Schory was head of the Israel Film Fund for 21 years.
Katriel Schory, former long-time head of the Israel Film Fund, has received a lifetime achievement award from the Israel Academy of Film and Television.
Schory was presented with the award at a special event on August 27, ahead of the Ophir Awards ceremony on September 10 – the main ceremony for the Israeli Academy.
“Israeli cinema would not look the same without Katriel Schory,” read a statement from the Academy, which selected the executive for the award “for his work and public achievements over the past 30 years, with great respect and endless appreciation.
Katriel Schory, former long-time head of the Israel Film Fund, has received a lifetime achievement award from the Israel Academy of Film and Television.
Schory was presented with the award at a special event on August 27, ahead of the Ophir Awards ceremony on September 10 – the main ceremony for the Israeli Academy.
“Israeli cinema would not look the same without Katriel Schory,” read a statement from the Academy, which selected the executive for the award “for his work and public achievements over the past 30 years, with great respect and endless appreciation.
- 8/30/2023
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Swiss-Kosovar feature ‘The Land Within’ takes best first feature film.
Hilmar Oddsson’s Icelandic dark comedy Driving Mum won the Grand Prix for best film in Competition at the award ceremony of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), held on Saturday, November 26.
The Official Selection jury, headed by Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, said Driving Mum “charmed us all with its transparent, simple but bold film language, with its graceful sense of humour, with its unpretentious way of speaking about burning questions of personal life. A film which tells us that it is never too late.”
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Hilmar Oddsson’s Icelandic dark comedy Driving Mum won the Grand Prix for best film in Competition at the award ceremony of the 26th Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF), held on Saturday, November 26.
The Official Selection jury, headed by Hungarian director Ildiko Enyedi, said Driving Mum “charmed us all with its transparent, simple but bold film language, with its graceful sense of humour, with its unpretentious way of speaking about burning questions of personal life. A film which tells us that it is never too late.”
Scroll down for...
- 11/27/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Lab takes place at Marrakech, Rotterdam film festivals.
Africa filmmaking agency Realness Institute has selected 15 participants for its second Creative Producer Indaba, a lab for developing entrepreneurial, leadership and creative skills among producers looking to work on the continent.
The scheme is presented in partnership with European training body Eave, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s industry platform IFFR Pro, and Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
Scroll down for the list of selected producers
The 2022 lab will take place online from November 14-17 as part of the Atlas Workshops; then in person at IFFR in January and February 2023.
Its programme includes workshops,...
Africa filmmaking agency Realness Institute has selected 15 participants for its second Creative Producer Indaba, a lab for developing entrepreneurial, leadership and creative skills among producers looking to work on the continent.
The scheme is presented in partnership with European training body Eave, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s industry platform IFFR Pro, and Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
Scroll down for the list of selected producers
The 2022 lab will take place online from November 14-17 as part of the Atlas Workshops; then in person at IFFR in January and February 2023.
Its programme includes workshops,...
- 10/11/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Lab takes place at Marrakech, Rotterdam film festivals.
Africa filmmaking agency Realness Institute has selected 15 participants for its second Creative Producer Indaba, a lab for developing entrepreneurial, leadership and creative skills among producers looking to work on the continent.
The scheme is presented in partnership with European training body Eave, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s industry platform IFFR Pro, and Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
Scroll down for the list of selected producers
The 2022 lab will take place online from November 14-17 as part of the Atlas Workshops; then in person at IFFR in January and February 2023.
Its programme includes workshops,...
Africa filmmaking agency Realness Institute has selected 15 participants for its second Creative Producer Indaba, a lab for developing entrepreneurial, leadership and creative skills among producers looking to work on the continent.
The scheme is presented in partnership with European training body Eave, International Film Festival Rotterdam (IFFR)’s industry platform IFFR Pro, and Marrakech International Film Festival’s Atlas Workshops.
Scroll down for the list of selected producers
The 2022 lab will take place online from November 14-17 as part of the Atlas Workshops; then in person at IFFR in January and February 2023.
Its programme includes workshops,...
- 10/11/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
European training program School of Film Advancement (Sofa), which aims to strengthen regional film industries across Europe with a focus on Eastern partnership, has launched its ninth edition and 2022-2023 project selection.
The first Sofa workshop, running through Sept. 30, kicked off on Sunday outside the Polish capital of Warsaw.
After two virtual years, the program returns with an expanded edition that comprises a line-up of 16 projects and 20 participants, composed of up-and-coming film industry executives, curators and cultural managers from 17 countries including Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Bangladesh, Switzerland and Germany.
In the program’s opening session, participants emphasized the need for creative cooperation across borders between the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU, given the fraught political situations in a number of European countries.
