Screen Jerusalem Issue 1

IS SU E

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THURSDAY, JULY 9 2015

AT JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL www.ScreenDaily.com

Ulrich Seidl

Seidl, Turturro, Nemes head the guest list Actor-writer-director John Turturro and film-makers Ulrich Seidl, Alice Rohrwacher and Laszlo Nemes are among the high-profile international guests due to attend this year’s festival.

Turturro will be attending as part of the opening night ceremony, the Israeli premiere of Nanni Moretti’s My Mother (Mia Madre) and will also take part in a masterclass tomorrow at 11:15am.

Austrian film-maker Seidl, who cancelled a planned visit last year due to the escalating conflict, will attend with long-time collaborator, actress Maria Hofstätter. A screening of the documentary Ulrich Seidl: A Director At Work on Saturday will be followed by a masterclass with Seidl and Hofstätter, who appeared in his Paradise trilogy.

Hungarian director Nemes will serve on the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab jury, after his debut feature Son Of Saul, which was developed at the Jerusalem lab, won the grand prix at Cannes.

Rohrwacher, the Italian writerdirector of Corpo Celeste and The Wonders, is a member of this year’s Israeli Film Competition jury, which also includes Matthijs Wouter Knol, director of Berlin’s European Film Market.

Artistic director Elad Samorzik highlighted the German representation at this year’s festival, which includes Berlinale festival director Dieter Kosslick and EFM president Beki Probst, as well as representatives from Munich International Film Festival, the Bavarian Film Fund and German Films. Samorzik said: “They are coming to celebrate 50 years of diplomatic relations between Germany and Israel.”

Tom Grater

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Jerusalem cash rebate targets footloose films

BY MELANIE GOODFELLOW

Jerusalem Film & TV Fund’s drive to create an audiovisual hub in the city has received a welcome boost with the approval of an improved cash rebate for international productions.

Under the revised system, international productions will be eligible for a cash refund of 60% on the budget spent in Jerusalem, up to a ceiling of approximately $2.6m ( ILS 10m). Previously, this was capped at around $370,000 (ILS1.4m).

The cash rebate, modelled on similar city schemes elsewhere in the world, is the only Israeli incentive available to foreign shoots.

Fund director Yoram Honig stated

its governing body, the Jerusalem Development Authority, approved the enhancements on July 1, ahead of an official announcement on the fund’s website today.

Honig told Screen he hoped the improved rebate would help attract bigger-budget film and TV shoots to the city. “The previous scheme was great for small to mediumsized productions but wasn’t that attractive to big TV series or features,” said Honig. “It didn’t even cover catering costs.”

To qualify for the revamped incentive, a production has to spend at least $2.1m (ILS8m) of its production budget in Israel; have Jerusalem as a key backdrop; be based for at least 50% of its Israeli

shooting days in the city; devote at least 25%, or no less than $530,000 (ILS2m), of its Israeli budget to the city; and guarantee distribution to a territory or territories with at least 80 million potential viewers.

Upcoming international productions that could tap into the rebate include crime-thriller series Jerusalem, co-produced by Israel’s Inosan Productions, France’s Haut et Court TV and Germany’s Nadcon Film.

Joseph Cedar’s Oppenheimer Strategies, starring Richard Gere and Lior Ashkenazi, received an initial $422,000 (ILS1.6m) from the fund and may also qualify for the rebate, according to Honig.

Festival showcases world of cinema

BY MATT MUELLER

The 32nd Jerusalem Film Festival kicks off tonight with the open-air premiere of Nanni Moretti’s My Mother (Mia Madre), and festival director Noa Regev and artistic director Elad Samorzik hope to see venues filled to the brim again with film lovers as the pair celebrate their second year at the helm.

Echoing last year’s expanded programme, the festival will again screen around 200 films from 50 countries, including the latest works of international heavyweights Hou Hsiao-Hsien, Jia Zhangke, Terrence Malick and Apichatpong Weerasethakul.

Samorzik said of this year’s international selection: “I’m very proud of our line-up, which offers cinematic pearls and artistic achievements from more than 50 countries.

I’m extremely happy about showing the Roy Andersson trilogy and also about the Albert Maysles tribute. Both are proving to be a huge success among our audiences, with several sold-out screenings.”

As well as being a platform for great world cinema, the festival’s

Noa Regev

Lia van Leer

other key mission is showcasing Israel’s own vibrant cinema scene, with this year’s Haggiag feature competition including a genre offering, JeruZalem, and the debut feature of veteran film editor Tova Ascher. “Israeli cinema gives me a lot of hope because it’s brave, uncompromising and always look-

ing for new forms of cinematic expression,” said Regev. “This year, we have a very eclectic group.”

A tribute to revered festival and Cinematheque founder Lia van Leer, who passed away in March, will take place on July 13.

“Her vision and her inspiration are still very much part of our work,” said Regev. “The doctors used to tell her, ‘You don’t need a doctor, you need a festival.’ She became so vivid during festivals, and especially her festival. We’re following Lia’s vibe at our tribute — it’s going to be a happy event with a lot of laughs.”

Following the tribulations of her first year, when several guests cancelled due to the conflict, Regev admits the challenges this year have also proved daunting. “It’s difficult to run any film festival and maybe more so in Israel,” she said.

Keen to highlight the hard work and dedication of her team, Regev added: “If you took even one of them out, it wouldn’t be the same festival. Each one of them makes a very special contribution to the final result.”

TODAY

John Turturro, page 4

NEWS Industry affair Top industry figures lined up to attend festival pitching events » Page 3

INTERVIEW John Turturro The acclaimed actor on his role in Nanni Moretti’s My Mother » Page 4

REVIEW In The Shadow Of Women Philippe Garrel’s adultery drama is precise, polished and intimate » Page 13

The Godfather

Godfather to tune out JFF

BY TOM GRATER

A screening of Francis Ford Coppola’s The Godfather at Sultan’s Pool, with accompaniment from the Jerusalem Symphony Orchestra conducted by Justin Freer, will be one of the highlights of this year’s festival.

“We wanted to celebrate Nino Rota, one of the biggest composers in cinema,” said festival director Noa Regev. “I hope we can continue this tradition and have a concert every year celebrating a major cinematic figure. This is a good place to start.”

Other events include a selection of free outdoor screenings at Habonim Garden, Muristan Square and Jaffa Gate in the Old City, where blockbusters such as Edge Of Tomorrow, Interstellar and Whiplash will be featured. The Moonlight Cinema programme is also free and will showcase a slate of Israeli classics, including Avi Nesher’s Sing Your Heart Out and Meny Yaesh’s God’s Neighbours, at Jerusalem’s The First Station venue.

In addition, acclaimed Israeli DJs will play music accompanied by video-art screens every night of the festival in the Cinematheque garden.

The Rabinovich Foundation – Cinema Project congratulates the 32nd Jerusalem Film Festival and wishes success to the films that were supported by The Rabinovich Foundation Full Length Feature Films:

Documentaries:

Tikkun Director: Avishai Sivan Producers: Ronen Ben Tal, Avishai Sivan, Moshe Edery, Leon Edery Wounded Land Director: Erez Tadmor Producers: Shemi Shoenfeld, Amitan Menelzon

Hotline Director: Silvina Landsmann Producers: Silvina Landsmann, Pierre-Olivier Bardet

Student Graduation Films: CPH Director: Eitan Sarid Souroujon Film School: Tel Aviv University The Fine Line Director: Dana Lerer Film School: Tel Aviv University

Strung Out Director: Nirit Aharoni Producers: David Mandil, Nirit Aharoni Jerusalem Boxing Club Director: Helen Yanovsky Producers: Helen Yanovsky, Shalom Goodman

Dramas (Short Films): The Cantor and the Sea Director: Yehonatan Indursky Producers: Osnat Handelsman-Keren, Talia Kleinhendler

The Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts, Tel-Aviv – Cinema Project In association with The Leon Recanati Foundation

27 993 FILMS

YEARS

with the support of Israel Ministry of Culture and Sport The Israel Film Council

The Rabinovich Foundation 90 Ha'Hashmonaim St. Tel Aviv 6120301, Israel Tel: 972-3-525502, Fax: 972-3-5255130 www.cinemaproject.org.il

NEWS

Film biz touches down in Israel

By Melanie Goodfellow

Jerusalem Film Festival is not just about celebrating new and classic works, it is also about the business of making films.

A packed roster of industry meetings kicks off on July 10 with the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab pitching event, which will present the 11 projects currently being developed through the Jerusalem-based incubator.

Upcoming international works on the bill include illicit loveaffair drama The Boyfriend by Indian film-maker Ashim Ahluwalia, the follow-up to his 2012 debut feature Miss Lovely, and Portuguese-American writerdirector Paolo Marinou-Blanco’s dark comedy Candido, set in the lead-up to the 2016 Olympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Participants from Israel include Mihal Brezis and Oded Binnun, who will present plans for a featurelength version of their Oscarnominated short Aya, about a

strange encounter between a young Israeli woman and a renowned pianist.

