Israel in the eyes – Top Kino
By Derschmidt • 10:57 AM • Category: Events, Projects, Projects - curated by Ritesinstitute, Rites Events… of local filmmakers
22.-25. Nov 2007
days of Israeli documentary-films in Top Kino – cinema
an event by
www.ritesinstitute.org
(Friedemann Derschmidt, Karin Schneider, Anne Pritchard-Smith) in collaboration with Tal Adler & barbur-group ( Jerusalem) on the occasion of 60 years of the existenz of the state of Israel.
We show 17 israeli documentary films.
Opening
Thursday 22nd nov. 07 / 20:00
by the Embassador of the state of Israel Dan ASHBEL There will be 7 israeli artists / filmmakers with us.
Opening Film: SHALOM ABU BASSEM (Nissim Mossek, IL 2004, 73 min – OmeU)
TV-Broadcast about ISRAEL IN DEN AUGEN
FILMs
SHALOM ABU BASSEM
Nissim Mossek, IL 2004, 73 min – OmeU
documentary by Nissim Mossek about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that follows a New York Jewish settler and an Arab humus vendor that are forced to live as neighbors in the heart of Jerusalem. The documentary spans a nearly twenty-year period, beginning before the first Intifada, to demonstrate how the nation’s politics affect their neighborly relations. The film won Best Editing at the Haifa International Film Festival.
Do, 22.11.07 / 20:00 – Opening with Nissim Mossek
Do, 22.11.07 / 22:00
MISAFA LESAFA
FROM LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE
Nurith Aviv, F/IL 2004, 55 min – OmeU
“You don’t speak a mother tongue, it flows out of you. With an acquired language, you must constantly be on your guard. Sometimes I wake up with the fear that the Hebrew I learned at such great pains would fade away and vanish.” - Aharon Appelfeld
For centuries, Hebrew was a sacred language, a written language of prayer and scripture. But today it is also the language of everyday life in Israel. In FROM LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE filmmaker Nurith Aviv, Israeli writers, musicians, actors and a Rabbi/philosopher from varying countries and ethnic backgrounds discuss the relationship between their mother tongues and Hebrew.
Aviv introduces the theme by relating her childhood confusion over which was her true language-the German spoken at home by her immigrant parents, or the Hebrew spoken on the street and at school.
Most of these authors, poets, songwriters, and scholars came to Israel decades ago with their families, and as immigrants they lived with at least two languages. In the process of learning Hebrew, however, they also had to decide whether or not to retain the language of their childhood-whether, in short, to forget their cultural past or to somehow integrate it within their new Israeli identity.
FROM LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE introduces Aharon Appelfeld, acclaimed for his literary explorations of the Holocaust; actress Evgenya Dodina; Rabbi and philosopher Daniel Epstein; poet Salman Masalha; poet and translator Agi Mishol; singer Amal Murkus; poet and Professor of Jewish Thought Haviva Pedaya; and Meir Wieseltier, a member of the early Sixties “Tel Aviv Poets” group.
The film’s wide-ranging discussions, which explore language as the “soul and spirit” of life, feature many illuminating anecdotes. In discussing the initial difficulty of learning this ancient language, Appelfeld likens it to “shoveling gravel into your mouth.” Wieseltier explains that in order to write in Hebrew, he felt he “must kill Russian, eliminate it, because it stood in my way.” Although speaking Hebrew in her stage and screen performances, Dodina acknowledges that at home with her daughter she insists on speaking only Russian. Mishol discusses the periodic reemergence of one’s native tongue, relating how, after the death of her father, she found herself “grieving in Hungarian.” And Pedaya suggests that learning Hebrew from her Arab grandfather enabled her to avoid the “Zionist sediment” of Hebrew.
Once considered solely the property of Jews, FROM LANGUAGE TO LANGUAGE makes it clear that today Hebrew belongs to anyone who speaks and writes it.