Sofa’s 2022-2023 project selection includes business and institutional projects focused on environmental activism,...
The first Sofa workshop, running through Sept. 30, kicked off on Sunday outside the Polish capital of Warsaw.
After two virtual years, the program returns with an expanded edition that comprises a line-up of 16 projects and 20 participants, composed of up-and-coming film industry executives, curators and cultural managers from 17 countries including Ukraine, Belarus, Poland, the Czech Republic, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Denmark, Bangladesh, Switzerland and Germany.
In the program’s opening session, participants emphasized the need for creative cooperation across borders between the Eastern Partnership countries and the EU, given the fraught political situations in a number of European countries.
Sofa’s 2022-2023 project selection includes business and institutional projects focused on environmental activism,...
- 9/27/2022
- by Manori Ravindran
- Variety Film + TV
Croatian writer-director Juraj Lerotić’s “Safe Place,” an emotional story of a family reeling in the wake of a suicide attempt, took the top prize at the Sarajevo Film Festival, which wrapped a record-setting 2022 edition in the Bosnian capital on Friday night.
The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.
“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo.
Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by...
The Heart of Sarajevo Award for best feature film was given by a jury headed by Austrian filmmaker Sebastian Meise (“The Great Freedom”), which included French filmmaker Lucile Hadžihalilović (“Earwig”), Croatian writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović (“Murina”), Serbian actor Milan Marić (“Dovlatov”) and Israeli producer and consultant Katriel Schory.
“Safe Place” plays on Lerotić’s own pained family history, with the Croatian multihyphenate taking on the lead role in his deeply personal story — a performance that also earned him the award for best actor in Sarajevo.
Fresh off a triumphant world premiere in Locarno, where the film won three awards including best first feature, “Safe Place” was described by...
- 8/20/2022
- by Christopher Vourlias
- Variety Film + TV
Julia Murat’s film is second from Brazil to win festival’s top honour.
The Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival’s 75th anniversary edition (August 3-13) has gone to Julia Murat’s Rule 34 (Regra 34), which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s international competition.
The award includes a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.
Rule 34 is the story of a young law student whose sexual desires lead her into a world of violence and eroticism. It was part of the 2019 Berlinale Co-Production Market and last year received...
The Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival’s 75th anniversary edition (August 3-13) has gone to Julia Murat’s Rule 34 (Regra 34), which had its world premiere in the Swiss festival’s international competition.
The award includes a cash prize of Chf 75,000 to be shared equally between the film’s director and producer.
Rule 34 is the story of a young law student whose sexual desires lead her into a world of violence and eroticism. It was part of the 2019 Berlinale Co-Production Market and last year received...
- 8/13/2022
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Rule 34International Competition(Jury: Michel Merkt, Laura Samani, Prano Bailey-Bond, Alain Guiraudie, William Horberg)Golden Leopard: Rule 34 (Julia Murat)Special Jury Prize: Gigi la legge (The Adventures of Gigi the Law) (Alessandro Comodin)Best Direction: Valentina Maurel (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Best Actress: Daniela Marín Navarro (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Best Actor: Reinaldo Amien Gutiérrez (Tengo sueños eléctricos)Filmmakers Of The Present( Jury: Annick Mahnert, Gitanjali Rao, Katriel Schory )Golden Leopard: Svetlonoc (Nightsiren) (Tereza Nvotová)Special Jury Prize: Yak Tam Katia? (How Is Katia?) (Christina Tynkevych)Prize for Best Emerging Director: Juraj Lerotić (Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place))Best Actress: Anastasia Karpenko (How Is Katia?)Best Actor: Goran Marković (Safe Place)Special Mention: Den siste våren (Franciska Eliassen)First Feature(Jury: Boo Junfeng, Shahram Mokri, Madeline Robert)Best First Feature: Sigurno mjesto (Safe Place) (Juraj Lerotić)Special Mention: Love Dog (Bianca Lucas) and De noche los gatos son pardos (Valentin Merz)Pardi Di Domani(Jury: Walter Fasano,...
- 8/13/2022
- MUBI
The Locarno Film Festival has announced the full line-up and juries for its 75th edition, which is due to unfold August 3-13.
The festival will get a starry kick-off on August 3 with the international festival premiere of David Leitch’s action-comedy Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt alongside an ensemble cast featuring Joey King, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Sandra Bullock, Hiroyuki Sanada, Andrew Koji and Benito A Martínez Ocasio.
The film will be given a gala screening in the festival’s trademark 8,000-seat, open-air Piazza Grande arena.