The Sam Spiegel pitching event is proving a bigger-than-usual draw this year following the success of past attendee Laszlo Nemes, whose debut feature, the Holocaust drama Son Of Saul, was awarded the Cannes jury grand prize in May. The Hungarian filmmaker, who participated in the second edition of the lab in 201213, will be returning to Jerusalem this week to serve as a jury member at the event.

Joining him on the jury are Ewa Puszczynska, the Oscar-winning producer of Ida and head of development at Poland’s Opus Films; Michele Halberstadt, head of acquisitions at French distributor ARP Selection; Meinolf Zurhorst, director of German broadcaster ZDF’s film department; and Israel Film Fund executive director Katriel Schory.

Other top industry players

scheduled to attend this year’s festival include Adeline Fontan Tessaur, international sales director for Elle Driver, producer Cédomir Kolar of ASAP Films and Match Factory CEO Michael Weber. Many of these professionals are also expected to stop by the Israeli cinema-focused Pitch Point event, which runs July 13 and 14.

Pitch Point, which has served as the launch pad for high-profile Israeli films such as Lebanon, Self Made and Zero Motivation, marks its 10th anniversary this year.

Among the 11 new projects lined up for this year’s edition are Yossi Atia’s micro-budget feature Born In Jerusalem And Still Alive, about a guide specialising in terror attack tours in Jerusalem; Lior Chefetz’s family adventure film Sky Raiders; and Oded Davidoff ’s drama Live From Jerusalem, set against the backdrop of the international media community in the city.

For the second year running,

there will also be a works-inprogress session, screening eight rough cuts of films in postproduction including Nony Geffen’s highly anticipated Everything Is Broken Up And Dances, and a programme of workshop masterclasses at the Hansen House cultural centre on July 14. Speakers will include Matthijs Wouter Knol, director of Berlin’s European Film Market, on how to survive a market as an emerging film-maker; PR experts Laurin Dietrich and Michael Arnon of Wolf Consultants, who will give insider tips on international publicity; and veteran US producer and distributor Ira Deutchman, who will discuss the present and future of distribution in the US and Israel.

The day will conclude with an onstage interview with celebrated UK industry figure John Heyman (father of Harry Potter producer David), who will look back over his 50-year career.

Ashim Ahluwalia

Nony Geffen

Matthijs Wouter Knol

Albert Maysles honoured with tribute programme

By Tom Grater

In the wake of the death of Albert Maysles in March — one half of famed documentary duo the Maysles brothers — Jerusalem Film Festival will host a special tribute to the man and his body of work, which spanned six decades and included more than 50 documentary features, shorts and television productions. “ When [Albert Maysles] passed away earlier this year, I was deeply saddened,” artistic director Elad Samorzik told Screen. “It was clear to me that we must honour him with a tribute during the festival.”

The US-born offspring of Jewish immigrants from the Ukraine and Poland, David and Albert Maysles were ostensibly American film-makers but “were very much intrigued by our country”, said Samorzik. “Perhaps their social agenda was connected to the fact they were sons of Jewish immigrants.”

Pioneers of the direct cinema approach, a ‘fly on the wall’ style of documentary film-making

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Grey Gardens

Albert Maysles

characterised by hand-held cameras and a lack of participation from the film-makers, the Maysles brothers made several notable films in this style. Chief among them was Grey Gardens, their acclaimed depiction of Edith Bouvier Beale and her daughter ‘Little Edie’ Beale, aunt and cousin respectively of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, living eccentrically in their decaying mansion in

East Hampton, which will be screened tomorrow (July 10) in a newly restored digital version.

Their 1970 Rolling Stones documentary Gimme Shelter, which focused on the tragic death of a fan at the hands of the Hells Angels during the band’s 1969 performance at Altamont Speedway, is showing on Saturday (July 11), along with the pair’s 1987 television documentary Islands. Also

screening will be Journey To Jerusalem, which followed Leonard Bernstein as he travelled to Israel to conduct a concert on Mount Scopus to celebrate the city’s reunification. The film will be presented on July 17 on a 16mm print from the Cinematheque archive.

After younger brother David passed away in 1987, Albert continued his documentary work. His 2001 television film LaLee’s Kin: The Legacy Of Cotton, co-directed with Deborah Dickson and Susan Froemke, will screen on July 18.

The last of Maysles’ films to be released in his lifetime, Iris, which follows fashion icon Iris Apfel, will screen on July 11, 15 and 17.

His final film as a director, In Transit, a collaboration with Nelson Walker, Lynn True, David Usui and Ben Wu about the US’s busiest long-distance train, premiered at Tribeca Film Festival in April. Jerusalem had hoped to play In Transit but the other film-makers were still working on international distribution issues and could not ready it in time. “We hope to show it next year,” said Samorzik.

July 9, 2015 Screen International at Jerusalem 3

Interview John Turturro

Mother of invention

John Turturro, the star of My Mother, which opens the festival today, tells Lee Marshall about life overlapping art, working with director Nanni Moretti and why he’s keen to catch up with Ronit Elkabetz

N

anni Moretti’s latest feature, My Mother (Mia Madre), which opens Jerusalem Film Festival today, is about the death of a mother. But it’s also about the way those whose job it is to tell stories can experience a dislocation of reality when the drama from which they make a living enters their own lives.

The film centres on a brittle, neurotic director with a social conscience (an excellent, nuanced Margherita Buy), embroiled in an almost certainly doomed attempt to shoot what she calls a “positive, energy-filled” film about laid-off workers.

Her mother is slowing dying in hospital, and it is her long-suffering brother — played by Moretti himself — who takes on the burden of carer while Margherita watches her life and her film unravel.

One of Margherita’s many problems is Barry Huggins, the US actor played by John Turturro who she has cast as the ruthless, cost-cutting foreign boss of the factory in her film. When she goes to pick him up at the airport, late as usual, he is asleep — and awakes in terror from a nightmare in which Kevin Spacey was trying to kill him.

“I did dream about being pursued by Kevin once when I was in Rio,” Turturro laughs. “I told Nanni about that, and he worked it into the script. I must have been watching House Of Cards too much.”

Huggins turns out to be a self-obsessed mytho-maniac who brags about working with Stanley Kubrick and is chronically unable to remember his lines. Turturro has great fun with the role, strutting and bluffing but also revealing the vulnerability of a character who is terrified of being unmasked as a pompous fraud.

A profession of fear Turturro reveals when he first read the script he immediately understood the character. “I’ve worked with people who can hijack a movie… but in my profession there’s also a lot of fear, there’s very little security, that’s part of the job description.”

He has known Moretti for a while, ever since the director programmed Turturro’s directorial debut, Mac (1992), at the Nuovo Sacher, the cinema he owns and runs in Rome. Later, Moretti tried to talk the Italian-American actor into playing a cardinal in his papal comedy drama We Have A Pope (Habemus Papam) but other commitments got in the way. This time,

4 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

‘Moretti does a lot of takes, but at the same time he wanted me to improvise.

There were times when I went way off course and had to drag myself back’ My Mother

John Turturro

when Moretti sent Turturro the script via Italian producer Domenico Procacci, the actor jumped at the chance to be part of a story “that resonated with me… not just because I’ve also lost a mother, but because I thought the life of the director at the centre of the story was really interesting. She’s someone who’s not really living a real life. She’s there and not there, like many creative people”.

Famously obsessive on set (the Buy character is a fairly transparent alter ego), Moretti was, says Turturro, fascinating to work with. “He’s a smart and complicated guy. He does a lot of takes but at the same time he wanted me to improvise.

There were times when I went way off course and had to drag myself back.”

Whole scenes, such as a bookstore dance sequence that took a day to shoot, ended up on the cutting room floor. “It was challenging and stimulating,” says Turturro. “But I could never direct that way myself — I never have that much time.”

It was his role in Francesco Rosi’s adaptation of Primo Levi’s The Truce (La Tregua), released in the US as The Reawakening, the saga of the Italian Jewish author’s long journey back from Auschwitz-Birkenau between January and October 1945, that reawakened Turturro’s interest in his Italian roots. His father was from Puglia, his mother Sicilian.

“Rosi introduced me to a lot of things — Italian literary classics, the theatre of Eduardo De Filippo, the culture of Naples,” he explains.

Passione, Turturro’s documentary about Naples’ vibrant musical heritage, premiered at Venice Film Festival in 2010, and the next year he secured an Italian passport. It has clearly rubbed off on him: Turturro’s character in My Mother is supposed to speak awkward, halting Italian, but at a certain point, he says, Moretti told him his accent was too good, and asked him to “re-foreignise” it.