Fr, 23.11.07 / 18:00
A HEBREW LESSON
David Ofek / Ron Rotem / Elinor Kowarski, IL 2006, 123 min – OmeU
Originally set up to assist Jewish immigrants to gain basic Hebrew language skills, the ‘Ulpan’ became a central institution in the process of integration into Israeli society. Six decades into the Israeli state the students are no longer passionate Jews fulfilling their desire to emigrate to Israel, nor Jewish refugees escaping persecution. In 2004, in an ulpan in the heart of Tel Aviv, a different and fascinating tapestry of individuals face the difficulties of a new language and a new life. Amongst them Chin, a Chinese migrant worker who married her Israeli employer; Sasha from Russia who came to Israel in a desperate attempt to be nearer to his young daughter, and Annabel, a German woman who fell in love with an Israeli. Through an intimate and sensitive observation of this group of students, this engrossing documentary brings home the immigrant experience in all its complexity with great humour and charm.
Fr, 23.11.07 / 19:00 Talk: Elinor Kowarski with Doron Rabinovici
MITHAZKIM – AFTER ALL YOU ARE JUST A GUEST
Ron Ofer, IL 1999, 50 min – OmeU
Every Year Ultraorthodox Jews are visiting rabbi Nachmans grave in Uman…
Sa, 24.11.07 / 18:00 Talk with Ron Ofer.
IN THE COMPANY OF A DEAD CAT
Vadim Antonevich, IL 2006, 54 min – OmeU
A park in South Tel Aviv. As night descends, a group of all Russian emigrants is busy with their life routine. The delicate balance is shattered when the ‘Korean’, an uncompromising tyrant, comes along and fights his way into the group. This is the chronicle of their final days together.
Sa, 24.11.07 / 19:30
HALOM SHEL IDIOT
A FOOL’S DREAM – Daniel Syrkin, IL 2007, 60 min – OmeU
My father, Lev Syrkin, is a Moscow-born artist. He left an illustrious career in the USSR to realize his dream and come to Israel with his entire family in 1972. In Israel, he created dozens of public art works: mosaic murals, sculptures, and prints portraying Jewish and biblical subjects – something that was virtually impossible in the USSR. But his freedom of expression came at a great price – he remained outside the local art establishment, the critics ignored him, his salaries were almost minimal, and my mother became our main breadwinner.
Throughout the film, I undertake a double mission, to tell my father’s story and help him realize his life’s dream: the creation of a huge mosaic portraying the dove of peace in the heart of Jerusalem. This film is a journey throughout Israel, connecting my father’s work, his career, and the agony of fulfilling the dream of one artist and one son ¬– a fool’s dream. Only during the journey, as we come across his public works and the people living among them, do I begin to understand my father. The viewers become acquainted with a man who is a fighter and a dreamer, an uninhibited humanist and optimist who lives to fulfill his ideal of public art for the Israeli nation. And yet, this nation just glances at his works and continues on its way…
Daniel Syrkin
Sa, 24.11.07 / 21:30
HAHARUG HA-17
David Ofek / Elinor Kowarski / Ron Rotem, IL 2003, 75 min – OmeU
An engrossing feature-length documentary on the search for the 17th victim of an Israeli bus bombing which had occurred on the outskirts of Tel Aviv in June 2002. 17 people were killed: 16 identified and one unknown, the body burnt beyond recognition. When no one came forward to claim the unidentified remains, police assumed the deceased was a foreign worker and the case went cold. But David Ofek was haunted by the image of the victim’s unmarked grave and set out on a six-month quest to give No.17 the dignity of a name. A real-life detective narration, No.17 built nail-biting suspense leading to a surprising conclusion and demonstrating that behind every statistic lies a human story. ‘No.17’ is a moving and sympathetic film showing the difficulties of life in Israel where people shellshocked by terrorism that has no end in sight, increasingly take the state of siege for granted.
So, 25.11.07 / 17:30 Publikumsgespräch mit Elinor Kowarski
THE INNER TOUR
Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, IL/PAL 2001, 97 min – OmeU
It’s about 5-10 Palestinian/families taking a tour of Israel. Apparently it is the only way that they can enter Israel proper. The whole of it is in Arabic or Hebrew and it is all sub-titled. It is broken into seven chapters, of which the titles are things like “I never would have believed I would walk next to a Jew.”
