I caught Jellyfish (Meduzot in Hebrew), which opens in New York tomorrow and in Los Angeles on April 25, at the 2007 AFI FEST.
What I liked best about this quirky look at several Tel Aviv denizens was the humorous, naturalistic touch of husband-and-wife team of writers-turned-filmmakers Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen (above).
Without any fanfare, [...]
Israel’s submission for the best foreign-language film Academy Award, Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit, has been disqualified for the 2007 Oscar in that category because more than half of the film’s dialogue is in English.
As the Israeli Academy’s best film winner, The Band’s Visit was automatically selected as Israel’s Oscar entry. According to Miriam A. [...]
Israeli Film Academy Awards - Ophir 2007
The winners of the 2007 Ophir Awards were announced on Sept. 20, 2007.
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
Despite stiff competition, Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit, the tale of an Egyptian brass band stranded in a small Israeli town, won a total of eight Ophir Awards, including best [...]
Thomas Sotinel reviews Raphaël Nadjari’s (above] Tehilim in Le Monde:
"The decapitated family is a representation of Israeli society, the disappearance of the father symbolizing the traumas that the country has endured since its creation … Nevertheless, Tehilim doesn’t see itself as an allegory waiting to be deciphered, but as a heart-rending tale of a forced [...]
Hot House (2006)
Direction and screenplay: Shimon Dotan
By Rosemary Westwell
When Hot House was shown as part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival in London, it was received by the audience in stunned silence. The chilling reality the film portrayed made it almost impossible for us to extricate ourselves from its powerful message [...]
Via the European Jewish Press:
"The Israeli cinematographic industry has rarely come out on top in the official Competition Section but this year, Joseph Cedar changed all that by winning the Silver Bear for Best Director for his war-[sic] anti-war film Beaufort.
"The movie tells the story of Liraz Liberti, the 22-year-old commander of the south Lebanese [...]
Among the 15 documentaries vying for the 2007 Oscar are Davis Guggenheim’s An Inconvenient Truth, Lucy Walker’s Blindsight, Ricki Stern and Anne Sundberg’s The Trials of Darryl Hunt, James Longley’s Iraq in Fragments, Barbara Kopple and Cecilia Peck’s Shut Up and Sing, Amy Berg’s Deliver Us from Evil, and Frank Popper’s Can Mr. Smith Get to Washington Anymore?
Posted in Argentinean Cinema, Documentary, European Cinema, Film, Film Festivals, French Cinema, Israeli Cinema, Swedish Cinema, West Asian Cinema, World Cinema on October 25th, 2006 2 Comments »
The 2006 Festival of Jewish Cinema, consisting of "contemporary films on Jewish themes from around the world," opens on Nov. 1 in Melbourne.
Among the festival’s entries are Brice Cauvin’s De particulier à particulier / Hotel Harabati, about a French couple (Laurent Lucas and Hélène Fillières) who find themselves involved in a possible Muslim terrorist plot [...]
Kambuzia Partovi’s Café Transit / Border Café, the story of an Iranian widow who encounters a number of social and personal obstacles once she begins managing her late husband’s roadhouse (a practice forbidden in Iran), has been chosen as the Iranian entry for the 2006 Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award. The film’s star, Fereshteh Sadr-Orafaii [...]
Israeli Film Academy Awards - Ophir 2006
The 2006 Ophir nominees were announced in Tel Aviv on Aug. 22, 2006.
The 2006 Ophir winners were announced at the Tel Aviv Opera House on Sept. 14, 2006.
Ophir 2006 Winners - Article
("*" denotes the winner in each category)
Aviva, My Love (top) and Sweet Mud (bottom) tied for the [...]
The winners of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television’s 2006 Ophir Awards, the Israeli equivalent to the Oscars, were announced yesterday at a ceremony in Tel Aviv.
For the first time, two films tied for the top prize: the odds-on favorite Aviva Ahuvati / Aviva My Love, which also won the Best Director (Shemi [...]
Posted in British Cinema, European Cinema, Film, Film Awards, French Cinema, German Cinema, Israeli Cinema, Italian Cinema, Russian Cinema, Spanish Cinema, Swedish Cinema, West Asian Cinema on September 14th, 2006 1 Comment »
Among the 49 entries vying for the 2006 Best European Film nominations are:
Berlin Film Festival winner Grbavica, Jasmila Zbanic’s Bosnian War tale about a girl who discovers that her mother has been less than honest about the identity of her long-lost father; Il Caimano / The Cayman, Nanni Moretti’s cinematic attack on right-wing Italian Prime [...]