Turturro is here in Jerusalem to support the film’s screening. It is his first time in the city, which he was much looking forward to visiting. He is a fan, he says, of cities with layered histories and cultures, and also a fan of actress and director Ronit Elkabetz, who he met in Cannes a few years back with her brother and creative collaborator Shlomi. Would he like to work with her? “Definitely — s she’s next on my wish list.” n

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‫קרן הקולנוע הישראלי מברכת את פסטיבל‬ ‫הקולנוע ירושלים‬ THE ISRAEL FILM FUND CONGRATULATES THE 32ND JERUSALEM FILM FESTIVAL

‫קרן הקולנוע הישראלי‬ www.filmfund.org.il

Spotlight The Rabinovich Foundation

The light and the dark The Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts’ Cinema Project is backing new projects by Avi Nesher, Yoav Shamir and animation maestro Albert Hanan Kaminski. Melanie Goodfellow reports

I

t has been a high-profile year for the Cinema Project, the film-financing arm of the Tel Aviv-based Yehoshua Rabinovich Foundation for the Arts. Natalie Portman’s directorial debut A Tale Of Love And Darkness, an adaptation of Amos Oz’s autobiographical work inspired by his childhood in 1940s Jerusalem, which was backed by the Cinema Project, screened out of competition at Cannes, while André Singer’s documentary Night Will Fall was given a simultaneous global broadcast in 15 territories in January. Revisiting the attempt by Sidney Bernstein and Alfred Hitchcock to document the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps, the film’s release coincided with the 70th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau.

“We cover feature films, documentary features and graduation shorts,” says Yoav Abramovich, deputy director and artistic director for feature-length feature films at the Cinema Project, of the organisation’s remit.

Under Israel’s Cinema Law, controlling the allocation of state funding for Israeli cinema, the Cinema Project competes with the Israel Film Fund as well as a cluster of smaller funds for projects and Film Council backing.

“The competition is seen as being good for Israeli cinema,” comments Abramovich.

“We’re competing to make good films. We’re judged by the success of our films in festivals and with Israeli audiences.”

The Cinema Project invests around $7.7m (ils29m) each year, which is generally split into $528,000 (ils2m) for a feature and $53,000 (ils200,000) for a documentary.

“We try to support projects that have artistic excellence and we believe will be appealing to the audience,” says Abramovich. “Israel is a complex and heterogeneous society and we try to support artistic expression from all its different parts.”

Upcoming Cinema Project-backed titles include Avi Nesher’s family drama Past Tense, about two Holocaust descendants living in 1970s Israel on the eve of the peace accord with Egypt, and Ethiopia-born, Israel-based Alamork Marsha’s debut feature Fig Tree, which was the winner of the $50,000 top prize at the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab pitching event in 2014.

Fig Tree is inspired by Marsha’s childhood experiences in war-torn Addis Ababa in 1991 and her family’s subsequent flight to Israel.

The Cinema Project has also invested in Yuval Delshad’s Baba Joon, Israel’s first Persian-language film about Jewish immigrants from Iran getting to grips with life on a turkey farm in the Negev desert. It stars Navid Negahban, who played Abu Nazir in Homeland, the US remake of Hatufim.

Further investments include Emil BenShimon’s Women’s Balcony, which is about a moderate Jerusalem community hijacked by an extremist rabbi after the local synagogue is destroyed, forcing the women to take action.

It is produced by Talia Kleinhendler and Osnat Handelsman-Keren of Tel Aviv-based Pie Films, whose credits include The Farewell Party, Bethlehem and The Kindergarten Teacher.

Not afraid to take risks, the Cinema Project is also backing an Israeli feature animation.

‘Israel is a complex and heterogeneous society and we try to support artistic expression from all its different parts’ Yoav Abramovich, Cinema Project

Being Solomon is the latest work by celebrated Israeli animation director Albert Hanan Kaminski, whose credits include the awardwinning TV series Pettson And Findus and the adventure fantasy The Real Shlemiel (aka Aaron’s Magic Village).

The Cinema Project is hoping to build on its strong record in documentary. Headed by Arie Raichman, the documentary strand has previously backed the Oscar-nominated The Gatekeepers and Ra’anan Alexandrowicz and Liran Atzmor’s The Law In These Parts and is now supporting award-winning Yoav Shamir’s upcoming portrait of the controversial free-love Raël cult, featuring interviews with its founder, the France-born Japanbased Claude Vorilhon.

“It’s fascinating because it is a way to see how religion is born because its founder is still alive today,” says Abramovich.

Further non-fiction films in the works include Tal Michael’s portrait of the Frenkel brothers — Jewish animation pioneers who lived in Cairo from the 1920s to the 1940s, creating characters such as Mish-Mish that were as well known as Mickey Mouse in Egypt and the wider Arab world. Michael’s Pitbulls: Flesh And Blood screened here at Jerusalem Film Festival last year.

The Cinema Project has also backed a new project by Raheli Schwartz that looks at injured Syrian fighters being treated in Israeli hospitals, and Boris Maftsir’s six-part film The Guardians Of Remembrance, which uncovers the history of the Holocaust in former couns tries of the Soviet Union. n

Being Solomon

A Tale Of Love And Darkness

6 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

Baba Joon

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Nerav Maroody

SPOTLIGHT ISRAEL FILM FUND

Atomic Falafel

The 90 Minute War

The storm riders

What are the hot new projects that are being backed by the Israel Film Fund, headed by the indomitable Katriel Schory? Melanie Goodfellow finds out

F

eatures backed by the Israel Film terms with a loss. The fund has invested its Fund are expected to be regular fixmaximum amount of $527,000 in the project, tures on the international festival cirwhich is being co-produced by Paris-based cuit over the coming year. Samuel A.S.A.P. Films, Germany’s Pola Pandora and Maoz’s Foxtrot, his first fiction feature since Israel’s Spiro Films. It is set to shoot later this Venice Golden Lion winner Lebanon, year. respected film editor Tova Ascher’s identityGeffen’s Everything Is Broken Up And swap drama A.K.A. Nadia and Nony Geffen’s Dances is in post-production and is about a drama Everything Is Broken Up And Dances veteran of the Lebanon War, played by the are all attracting international attention. director, who reinvents himself as a rock star.

One of two major state-backed funds that The film-maker’s previous film Not In Tel Aviv support Israeli cinema, alongside the Rabiwon the special jury prize at Locarno Internanovich Fund, the Tel Aviv-based Israel Film tional Film Festival in 2012.

Fund metes out between $53,000 Looking further ahead, the fund has just (ILS200,000) and $528,000 (ILS2m) to help backed Home Port about a sailor who returns finance 12 to 14 projects a year. home after many years at sea, the next pro“This place is crazy for the stories it throws ject from Erez Tadmor whose Wounded up,” says Katriel Schory, executive director of Land, set in the aftermath of a terror attack, the Israel Film Fund, who works tirelessly to will premiere here. promote Israeli film-making internationally.

As well as backing established names, the “The population is so diverse, there are so fund places great emphasis on nurturing many layers, minorities, communities, new talent. These include Roman ShumuIsraeli, Palestinian, secular and religious. We nov with No Future, about a bunch of Israeli try to reflect that.” rappers struggling to make ends The tale of a woman who swaps her Arab meet in the port of Ashdod, identity for that of a successful which is set to shoot later this Israeli career woman, A.K.A. year. The fund has also green-lit Nadia is premiering here at Maysaloun Hamoud’s In Jerusalem Film Festival in the Between, which is about a PalHaggiag feature competition. It estinian lawyer torn between is the directorial debut of her life in Tel Aviv’s vibrant Ascher, who is Eran RikLGBT community and her lis’s long-time collaboraconservative hometown in tor and has edited more Galilee. It is produced by than 40 films during her Shlomi Elkabetz. “It’s career, including Lemon intriguing because it tells the Tree and The Syrian Bride. story of a whole sub-culture Maoz’s Foxtrot is about an of Palestinians living in Tel A.K.A. Nadia Israeli soldier coming to Aviv,” Schory explains.

8 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

‘There are so many layers, minorities, communities, Israeli, Palestinian, secular and religious. We try to reflect that’ Katriel Schory, Israel Film Fund

Other fund-backed films expected to make a festival splash in the coming months include Dror Shaul’s Atomic Falafel, a comedy about the Iran-Israel nuclear stand-off, and Eyal Halfon’s football-based mockumentary The 90 Minute War, which is about an imagined moment when the Israeli and Palestinian governments decide to settle the Middle East conflict on the football pitch. Shot in Israel, the West Bank, Germany and Portugal, it is co-produced by Israel’s A Norma Productions and Germany’s Gringo.

But the reality of life in a society as “crazy” as Israel can be challenging and even Schory, a seasoned veteran, admits recent political and economic turmoil is having an impact on the fund. Amid the euphoria of Cannes 2014 — where five of the fund’s films premiered on the Croisette, to be followed at home by a record-breaking year for Israeli films at the local box office, the fund found itself mired in controversy when film-maker Suha Arraf attempted to re-classify her Arabic-language, Ramallah-set, fund-backed Villa Touma as Palestinian rather than Israeli. The move prompted fierce debate and a controversial change in the Cinema Law stipulating that all films receiving Israeli state funding must be classified as Israeli.

Further challenges include growing calls for a cultural boycott of Israel by pro-Palestinian campaigners, which resulted in a petition to Locarno asking that festival to drop its Israeli-focused Carte Blanche, co-organised with the fund. Schory will be attending.

At the other end of the political spectrum, Israel’s new minister of culture and sport Miri Regev has threatened to cut government funding to bodies such as the Israel Film Fund that back works criticising the State of Israel.