At one point they take a tour of an Israeli museum with of course an Israeli host, speaking Hebrew, and I loved how the documentarist re-visited the tour with the Palestinian Arabs reflections on what they had seen and been told.
The most poignant part of the documentary to me was when this single Palestinian Arab whom had taken the tour, was able to see his Mother for the first time in years, and how they exchanged photographs by throwing them over the border between Israel and Lebanon.
That’s right, his family (Mother & siblings, Dad’s dead by Israeli forces, I think) live in Lebanon, and since the West Bank where he lives does not border Lebanon, and because Lebanon will not let him into their country either, this bus tour of Israel was the only way for him to see his family.
Anyway. For us Westerners, I more or less thought I knew the feelings that the Palestinians had, but it was very enlightening to me to see and hear the average Palestinian first hand. It hasn’t changed any of my opinions of the mess in the Middle East, but it has given me a personal, new perspective.
So, 25.11.07 / 19:30
THE OLD STORES
Yoav Gurfinkel, IL 2006, 53 min – OmeU
On the streets of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, chances are you would hardly notice the old stores and small businesses tucked between mega-malls and franchised businesses. But step into the time warp of these neighborhood shops and time itself slows down: not much has changed for decades, except the owners and longtime customers, aging slowly.
Exquisitely shot, The Old Stores provides a rare glimpse of a nostalgic world beyond commercialism, where people have survived hard times but face an indifferent present: the barber’s last day before his shop’s closure; generations of Mizrahi pharmacists who have witnessed Jaffa’s transformation; an old man who refuses to sell his button specialty store; and a watch repair store in an era of digital products. Each business has wrestled with its fast-paced competitors. Some give in and move on; others resist and end up retreating into their own enclave or espousing old-fashioned service. Director Yoav Gurfinkel wistfully captures the dilemma of having to contemplate change in the face of modernization. In The Old Stores, a clock is relentlessly ticking away tradition in the face of change.
—K Sato
So, 25.11.07 / 21:30
AZ HERZL AMAR – DID HERZL REALLY SAY THAT?
Ido Bahat/Aliza Ziegler, IL 2006/07
(Doc Series, 7 X 50 min., BETA, color, 2006 – New Release)
Hosts: Dr. Oren Harman & Dr. Yanay Ofran
Director: Ido Bahat
Editor in Chief: Aliza Ziegler
Producer: Shula Spiegel – Spiegel Productions Ltd.
Sponsored by: 8th Channel, Israel and Avi Chai Foundation, Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, Israel
Language: Hebrew with English subtitles
Synopsis:
Herzl envisaged an old-new state, and planned every last detail. Among other things, he spoke of what a religious leadership should do, how Jews and Arabs should get along, and voiced opinions on the status of Jerusalem.
Oren Harman and Yanay Ofran embark upon a personal journey to the heart of contemporary “Israeliness”. They discuss what has happened to the old boundaries of identity that once divided Israeli society and defined the power relations within. In doing so, the presenters chart religious, national, personal and cultural identities in Israel today
THE TRANSPARENT KIPPA (2006, 54 min – OmeU)
This episode discusses what has happened to the religious identity as defined over the last 50 years. Have the religious defining and dividing lines of old been updated? Reworked? Have they become inexorably intertwined? Are we witnessing the redefinition of these identities, or in fact the trench warfare which has unfolded between them?
In this episode, four personal stories serve as the core element of the program. The characters featured exemplify the phenomenon through their personalities and life-histories: They are all very different, yet they all fall between the lines of accepted definitions between secular and religious. By their thoughts and actions, the characters exemplify how the fuzzy area between secularism and religiosity has become their home – a place worth fighting over – even, at times, at the price of isolating themselves from the homes they have respectively come from.
Yoni Turner, a Jerusalem doctor, grew up in a religious household, and he “wears a transparent head-covering”, defining himself as a religious man, and his religion as “the religion of one man.”
Eilon and Hili Shamir are children of the kibbutz movement, who grew up with a fervently anti-religious education. Their religious outlook is not unified, and they have found their own original middle ground that enables them to create a variegated, mosaic-like way of life. They don’t suffer any confusion in raising their children this way. The children learn in a mixed school for religious and secular students.
