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Scoot McNairy.

The “Soronprfbs” are a dysfunctional avantgarde band. Their leader is Frank, a charismatic but unstable genius who wears a large fake head that makes him look like a cartoon character.

Gala Cinematheque3

22:30 Still the Water

(Japan, France, Spain) MK2, Paris. 118mins.

Dir: Naomi Kawase.

Key cast: Jun Yoshinaga, Nijiro Murakami, Tetta Sugimoto.

Kyoko falls for sullen Kaito. Her mother is suffering from a fatal illness; his parents are divorced. Following a typhoon, Kaito finds the body of a yakuza who was having an affair with his mother. Together, they take a challenging adolescent journey and examine through Zen wisdom the circles of life, death and love.

Masters Cinematheque2

Sunday July 20 10:00 JFF KIDS Cinematheque1

The Wind Rises

The Little House

(Japan) Orlando Films, Tel Aviv. 126mins. Dir: Hayao Miyazaki. Voices: Hideaki Anno, Miori Takimoto.

(Japan) Shochiku, Tokyo. 136mins. Dir: Yoji Yamada. Key cast: Takako Matsu, Haru Kuroki, Takataro Kataoka.

Taki kept the secret for 60 years. She never married nor had children and only after her death — which occurs at the beginning of the film — does her nephew discover the pages containing memories of the little house — the home where she worked for years as a servant of the wealthy Hirai family in Tokyo.

Gala Cinematheque1

21:45 The Desert

(Argentina) Subterranea Films, Buenos Aires.

98mins. Dir: Christoph Behl. Key cast: Lautaro Delgado, Victoria Almeida, William Prociuk.

Axel, Jonathan and Ana live in a post-apocalyptic world, with a zombieinfested landscape that can barely be seen from their fortified balcony.

Into the Night Cinematheque4

22:15

Masters Cinematheque2

Jewish Experience winners Cinematheque3

12:45 Maidan

(Netherlands, Ukraine) Atoms & Void. 130mins.

Dir: Sergei Loznitsa.

Sergei Loznitsa took his camera to Maidan Square and documented the revolution that began on November 21, 2013.

In the Spirit of Freedom in Memory of Wim van Leer Cinematheque2

14:30

Cinematheque3

12:15

Wendy Mitchell, wendy. mitchell@screendaily.com, +44 7889 414 856 Chief reporter Andreas Wiseman, andreas. wiseman@screendaily.com, +44 7713 086 674 Reporter Melanie Goodfellow, melanie.

Cinematheque1

goodfellow@btinternet.com

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque3

15:30 Audience Request Cinematheque2

Production editor Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com, +44 7710 124 065 Sub editors Paul Lindsell, Adam Richmond

16:45 ISRAELI AUDIENCE CHOICE Cinematheque1

In the Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque3

18:00 Israeli Documentary winners Cinematheque2

19:00 Cathedrals of Culture

(Denmark, Austria, Germany, Norway) Cinephil, Tel Aviv.

156mins. Dir: Wim Wenders, Michael Glawogger, Michael Madsen, Robert Redford, Margreth Olin, Karim Ainouz.

If buildings could talk, what would they say about us?

International sales consultant Gunter Zerbich, gunter. zerbich@screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 254 Commercial director Andrew Dixon, andrew. dixon@screendaily.com, +44 7595 646 541 Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com, +44 7584 333 148

Group commercial director, MBI Alison Pitchford, alison. pitchford@screendaily.com Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam

JFF Special Cinematheque1

ISRAELI FEATURES Cinematheque1

Audience Request Cinematheque3

20:15 Israeli Documentary winners 21:15 ISRAELI FEATURES Cinematheque1

The 2014 Israel 48 Hour Film Project

Frank

ISRAELI SHORTS

Audience Request

Jerusalem Cinematheque,

(UK) Lev Cinema, Tel

Cinematheque1

Cinematheque3

n 18 Screen International at Jerusalem July 17-20, 2014

Editor

INT’L DEBUTS

Cinematheque2

Jewish Experience winners

The Jerusalem Press club, Mishkanot Sha’ananim St, Jerusalem, Israel

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