Schory is taking a wait-and-see approach.

“You cannot just wake up in the morning and say, ‘I am going to change the regulations,’” he says of Regev. “There are laws, a process and a Ministry of Justice. I have no idea what will happen next month, next year, but for s now nothing’s changed.” ■

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SPOTLIGHT DOCUMENTARIES

Hotline

Mr. Gaga

The lives of others Child beggars, immigration and Yitzhak Rabin’s assassin are among the subjects explored in this year’s Israeli documentary competition. By Andreas Wiseman

‘‘R

eality here is very complex. The news is full of crazy stories,” says Erez Barenholtz, head of Israeli competitions at Jerusalem Film Festival (JFF). “Israel is very strong in the documentary field due to our complicated reality.”

The country’s fertile complexity is explored in seven films competing for the Van Leer Awards for Israeli Cinema — Documentary Film, for best picture and best director. Subjects range from Palestinian child beggars (Pennies) to renowned Israeli musician Kutiman (Thru You Princess) to Ohad Naharin, a defining figure in modern dance (Mr. Gaga).

“The line-up is diverse,” says Barenholtz.

“If you look at the whole programme it gives you a sense of Israel in 2015 and we have some important directors showing their work. Each film has a strong subject but also reveals strong characters.”

At just seven films, this year’s documen-

DOC TITLES IN FULL ■ Beyond The

Fear dirs Herz Frank, Maria Kravchenko ■ Strung Out dir Nirit Aharoni ■ Thru You Princess dir Ido Haar ■ New Beginnings dir Ada Ushpiz ■ Pennies dir Badran Badran ■ Hotline dir Silvina Landsmann ■ Mr. Gaga dir Tomer Heymann

10 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

tary competition features five fewer titles than in 2014. “We decided to make the competition a bit smaller but we believe the connection with the audience will be through the quality of the films,” says Barenholtz.

Stoking debate The power of the selection is already being felt. Few JFF documentaries have ever generated as many headlines as Beyond The Fear, Herz Frank and Maria Kravchenko’s portrait of Yigal Amir, the man who assassinated Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Rabin in 1995, and Amir’s relationship with his wife Larisa Trembovler. Trembovler left her husband and four children to marry Amir, probably the most hated man in Israel, while he serves a life sentence in prison.

The film was at the centre of national and international attention in June when Israel’s minister of culture and sport Miri Regev threatened to remove funding for the festival unless it withdrew the controversial film. Beyond The Fear premiered at Toronto’s Hot Docs in June, where it received a mixed critical reception.

“The inclusion has generated a storm,” acknowledges Barenholtz of the film. “I’m surprised and not surprised. From the first time I saw it, I asked myself whether we should screen Pennies it. For me the most important thing is the cinema. It’s a

‘Israel is very strong in the documentary field due to our complicated reality’ Erez Barenholtz, Jerusalem Film Festival

very good film, which is as much about the director [the late Frank], who felt an outsider in Israeli society, as Amir. It’s not pro-Amir.

We have a responsibility to screen these kinds of films.”

In a compromise, the film screened last night at Mishkenot Sha’ananim, with producer Guntis Trekteris and co-director Kravchenko in attendance, and it remains part of the documentary competition.

“Our intention was never to hurt anyone’s feelings,” says Trekteris. “I understand some of the anger and emotions but I think Minister Regev made the wrong move by giving the festival an ultimatum.”

For festival director Noa Regev, while the controversy posed an unwanted storm in her second year at the helm, it also highlighted her goal that the festival be “a space free of politics, dedicated to the love for the art of cinema. I only hope that real dialogue and lessons can be learned from this, allowing real artistic freedom which will let art fulfil its role in our culture.”

Also due to attend the festival is ArabIsraeli teacher-turned-documentary filmmaker Badran Badran, whose film Pennies charts two children from the Palestinian city of Tulkarem as they spend their days begging on dangerous highways in order to provide for their family.

For Badran, the children’s plight is a result of the division between Israel and the Palestinian territories. “This is a political problem,” he suggests. “Because of travel restrictions, the children’s parents can’t work in Israel and it’s very hard for them to find work in Tulkarem. That’s why they are drawn to this dangerous way of life.”

In recent years, few subjects have excited passions like immigration, which is a political hot-potato the world over. In Hotline, filmmaker Silvina Landesman explores the subject from a novel angle, focusing on the work and structure of a Tel Aviv-based human-rights organisation called the Hotline for Refugees and Migrants.

Well received at the Berlinale earlier this year, the observational documentary aims to reveal the complex dynamics within a busy NGO as much as the personal triumphs and tragedies encountered by the organisation, says director Landesman. “I wanted to observe NGOs,” she says. “I wanted to observe up close how they work and what do they do. s They were very open to that process.” ■

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Under Electric Clouds Reviewed by Lee Marshall

My Mother Reviewed by Lee Marshall By rights, Nanni Moretti’s My Mother (Mia Madre) shouldn’t add up to much. Two middle-aged siblings watch their mother die, relatively peacefully, over several weeks. One is a brittle, neurotic director struggling to complete a “positive, energy-filled” film about laid-off workers; the other a mild-mannered engineer. The mother duly departs (no spoilers here: it’s flagged from the start). The film ends.

My Mother has none of the death-of-a-child shock factor and tragic catharsis value of 2001 Palme d’Or winner The Son’s Room, and only measured doses of the acerbically comic critique of Italian social and political mores that have endeared Moretti’s oeuvre to international audiences in films such as Dear Diary (Caro Diario) or We Have A Pope (Habemus Papam).

But its relatively tranquil surface, its small amusements (often revolving around a tasty turn by John Turturro as a histrionically insecure US leading man), its moments of touching, almost Sirkian melodrama, and above all its ability to tease resonant themes out of seemingly inconsequential scenes or lines, make for a film that is greater than the sum of its parts. Declaredly inspired by the death of Moretti’s own mother during the editing of We Have A Pope (Habemus Papam), My Mother is one of the Roman director’s least showy films, but also one that rises above his personal tics and mannerisms to achieve a kind of universal pathos — even as it rejects grand universal statements in favour of the muddled everyday.

Granted, it takes a while to get there. The film opens on the set of another film that director Margherita (Margherita Buy, in a career-best performance) is shooting, before switching to the hospital bed where her frail, elderly mother Ada is being cared for (a fine, affecting account by theatre actress Giulia Lazzarini). One of Moretti’s most minor-key works, My Mother leaves the audience to make connections, and those who are bored by its sometimes drab surface (figured in the anywhere cityscapes of a suburban Rome that is a million miles from the decadence of Paolo Sorrentino’s The Great Beauty) may be unwilling to make the effort. That’s their loss.

12 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

Opening Film It-Fr. 2015. 106mins Director Nanni Moretti Production companies Sacher Film, Fandango, Le Pacte, Arte France Cinema International sales Films Distribution, www. filmsdistribution.com Producers Nanni Moretti, Domenico Procacci Screenplay Nanni Moretti, Francesco Piccolo, Valia Santella Cinematography Arnaldo Catinari Editor Clelio Benevento Production designer Paola Bizzarri Main cast Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti, Beatrice Mancini

A dense, angry parable that deploys seven interconnected stories to probe the diseased soul of contemporary Russia, Alexey German Jr’s film is a fragmented tour de force, a ravishingly shot, thought-provoking triumph of non-linear film-making. Slowly assembling its cinematic mosaic piece by piece, and saturated with references to Russian history, politics, art, literature and social issues, it demands the commitment of its audience; in comparison, another recent Russian masterpiece, Andrey Zvyagintsev’s Leviathan, plays like an action movie. But once you surrender to Under Electric Cloud’s slow dance, it becomes strangely mesmerising.

An on-screen prefatory quotation from Cezanne, about drawing being not about line or modelling but about “a relationship of contrasts”, prepares us for the impressionistic narrative style of what will follow. The year is 2017, a voice-over narrator tells us, a hundred years on from the Russian Revolution, in a country “crucified between past and present”. The story we are about to watch will be about “special people — those who used to be called superfluous”, and “an unfinished building”.

That building — a sort of poor man’s Burj al Arab, a sail-like skyscraper abandoned after its structural core was erected — is in the background of all the film’s seven stories, or chapters. It’s there literally, looming in the distance, and it’s there, we gradually realise, as the common denominator that connects the film’s characters.

German mixes story and parable with masterful ease, sometimes with Slavic gloom, sometimes with wry humour — as when the film’s title is made explicit in a shot of an advertisement projected onto the clouds.

Themes include attitudes towards immigration, antiSemitism, drug abuse, the manipulation of the judiciary for political ends, Mickey Rourke’s dog, and, repeatedly, the devaluation of culture in today’s Russia. It is tribute to German Jr’s achievement that the beautifully shot finale, as two characters bond over a giant wire sculpture of a horse, is both teasingly symbolic and genuinely moving. And that’s a difficult act to pull off.

Panorama Russ-Ukr-Pol. 2015.