Rani Yager grew up in a secular Tel Aviv household and has established the “Israeli Study Hall” – a secular forum for learning in the style of a yeshiva- in the heart of secular Tel Aviv.
Yakir Englander grew up in the closed world of an ultra-orthodox Hassidic court, removed his head covering, but still defines himself as a secular Vishnitzer Chassid.
Fr, 23.11.07 / 21:30
Episoden
ISRAEL – OUR HOME? (2007, OmeU)
Unlike their predecessors, the immigrants (”olim”) from the relics of the former Soviet Union, are not forced to join and blend in the Israeli melting pot. The reason for that is their huge number, but also the process of privatization and de-collectiveness which the maturing Israel is going through.
How does the fact that they are no longer required to give up their “Russianess” affect their Israeli identity? How does it affect the “Israeliness” of us all? Does the Russian culture influence the old Israeli society?
This fascinating interaction is examined here through several main characters, which represent different aspects of the jigsaw puzzle of this enormous immigration wave – approx. 1, 200, 000 people who made “alia” to Israel throughout the nineties.
I’M ULTRA-ORTHODOX (2007, OmeU)
The ultra-orthodox society in Israel traditionally positioned itself, ever since the birth of Israel, AGAINST the other part of the population, the secular one, but also against the religious public. In recent years the ultra-orthodox community has grown in such a measure that made joining the work force an acute and inevitable necessity, mainly for financial reasons.
This reality creates all kinds of situations where the outside world is penetrating inside, and this episode examines the clashing points of this unavoidable influences and their consequences for the ultra-orthodox community.
The nature of the changing world around us, with TV, cellular communication and the internet, also contributes to the overall confusion, and in a way shakes and breaks the well known ultra-orthodox rule: “everything new is forbidden by the torah.”
In this episode we meet a wide variety of ultra-orthodox people, mostly young, who have to deal with these issues and confront these dilemmas in their daily life.
Sa, 24.11. / 16:00
AZ HERZL AMAR
DID HERZL REALLY SAY THAT?
Ido Bahat/Aliza Ziegler, IL 2006/07
Episode
O! MY HOMELAND (2006, 50 min, OmeU)
A painful meeting with young Arabs confronted with the almost intractable problem of defining their identity as Israelis, Palestinians, citizens of the Jewish state. The young men and women Harman and Ofran speak to give expression to the difficulties of educated young Arab Israelis waging their own struggle for self-understanding in a confusing reality of conflicting national and cultural sensibilities. Here not only national loyalties clash, but also those having to do with the traditional way of life of the village coming against the opportunities and dangers provided by the city, as well as all the religious dilemmas these encounters create. Over the course of this program, Oren and Yanay meet with Haiman and Bernard, who are trying to adapt and intergrate into Israeli society, with Amar , Ala , Abir and Nidal, who are actively fighting against the status quo and struggling to change the rules of the game in Israel 2006. A heartwarming meeting in particular is that with Laila, a struggling young Arab woman who pays a heavy price from within her own community for her openness and her need to seek out her personal truth.
So, 25.11.07 / 16:00
During the whole Festival we show Video Art curated by Sergio Edelsztein (Center of Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv)
Lectures at the Academy of fine Arts Vienna: “MEET ISRAELI DOCUMENTARY FILMMAKERS”
Some of the newest Films we couldn´t screen publc so we showed them in an academic program:
„Meet Israeli filmmakers“ – at the Academy of fine Arts Vienna – Fr., Sa., Sun. 12.00 h
A1060 Wien; Lehargasse 6-8 / 2.Stock / Mehrzwecksaal;
Fr, 23.11.07 / 12:00 h Hen Lasker, Elinor Kowarski
“female identidy and the army”
Film: Summer Seeds IL 2007
Sa, 24.11.07 / 12:00 h Ari Libsker
“Sexualisation of the Holocaust in Israel”
Film: Stalags IL 2007
So, 25.11.07 / 12:00 h Nissim Mossek; Ron Ofer
“documentary filmmaking as political Activism”
Film: Citizen Nawi IL 2007
presentation: Masha Zusman & Denis Mashevich (barbur-group)
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