I’ve added the list of winners at this year’s Zimbabwe International Film Festival, which came to a close this past Sept. 3.
Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, the tale of two Palestinian suicide bombers, was chosen the Best Film. The Best Actor award went to Imad Creidi for playing a young Lebanese immigrant in Sweden in [...]
The nominees for the Israel Academy of Film and Television Awards, also known as the Ophir Awards, were announced in Tel Aviv this past Tuesday, Aug. 22. As per Hannah Brown in the Jerusalem Post, the most notable aspect of the Israel Academy’s choices was the near complete lack of political content in the nominated [...]
As a protest against the war in Lebanon, two Irish cultural festivals have refused sponsorship by Israel’s Foreign Ministry.
The Irish Film Institute (IFI) refused funding for a Dublin Lesbian and Gay Film Festival screening of Walk on Water, Eytan Fox’s thoughtful Israeli film about how real peace — on both a social and personal level [...]
While bombs were being dropped and rockets were being fired in Lebanon and Israel, the Jerusalem Film Festival came to a close, with most of the festival’s top awards going to films that celebrate tolerance and compassion.
The Wolgin Award for Best Israeli Narrative Feature went to Dror Sabo’s Dead End (above, [...]
From Lia Van Leer’s mission statement for the Jerusalem Film Festival:
While our borders remain fragile and highly mutable
And the aims of our politicians largely inscrutable
The film festival operates without bias or slant
[...]
Film Independent’s Los Angeles Film Festival came to a close this past Sunday. According to festival organizers, more than 80,000 people came to the screenings.
Although I missed a few films I wanted to watch - François Ozon’s Le Temps qui reste / Time to Leave, Hans Canosa’s Conversations with Other Women, and Andrucha Waddington’s Casa [...]
Recommended reading: Aviva Berlin has an interesting interview with Yael Reuveny, director of Kleine Miriam´L, which is described as "a brilliant short film about Yiddish, and living in Berlin as a Jew."
Brief excerpt:
"My identity is defiantly an Israeli one. People born in Israel are a product of a cultural melting pot. This produces a kind [...]
Must read:
Caught in the Middle: Journalist Kevin Sites interviews Arab-Israeli actor Ali Suliman, one of the stars of Hany Abu-Assad’s Paradise Now, which is up for a Best Foreign-Language Film Academy Award.
Who Will Write the History?: Kevin Sites interviews writer-producer Gal Uchovsky, whose Walk on Water - the story of a Mossad agent (Lior [...]
Arthur Spiegelman reports in Reuters that Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences spokesperson John Pavlik has stated that "no decision has yet been made on how to designate the film Paradise Now even though the March 5 Oscars were only about three weeks away.
"But he added that neither the Israeli government nor American Jewish [...]
The BBC reports on the cool reception that Golden Globe winner Paradise Now, the story of two Palestinian suicide bombers, has received in Israel. Among other honors, Paradise Now has won the Best Screenplay award at the European Film Awards.
More on Paradise Now
Hollywood Foreign Press Association 2005 Golden Globe Award nominations
List of the British [...]
On DVD: A couple of nights ago, I watched Yossi & Jagger (2002), a tragic love story set in an Israeli army camp. Directed by Eytan Fox (Walk on Water) from a screenplay by Avner Bernheimer, Yossi & Jagger is what the much more publicized, more elaborate, more expensive, and ultimately inferior Brokeback Mountain is [...]
Muchrachim Lehiyot Same’ach / Joy (2005)
Director: Julie Shles. Screenplay: Omer Tadmor. Cast: Sigalit Fuchs, Tal Friedman, Rivka Michaeli, Alex Sendrowitz
Directed by Julie Shles, Muchrachim Lehiyot Same’ach / Joy (Israel) is a modern fairy tale in which magic wands and pumpkin carriages are replaced by the more humanistic magic of empathy and forgiveness.
Set in [...]
Walk on Water (2004)
Direction: Eytan Fox. Screenplay: Gal Uchovsky. Cast: Lior Ashkenazi, Knut Berger, Caroline Peters, Gideon Shemer, Carola Regnier, Hanns Zischler, Yousef ‘Joe’ Sweid
REVENGE IS BITTER
Walk on Water is a flawed but intriguing tale of revenge, guilt, and redemption. In the film, a Mossad agent (Lior Ashkenazi) pretends to be a tour [...]