130mins Director/screenplay Alexey German Jr Production companies Metra Films, Linked Films, Apple Film Production, TOR Film Studio International sales Films Boutique, contact@ filmsboutique.com Producers Artem Vasilyev, Andrey Saveliev, Rushan Nasibulin, Sergey Antonov, Egor Olesov Cinematography Evgeniy Privin, Sergey Mikhalchuk Editor Sergey Ivanov Production designer Elena Okopnaya Music Andrey Surotdinov Main cast Louis Franck, Merab Ninidze, Viktoriya Korotkova, Chulpan Khamatova, Viktor Bugakov

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Screenings, page 14

In The Shadow Of Women Reviewed by Allan Hunter

Fassbinder: To Love Without Demands Reviewed by Fionnuala Halligan Christian Braad Thomsen’s personal documentary about his friend Rainer Werner Fassbinder starts with blackand-white footage from the premiere of the director’s debut, Love Is Colder Than Death, at the 1969 Berlinale.

The critics barrack: a ringing “It was shit!” can be heard from the audience. But Fassbinder is unfazed: Berlin critics are provincial, he tells his interviewer.

Furiously productive throughout his brief 37 years (“I thought I only existed while I was working”), Fassbinder was brought up by disinterested parents in a “chaotic post-war commune”. He turned his mother, Lilo, into the star of many of his films, and speaks happily about the concept of incest — “it’s a major experience of my imagination”.

Thomsen posits that Fassbinder’s over-riding drive as an adult and film-maker was to recreate that childhood freedom and brings his friend, with seventies long-collared shirts hanging open to the waist, back to sweaty life to expound on life, love, desire and film-making. And can Fassbinder talk! Yet the prism of time, and the vanished period of German politics that shaped him, serves only to make Fassbinder more elusively fascinating than ever.

Then, of course, there’s his troupe, the wildly dysfunctional commune of actors and crew — the anti-theatre gang — who surrounded him, their ranks expanded by his lovers and hangers on. Fassbinder was a gay man who also needed to be with women, to whom he was often cruel. “They were wild times,” recalls Irm Hermann, the former secretary he cast in his films and who was tortured by Fassbinder for many years.

Divided into seven chapters, ending in Death — from an overdose of cocaine and barbituates — To Love Without Demands features lengthy and previously unseen interview footage. There are obvious reasons why these have never before been broadcast, in particular with an extensive Cannes hotel-room interview: the sound is poor and Fassbinder is a peculiar combination of semicomatose and manically verbose.

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Cinemania Den. 2015. 109mins Director/screenplay/ producer Christian Braad Thomsen Production company/ international sales Kollektiv Film, braadthomsen@gmail. com Cinematography Bente Petersen Editor Grete Moldrup Music Peer Raben Featuring Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Irm Hermann, Harry Baer, Andrea Schober, Lilo Pempeit, Margit Carstensen

Masters

It may be set in contemporary Paris, but In The Shadow Of Women (L’Ombre Des Femmes) has the textures and trappings of a nouvelle vague relic from the 1960s. The moody, black-and-white cinematography, literary voiceover and intense exploration of messy relationships and broken hearts evokes effortlessly the world of Eric Rohmer and Francois Truffaut. Veteran director Philippe Garrel subverts the nostalgic mood by turning the travails of a married couple into a lightly witty treatise on double-standards in relationships where men think they can act with impunity and women are merely expected to suffer in silence.

Garrel’s screenwriting collaborators once again include his partner, the actress and writer Caroline Deruas, which can’t help but suggest elements of autobiography in the story of struggling film-maker Pierre (Stanislas Merhar) and his deeply devoted wife Manon (Clotilde Courau). Pierre is assembling a documentary on a wartime resistance hero and Manon offers him unconditional support in their work and home life.

When Pierre embarks on an affair with intern Elisabeth (Lena Paugam), he believes it is entirely possible to have both women in his life. It’s just what men do.

The rude awakening comes when he discovers Manon has also been having an affair. Pierre never thought it was possible for women to be unfaithful and the discovery fills him with jealousy and creates a much more provocative second half of the film as Garrel and his team reveal more of the central couple’s insecurities and vulnerabilities.

Esteemed veteran Jean-Claude Carriere is another screenplay collaborator on In The Shadow Of Women and his mark is detectable in the precision and polish of the dialogue. Garrel ensures the film is a very concise, intimate piece of storytelling, choosing to let it unfold in cramped apartments, dishevelled bedrooms and clandestine meetings in corner cafés. The modern world rarely seems to impose on characters who are tormented by emotions that scarcely seem to bring them happiness or contentment.

Fr-Swi. 2015. 73mins Director Philippe Garrel Production companies SBS Productions, Close Up, Arte France Cinema, Radio Television Suisse International sales Wild Bunch, edevos@ wildbunch.eu Producers Said Ben Said, Michael Merkt Screenplay Jean-Claude Carriere, Caroline Deruas, Philippe Garrel, Arlette Langmann Cinematography Renato Berta Editor Francois Gédigier Music Jean-Louis Aubert Main cast Clotilde Courau, Stanislas Merhar, Lena Paugam, Vimala Pons, Mounir Margoum

July 9, 2015 Screen International at Jerusalem 13

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

film, a famous Italian director tries to put up with the main actor’s problematic temperament while her mother reaches the end of her life.

Thursday July 9 15:00 In the Shadow of Women

(France) Wild Bunch.

73mins. Dir: Philippe Garrel. Key cast: Clotilde Courau, Stanislas Merhar, Lena Paugam.

Film great Philippe Garrel proves that the New Wave is still alive and kicking in this witty comic drama about a love triangle in Paris, an investigation into the death and demise of relationships and the mysterious ways of passion.

Gala Cinematheque 1

Friday 12:15 Cemetery of Splendour

Masters Cinematheque 2

THURSDAY 16:45 Under Electric Clouds

(Russia, Ukraine, Poland) Films Boutique. 137mins.

Dir: Aleksei German Jr. Key cast: Louis Franck, Merab Ninidze, Chulpan Khamatova, Anastasia Melnikova, Ramil Salahutdinov, Piotr Gasowski.

Aleksei German Jr’s new film takes us to 2017 Russia, where the characters must cope with various challenges. The world is on the brink of total war and things could fall apart completely.

Winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear for outstanding artistic contribution to cinematography.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

THURSDAY 19:15 The Forbidden Room

(Canada) Mongrel.

128mins. Dir: Guy Maddin. Key cast: Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, Louis Negin, Celine Bonnier, Karine Vanasse, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani, Mathieu Amalric, Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin.

Guy Maddin’s new work is an ode to the films of the silent era, an erotic and kaleidoscopic symphony that takes us sky-high, down to the depths and around the world, creating a unique, multilayered viewing experience.

Masters Cinematheque 2

Thursday July 9 22:00 Heaven Knows What

(US) Stray Dogs.

94mins. Dir: Ben Safdie, Joshua Safdie.

Key cast: Arielle Holmes, Caleb Landry Jones, Buddy Duress, Necro, Eleonore Hendricks.

Harley loves Ilya. He THURSDAY 20:00 My Mother

(Italy, France) Films Distribution. 106mins.

Dir: Nanni Moretti. Key cast: Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti.

In the midst of shooting her new film, a famous Italian director tries to put up with the problematic temperament and egotistical behaviour of her main actor. The difficulties of the shoot are compounded by her mother’s ailing health.

The great Nanni Moretti serves up a moving comic drama that garnered acclaim at Cannes Film Festival.

Gala Sultan’s Pool

THURSDAY 22:00 Heaven Knows What See box, above

14 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

gives her life purpose and sets her passion ablaze. So when he asks her to prove her love by slitting her wrists, she obliges with only mild hesitation, perhaps because of her other allconsuming love: heroin.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

FRIDAY JULY 10 09:30

Van Den Berghe. Key cast: Gabino Rodriguez, Norma Pablo, Maria Toral Acosta, Jeronimo Soto Bravo, Sergio Lazaro Cortez.

En route from Heaven to Hell, Lucifer passes through a small Mexican village and decides to toy with the life of a local family. The first film to be shot in ‘Tondoscope’ — a new circular format developed by the director.

Panorama Cinematheque 3

Out of Nature

(Norway) NDM. 80mins.

Dir: Ole Giaever, Marte Vold. Key cast: Ole Giaever, Marte Magnusdotter Solem, Sivert Giaever Solem, Rebekka Nystadbakk.

Thirty-year-old Martin feels stifled by his life and decides to commune with nature. Over the course of one weekend on a lone hiking trip, he is forced to confront his lifestyle.

A sharp comic drama, winner of the Label Europa Cinemas Award at Berlin Film Festival.

Panorama Cinematheque 1

Friday 10:00 Lucifer

(Belgium/Mexico) NDM. 108mins. Dir: Gust

Yolanda and the Thief

(US) Hollywood Classics.

108mins. Dir: Vincente Minnelli. Key cast: Fred Astaire, Lucille Bremer, Frank Morgan.

Classic 1945 movie in which conman Johnny (Fred Astaire) poses as a guardian angel in order to steal the inheritance of Yolanda (Lucille Bremer), an innocent girl raised in a monastery and destined to inherit millions.

JFF Classics Cinematheque 2

Friday 10:15 Every Face has a Name

(Sweden) Rise And Shine. 76mins. Dir: Magnus Gertten.

On April 28, 1945, ferries carrying concentration

camp survivors arrived in Malmo, Sweden. As the survivors took their first steps on shore, they were filmed by local news agencies. Seventy years later, they discover the images for the first time.

Jewish Experience Cinematheque 4

Friday 11:00 Return to Ithaca

(France, Belgium) Funny Balloons. 95mins.

Dir: Laurent Cantet.

Key cast: Sabel Santos, Jorge Perugorria, Fernando Hechevarria, Nestor Jimenez, Pedro Julio Diaz Ferran.

The latest film by Laurent Cantet (The Class) takes us to a balcony overlooking Havana, where a group of friends reunite for the first time in 16 years. This smart and poignant piece picked up the Venice Days Award at Venice Film Festival.

Masters Lev Smadar

Friday 11:15 My Mother

(Italy, France) Films Distribution. 106mins.

Dir: Nanni Moretti. Key cast: Margherita Buy, John Turturro, Giulia Lazzarini, Nanni Moretti.

In the midst of her new

(Malaysia/Thailand/ France/Germany/UK) Match Factory. 122mins.

Dir: Apichatpong Weerasethakul. Key cast: Jenjira Pongpas Widner, Jarinpattra Rueangram, Banlop Lomnoi.

A volunteer arrives at a temporary clinic to take care of a soldier suffering from a mysterious sleeping sickness, and befriends a young medium who uses her psychic powers to help her loved ones communicate with the comatose men.

Masters Cinematheque 2

Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet

(US/France/Canada/ Lebanon/Qatar) Wild Bunch. 84mins. Dir: Roger Allers, Gaetan Brizzi, Paul Brizzi, Joan Gratz, Mohammed Saeed Harib, Tomm Moore, Nina Paley, Bill Plympton, Joann Sfar, Michal Socha.

Key cast: Liam Neeson, Salma Hayek Pinault, John Krasinski, Frank Langella, Alfred Molina, John Rhys-Davies.

Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet is brought to life in an amazing animated feature, the joint effort of 10 leading animators from across the world who have turned these classic texts into a thrilling adventure.

JFF Kids Cinematheque 3

Friday 13:00 Heil

(Germany) Beta Cinema.

104mins. Dir: Dietrich Bruggemann. Key cast: Benno Fürmann, Liv Lisa Fries, Jerry Hoffmann, Jacob Matschenz, Daniel Zillmann, Oliver Bröcker.

Heil takes us to the fictional town of Prittwitz, where acclaimed Africanwww.screendaily.com

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changed. But things soon go awry. This feature debut won the SXSW Grand Jury Award and was screened at Cannes Film Festival.

Debuts Cinematheque 1

Paul Sharits

(Canada) Francois Miron.

85mins. Dir: Francois Miron.

A documentary on the life and work of legendary avant-garde artist Paul Sharits (1943-93), who revolutionised the art world and experimental cinema through his innovative, complex film installations, which continue to provoke and inspire to this day.

JFF Docs Cinematheque 4

Friday 17:15

Friday July 10 14:00 Tikkun

(Israel) Plan B Productions. 120mins.

Dir: Avishai Sivan. Key cast: Aharon Traitel, Khalifa Natour, Riki Blich, Gur Sheinberg.

A yeshiva student collapses and loses consciousness. The

German author Sebastian Klein is on tour promoting his book. After taking a blow to his head from the local neo-Nazis, Klein loses his memory and is brainwashed.

Munich in Jerusalem Lev Smadar

Friday 14:00 Mussa

(Israel) Drucker & Goren media. 60mins. Dir: Anat Goren.

Mussa, the son of African refugees, lives in the worst area of the city but studies in a school with wealthy kids. He speaks Hebrew but refuses to talk. Over the past six years, his classmates and teachers have never heard his voice.

Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 3

Tikkun See box, above

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paramedics announce his death but his father continues to administer CPR. Unexpectedly, the young man comes back to life. Seeing him changed, the father fears he crossed God’s will when he revived his son.

Israeli Features Cinematheque 1

Weimar Republic brings to life Siegfried Kracauer’s 1947 thesis that German cinema of the two decades before the Second World War predicted the Nazi rise to power.

Cinemania Cinematheque 2

Friday 15:15 Listen Up Philip

(US) Maysles Films.

94mins. Dir: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Ellen Hovde, Muffie Meyer.

This strikingly original documentary is a tribute to two women, past queens of society who withdrew from the world to their decaying East Hamptons mansion. A poetic, often comic evocation of women who never stopped being themselves.

(US) Match Factory.

108mins. Dir: Alex Ross Perry. Key cast: Jason Schwartzman, Elisabeth Moss, Jonathan Pryce, Krysten Ritter, Josephine De La Baume.

Philip is awaiting the publication of his second novel. He is tired of the big city and his deteriorating relationship.

When a successful writer offers him his summer home, he hopes to find the peace and quiet he requires. A witty comedy drama starring Jason Schwartzman and Elisabeth Moss.

Albert Maysles Tribute Cinematheque 4

Gala Lev Smadar

Friday 14:15 Grey Gardens

Friday 14:45

Friday 15:30

From Caligari to Hitler

Victoria

(Germany) Wide.

113mins. Dir: Rudiger Suchsland.

A spellbinding montage of segments from prominent films produced in the

See box, right

Friday 16:30 Krisha

(US) Visit Films.

83mins. Dir: Trey

Edward Shults. Key cast: Krisha Fairchild, Robyn Fairchild, Bill Wise, Chris Doubek, Olivia Grace Applegate, Alex Dobrenko, Trey Edward Shults.

After years of absence, Krisha is reunited with her relatives on Thanksgiving.

This is her opportunity to prove that she has

We are young. We are strong.

(Germany) Beta Cinema.

116mins. Dir: Burhan Qurbani. Key cast: Devid Striesow, Jonas Nay, Trang Le Hong, Joel Basman, Saskia Rosendahl, Thorsten Merten.

Three characters provide three different

perspectives on the violent riots that took place in the German city of Rostock in 1992 — the most violent xenophobic events witnessed in Germany since the war.

A fascinating feature developed in the Jerusalem International Film Lab. Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

Friday 17:30 The Assassin

(Hong Kong/France/ China/Taiwan) Wild Bunch. 105mins. Dir: Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Key cast: Shu Qi, Cheng Chang, Tsumabuki Satoshi.

In ninth-century China, a skilled assassin must choose whether to kill her past lover or abandon her life as a mercenary.

The latest film by Chinese master Hou Hsiao-Hsien is a spectacularly beautiful epic that garnered rave reviews and the best director award at Cannes.

Masters Lev Smadar

Friday 18:15 In the Shadow of Women

(France) Wild Bunch.

»

Friday July 10 15:30 Victoria

(Germany) Match Factory. 140mins.

Dir: Sebastian Schipper. Key cast: Laia Costa, Eike Frederick Schulz, Frederik Lau, Burak Yigit, Franz Rogowski, Max Mauff.

In this stirring drama by Sebastian

Schipper, shot in a single long take, a young woman from Madrid joins four likeable guys for a night out in Berlin.

What starts out as a fun outing quickly spirals out of control. Winner of Berlin’s Silver Bear.

Panorama Cinematheque 3

July 9, 2015 Screen International at Jerusalem 15

Screenings

wealthy family. When her daughter comes to visit, the rigid and unspoken equilibrium between master and servant becomes unbalanced.

Winner of the special jury prize at Sundance and the audience award at Berlin’s Panorama.

Panorama Lev Smadar

Friday 22:15 Court

Friday July 10 20:00 Jeruzalem

(Israel) Paz Films.

89mins. Dir: Doron Paz, Yoav Paz. Key cast: Yael Grobglas, Yon Tumarkin, Tom Graziani, Danielle Jadelyn.

Two American girls follow a mysterious and

Jeruzalem

handsome student to Jerusalem. The party is cut short when the three are caught in a biblical apocalypse. Trapped between the ancient walls of the holy city, they must find a way out.

Israeli Features Cinematheque 1

73mins. Dir: Philippe Garrel. Key cast: Clotilde Courau, Stanislas Merhar, Lena Paugam.

Film great Philippe Garrel proves that the New Wave is still alive and kicking in this witty comic drama about a love triangle in Paris. An investigation into the demise and death of relationships and the mysterious ways of passion.

In the Basement

Masters Cinematheque 1

Masters Cinematheque 3

Friday 18:30

Friday 20:00

(Austria) Coproduction Office. 81mins. Dir: Ulrich Seidl.

After completing his exemplary Paradise trilogy, Austrian master Ulrich Seidl returns to documentary filmmaking with a piercing yet humorous work about people, basements and what people do in their basements.

The Duchess of Warsaw

Grandma

(France) Caravan Pass.

86mins. Dir: Joseph Morder. Key cast: Alexandra Stewart, Andy Gillet.

Valentin, a young painter, meets up with his grandmother Nina, who refuses to reveal her painful past. Together they wander the streets of a fantasy Paris. Once Nina is able to let go, Valentin reconnects with his artistic inspiration.

(US) Sony. 80mins. Dir: Paul Weitz. Key cast: Lily Tomlin, Julia Garner, Marcia Gay Harden, Judy Greer.

A renowned and sharptongued woman sets out to help her granddaughter raise $600 for an abortion. The search for cash stirs up old secrets.

This moving comedy features a brilliant performance by Lily Tomlin.

Jewish Experience Cinematheque 4

Gala Lev Smadar

16 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

See box, left

The Lesson

(Bulgaria/Greece) Wide.

107mins. Dir: Petar Valchanov, Kristina Grozeva. Key cast: Margita Gosheva, Ivan Burnev, Ivan Savov, Deya Todorova, Stefan Denolyubov.

A decent, hardworking schoolteacher finds herself in terrible economic trouble and has to go to great lengths to survive.

This realistic piece, inspired by the Dardenne brothers, won the newdirector award at San Sebastian Film Festival.

Debuts Cinematheque 2

Friday 20:30 This is Orson Welles

(France) Poorhouse International. 53mins.

Dir: Clara Kuperberg, Julia Kuperberg.

This documentary screened as part of the Orson Welles centennial celebration at Cannes. It includes a rare interview with the legendary director and challenges the idea that his post-Citizen Kane career headed downwards.

Cinemania Cinematheque 4

Friday 20:45 The Lobster

(France/UK/ Netherlands/Ireland/ Greece) Protagonist Pictures. 118mins. Dir: Yorgos Lanthimos. Key

cast: Colin Farrell, Rachel Weisz, Lea Seydoux, John C Reilly, Ben Whishaw, Jessica Barden.

Greek director Yorgos Lanthimos (Dogtooth) delivers an Englishlanguage film, starring Colin Farrell and Rachel Weisz, which won the jury prize at Cannes. The plot revolves around a man who is forced to stay at a special hotel and try to find a suitable match, lest he be turned into a lobster.

Panorama Cinematheque 3

Friday 21:45 Fassbinder — to Love Without Demands

(Denmark) Kollektiv Film. 105mins. Dir: Christian Braad Thomsen.

Rainer Werner Fassbinder was one of the most influential and fascinating European directors until his premature death at the age of 37. This documentary reveals a newly discovered series of interviews with the filmmaker, and is a personal and emotional portrait of the man and his work.

Cinemania Cinematheque 4

The Second Mother

(Brazil) Match Factory.

114mins. Dir: Anna Muylaert. Key cast: Regina Casé, Michel Joelsas, Camila Mardila, Karine Teles.

Val works as a housekeeper for a

(India) Memento Films.

116mins. Dir: Chaitanya Tamhane. Key cast: Vira Sathidar, Vivek Gomber, Geetanjali Kulkarni, Pradeep Joshi, Usha Bane, Shirish Pawar.

An ageing singer is accused of inciting a sewage worker to commit suicide. This false allegation unfolds in the courtroom. A brilliant first feature that won two awards at Venice.

Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

Trainwreck

(US) Globus Max. 122mins. Dir: Judd Apatow. Key cast: Amy Schumer, Bill Hader, Brie Larson, Colin Quinn, Vanessa Bayer, Tilda Swinton.

A thirty-something writer, who is sure monogamy is impractical and who leads a life free from commitment, has to deal with relationship anxiety when she meets a different type of man.

Amy Schumer stars in a hilarious comedy by Judd Apatow (Knocked Up.) Gala Cinematheque 1

Friday 23:00 Green Room

(US) WestEnd. 94mins.

Dir: Jeremy Saulnier.

Key cast: Anton Yelchin, Imogen Poots, Patrick Stewart, Alia Shawkat, Joe Cole, Callum Turner.

The new film from Jeremy Saulnier (Blue Ruin) traps four members of a punkrock band in an isolated venue after witnessing an atrocious act of violence.

They must now fight for their lives against a gang of Neo-Nazis determined to leave no witnesses.

Into the Night Cinematheque 3

Saturday July 11 10:00 Shaun the Sheep Movie

(France, UK) Forum Film. 85mins. Dir: Mark Burton, Richard Starzak.

When Shaun decides to take the day off, he gets a little more than he bargained for. A terrible mistake brings him and his flock to the city, as they attempt to save the farmer and bring him home.

A delightful animated masterpiece by the creators of Wallace and Gromit.

JFF Kids Cinematheque 1

SATURDAY 10:30 From Caligari to Hitler

(Germany) Wide.

113mins. Dir: Rudiger Suchsland.

A montage of segments from prominent films produced in the Weimar Republic brings to life Siegfried Kracauer’s 1947 thesis that German cinema of the two decades before the Second World War predicted the Nazi rise to power.

Cinemania Cinematheque 3

11:00 Islands

(Canada) Maysles Films.

56mins. Dir: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin.

The Maysles brothers follow artists Christo and Jean-Claude as they overcame local resistance to realise their ‘Surrounded Islands’ dream — a grandiose project that surrounded 11 islands with floating pink fabric woven from polypropylene.

Albert Maysles Tribute Cinematheque 4

Out of Nature

(Norway) NDM. 80mins.

Dir: Ole Giaever, Marte Vold. Key cast: Ole Giaever, Marte Magnusdotter Solem, Sivert Giaever Solem, Rebekka Nystadbakk.

Thirty-year-old Martin feels stifled by his life and decides to commune with nature. Over the course of one weekend on a lone hiking trip, he is forced to confront his lifestyle.

A sharp comic drama, winner of the Europa www.screendaily.com

Cinemas Label award at Berlin Film Festival.

Panorama Lev Smadar

SATURDAY 12:00 600 Miles

(US/Mexico) NDM. 85mins. Dir: Gabriel Ripstein. Key cast: Tim Roth, Kristyan Ferrer, Harrison Thomas, Noé Hernendez, Monica del Carmen, Armando Hernandez.

Tim Roth plays an ATF agent tracking a young Mexican gun smuggler from Arizona to Mexico.

One mistake puts him and the smuggler in the midst of Mexico’s dangerous and complex underworld.

Winner of the best first feature award at Berlin Film Festival.

Debuts Cinematheque 1

SATURDAY 12:30 The Pearl Button

(France/Spain/Chile) Pyramide International.

82mins. Dir: Patricio Guzman.

Patricio Guzman, one of the great documentary film-makers of his generation, deals with one of the most difficult and painful chapters in Chilean history through a key natural resource of his homeland — water. The film was the winner of best script prize at Berlin Film Festival.

Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

The Roosevelts: An Intimate History

(US) PBS. 240mins. Dir: Ken Burns.

Ken Burns (The War) presents a documentary series on Theodore, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt — three members of the most prominent and influential family in US political history. Screening of episodes one and five.

JFF Docs Cinematheque 4

SATURDAY 12:45 The Diary of a Teenage Girl See box, right

SATURDAY 13:00 Land and Shade

(France/Brazil/ Netherlands/Chile/ www.screendaily.com

Colombia) Pyramide International. 97mins.

Dir: Cesar Acevedo. Key cast: Haimer Leal, Hilda Ruiz, Edison Raigosa, Marleyda Soto, Jose Felipe Cardenas.

After a 17-year absence, Alfonso returns to the place where the woman who was once his wife still lives, along with his son, daughter-in-law and grandson. A beautiful first feature that won the Caméra d’Or at Cannes Film Festival.

Debuts Cinematheque 3

SATURDAY 14:15 Ulrich Seidl — A Director at Work

(Austria/Germany) Navigator Film. 52mins.

Dir: Constantin Wulff.

A new documentary that presents acclaimed Austrian director Ulrich Seidl behind the scenes. It follows the shooting of his new film In The Basement (screening here at JFF).

Interviews and excerpts are interwoven to paint a portrait of a fascinating and exceptional artist.

Cinemania Cinematheque 2

SATURDAY 14:30 A Pigeon sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence

(France/Germany/ Sweden/Norway) Coproduction Office.

100mins. Dir: Roy Andersson. Key cast: Holger Andersson, Nils Westblom, Charlotta Larsson, Viktor Gyllenberg, Lotti Törnros, Jonas Gerholm.

The third film in Roy Andersson’s trilogy on human existence centres on two salesmen who go on a surreal and kaleidoscopic voyage. Winner of the Golden Lion at Venice Film Festival in 2014.

Andersson Trilogy Cinematheque 1

SATURDAY 15:00 Mountains May Depart

(Japan/France/China) MK2. 120mins. Dir: Jia Zhangke. Key cast: Zhao Tao, Zhang Yi, Liang Jin Dong, Dong Zijian, Sylvia Chang, Han Sanming.

The latest from acclaimed Chinese director Jia

Zhangke (A Touch of Sin, Still Life) spans 25 years and two continents, recounting the story of two families whose lives are thrown into a spin by modern China’s economic boom.

Masters Lev Smadar

Tikkun

(Israel) Plan B Productions. 120mins.

Dir: Avishai Sivan. Key cast: Aharon Traitel, Khalifa Natour, Riki Blich, Gur Sheinberg.

A yeshiva student collapses and loses consciousness.

The paramedics announce his death but his father continues to administer CPR. Unexpectedly, the young man comes back to life. Seeing him changed, the father fears he crossed God’s will when he revived his son.

Israeli Features Cinematheque 3

SATURDAY 16:00 The Forbidden Room

My Golden Years

(France) Wild Bunch.

123mins. Dir: Arnaud Desplechin. Key cast: Quentin Dolmaire, Lou Roy-Lecollinet, Mathieu Amalric.

Paul (Mathieu Amalric) returns to Paris after years in Tajikistan and looks back at memories from his youth. Arnaud Desplechin (A Christmas Tale) returned to Cannes this year with this highly praised film.

Masters Cinematheque 1

SATURDAY 17:30 Love and Mercy

(US) United King.

120mins. Dir: Bill Pohlad. Key cast: John Cusack, Paul Dano, Elizabeth Banks, Paul Giamatti.

Paul Dano stars in this film about Brian Wilson, the legendary musician behind one of the most successful bands of all time, The Beach Boys.

A fascinating portrait

of a musical genius and the secret suffering behind his work.

Gala Lev Smadar

Pennies

(Israel) Badran Badran.

50mins. Dir: Badran Badran.

Instead of going to school, two kids from Tul-Karem have no alternative but to work in Israel as street beggars. While Hamam tries to avoid hard work and instead just wants to play, his elder brother Yichia is dreaming about a better future.

Israeli Docs Cinematheque 3

SATURDAY 18:30 Song of My Mother

(France/Germany/ Turkey) Pascale Ramonda. 103mins.

Dir: Erol Mintas. Key cast: Feyyaz Duman, Zübeyde Ronahi, Nesrin Cavadzade, Aziz Capkurt, Cüneyt Yalaz.

When gentrification

drives Ali and his mother out of their Kurdish neighbourhood in Istanbul, they move to the city’s outskirts. The mother yearns for her village and sets out in search of it every morning. Winner of the grand prize at Sarajevo Film Festival.

Spirit of Freedom Cinematheque 2

SATURDAY 19:00 Ixcanul Volcano

(France/Guatemala) Film Factory. 91mins.

Dir: Jayro Bustamante.

Key cast: Maria Mercedes Croy, Maria Telon, Manuel Antun, Justo Lorenzo.

Maria, a Mayan girl, lives on the slopes of a volcano and dreams of discovering the world beyond.

Unexpected circumstances will lead her to the big city. This spectacular and moving piece won the Silver Bear at Berlin Film Festival.

Debuts Cinematheque 3

(Canada) Mongrel.

128mins. Dir: Guy Maddin. Key cast: Roy Dupuis, Clara Furey, Louis Negin, Celine Bonnier, Karine Vanasse, Caroline Dhavernas, Paul Ahmarani, Mathieu Amalric, Udo Kier, Charlotte Rampling, Geraldine Chaplin.

An ode to the long-lost films of the silent era and an erotic and kaleidoscopic symphony that takes us sky-high, down to the depths and around the world, creating a unique, multilayered viewing experience.

Masters Cinematheque 2

SATURDAY 17:00 Invasion

(Argentina/Panama) Cinephil. 93mins. Dir: Abner Benaim.

The 1989 US invasion of Panama is the point of departure for this documentary, which seeks to examine the way people remember, change and forget their own past in order to redefine their identity. Winner of the grand jury award at Miami Film Festival.

JFF Docs Cinematheque 4

SATURDAY July 11 12:45 The Diary of a Teenage Girl

(US) K5 International. 102mins. Dir: Marielle Heller. Key cast: Bel Powley, Alexander Skarsgard, Christopher Meloni, Kristen Wiig.

In 1970s San Francisco, an artistic

teenage girl finds herself involved in a passionate love affair with her mother’s partner. This impressive festival awardwinning film combines live action and animation.

Gala Lev Smadar

»

July 9, 2015 Screen International at Jerusalem 17

Screenings

Jerusalem Cinemateque, 11 Hebron Rd, Jerusalem, 91083 Editorial Editor Matt Mueller, matt.mueller@ screendaily.com, +44 7880 526 547 Reporters Melanie Goodfellow, melanie. goodfellow@btinternet.com, +44 7460 470 434 Tom Grater, tom.grater@ screendaily.com, +44 7921 711 108 Production editor Mark Mowbray, mark. mowbray@screendaily.com, +44 7710 124 065 Sub editors Jon Lysons, Richard Young

Advertising International sales consultant

Saturday July 11 19:15 Gimme Shelter

(US) Maysles Films.

91mins. Dir: Albert Maysles, David Maysles, Charlotte Zwerin.

In 1969, the Maysles brothers followed The Rolling Stones on tour,

when a fan was stabbed to death by a member of the Hells Angels. If Woodstock represented the period’s utopia, this film portrays its darker side.

Albert Maysles Tribute Cinematheque 4

Iraqi battlefield. Will a unique therapy succeed in putting an end to their torment? A documentary masterpiece that won the first prize at the IDFA documentary festival.

JFF Docs Cinematheque 4

SATURDAY 21:30

Winehouse. Interviews and previously unseen archival footage expose the unique personality of this rare and talented musician, who collapsed under the eyes of her millions of fans and the invasive scrutiny of the media.

Gala Cinematheque 1

Thru You Princess SATURDAY 19:15

SATURDAY 20:30

Gimme Shelter

Iris

See box, above

(US) Magnolia Pictures.

80mins. Dir: Albert Maysles.

In the last film presented

by Albert Maysles prior to his death, the great documentarian follows Iris Apfel, the flamboyantly dressed 93-year-old style maven who has enjoyed imperial status in the New York fashion scene for decades.

SATURDAY 19:45 Sand Dollars

(Argentina/Mexico/ Dominican Republic) FiGa Films. 85mins. Dir: Laura Amelia Guzman, Israel Cardenas. Key cast: Geraldine Chaplin, Yanet Mojica, Ricardo Ariel Toribio.

A wealthy European woman living by the beaches of the Dominican Republic falls in love with a local girl, who uses her to make ends meet. This moving drama, starring Geraldine Chaplin, premiered at Toronto International Film Festival.

Panorama Lev Smadar

Albert Maysles Tribute Cinematheque 2

SATURDAY 21:00 Of Men and War

(France/Switzerland) CAT&Docs. 142mins. Dir: Laurent Becue-Renard.

Years after returning home, soldiers still struggle with the traumas of the

18 Screen International at Jerusalem July 9, 2015

(Israel) First Hand Films.

78mins. Dir: Ido Haar.

Thru You Princess follows composer and video artist Kutiman and some of the musicians around the world who are not aware he is creating his new music from their musical web clips. Everyone hails from another background, culture and country, but all share a mutual musical vision.

Israeli Docs Cinematheque 3

SATURDAY 21:45 Amy

(UK) Lev Films. 128mins.

Dir: Asif Kapadia.

Asif Kapadia’s new documentary offers a close and intimate look at the life, success and tragic death, at the age of just 27, of UK soul singer Amy

I Smile Back

(US) Visit Films. 85mins.

Dir: Adam Salky. Key cast: Sarah Silverman, Josh Charles, Thomas Sadoski, Mia Barron, Terry Kinney, Chris Sarandon.

A suburban housewife struggles to keep her family together as her secret life of drugs, alcohol and infidelity spirals out of control. Comedian Sarah Silverman reinvents herself as a dramatic actress in this careerdefining, intensely layered and heartbreaking role.

Gala Lev Smadar

SATURDAY 22:15 The Club

(Chile) Funny Balloons.

97mins. Dir: Pablo Larrain. Key cast: Alfredo

Castro, Roberto Farias, Antonia Zegers, Jaime Vadell, Alejandro Goic, Alejandro Sieveking, Marcelo Alonso, Jose Soza, Francisco Reyes.

Four priests sent to live in isolation face the arrival of a special church adviser, who brings along the past they thought they had left behind. Winner of Berlin Film Festival’s grand jury prize.

Panorama Cinematheque 2

SATURDAY 23:15 Goodnight Mommy

(Austria) Films Distribution. 99mins.

Dir: Veronika Franz, Severin Fiala. Key cast: Susanne Wuest, Lukas Schwarz, Elias Schwarz, Hans Escher, Elfriede Schatz.

The mother of 10-yearold twins returns to their secluded family house following plastic surgery.

The bandages covering her head and her distant behaviour lead the children to suspect she is not their real mother. A brilliant horror film.

Gunter Zerbich, gunter. zerbich@screendaily.com, +44 7540 100 254 Commercial director Nadia Romdhani, nadia. romdhani@screendaily.com, +44 20 8102 0881 Sales manager Scott Benfold, scott.benfold@ screendaily.com, +44 20 8102 0813 Production manager Jonathon Cooke, jonathon. cooke@mb-insight.com, +44 7584 333 148 Chief executive, MBI Conor Dignam

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