Other titles due to get a splash on the Piazza Grande include Laurie Anderson’s Home Of The Brave, U.K. director Thomas Hardiman’s Medusa Deluxe and German director Kilian Riedhof’s French-language drama You Will Not Have My Hate, based on the memoir of a man on how he and his son coped following the death of his wife in the 2015 Bataclan terror attack.
The festival will get a starry kick-off on August 3 with the international festival premiere of David Leitch’s action-comedy Bullet Train, starring Brad Pitt alongside an ensemble cast featuring Joey King, Michael Shannon, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Brian Tyree Henry, Sandra Bullock, Hiroyuki Sanada, Andrew Koji and Benito A Martínez Ocasio.
The film will be given a gala screening in the festival’s trademark 8,000-seat, open-air Piazza Grande arena.
Other titles due to get a splash on the Piazza Grande include Laurie Anderson’s Home Of The Brave, U.K. director Thomas Hardiman’s Medusa Deluxe and German director Kilian Riedhof’s French-language drama You Will Not Have My Hate, based on the memoir of a man on how he and his son coped following the death of his wife in the 2015 Bataclan terror attack.
- 7/6/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- Deadline Film + TV
Christine Vachon, the legendary U.S. indie film producer behind “Far from Heaven,” “Boys Don’t Cry” and HBO miniseries “Mildred Pierce,” will deliver a masterclass at Locarno Pro, the expansive industry program of the Locarno Film Festival.
Further masterclasses will be given by Katriel Schory, an architect of the modern build in Israel cinema as executive director of the Israeli Film Fund for 20 years; and by Lucius Barre, the renowned international film publicist who has represented early crossover films by Pedro Almódovar, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Atom Egoyan, Johnnie To and Tom Tykwer.
Neon Distribution will be the subject of a panel presentation on original-language film distribution in the U.S. Locarno Pro will also host four keynote speeches on the status of the film industry today, from its audience to audiovisual consumption in the post-pandemic era, to social impact in the film industry.
Channelled via StepIn and U30, the latter for young professionals,...
Further masterclasses will be given by Katriel Schory, an architect of the modern build in Israel cinema as executive director of the Israeli Film Fund for 20 years; and by Lucius Barre, the renowned international film publicist who has represented early crossover films by Pedro Almódovar, Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, Atom Egoyan, Johnnie To and Tom Tykwer.
Neon Distribution will be the subject of a panel presentation on original-language film distribution in the U.S. Locarno Pro will also host four keynote speeches on the status of the film industry today, from its audience to audiovisual consumption in the post-pandemic era, to social impact in the film industry.
Channelled via StepIn and U30, the latter for young professionals,...
- 7/4/2022
- by John Hopewell
- Variety Film + TV
Austrian writer-director Sebastian Meise has been named president of the Jury at this year’s Sarajevo Film Festival. He’ll be joined on his jury by screenwriter and producer Lucile Hadžihalilović, writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, actor Milan Marić and producer and senior consultant for international co-productions Katriel Schory.
Meise co-founded Viennese production company Freibeuter Film before his acclaimed debut feature film Still Life premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and garnered several awards. His further credits include documentary Outing and Great Freedom, the latter of which won the Cannes Jury Prize for Un Certain Regard and was also awarded the Heart Of Sarajevo award for Best Feature Film and Best Actor (George Friedrich).
Hadžihalilović’s debut mini-feature La Bouche De Jean-Pierre premiered in Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 1996 and further credits that were hits on the international film festival circuit include Innocence, Evolution and, her latest film,...
Meise co-founded Viennese production company Freibeuter Film before his acclaimed debut feature film Still Life premiered at the San Sebastian International Film Festival and garnered several awards. His further credits include documentary Outing and Great Freedom, the latter of which won the Cannes Jury Prize for Un Certain Regard and was also awarded the Heart Of Sarajevo award for Best Feature Film and Best Actor (George Friedrich).
Hadžihalilović’s debut mini-feature La Bouche De Jean-Pierre premiered in Un Certain Regard in Cannes in 1996 and further credits that were hits on the international film festival circuit include Innocence, Evolution and, her latest film,...
- 5/25/2022
- by Diana Lodderhose
- Deadline Film + TV
The 28th Sarajevo Film Festival has unveiled the jury of its feature film competition jury.
Director and screenwriter Sebastian Meise will serve as jury president and fellow jurors include director, screenwriter and producer Lucile Hadžihalilović, writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, actor Milan Marić and producer and senior consultant for international co-productions Katriel Schory.
Meise debuted with “Still Life,” which premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and won several awards. His documentary film “Outing” was presented at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. His latest feature film “Great Freedom” was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Jury Prize – Un Certain Regard. The film was also awarded the Heart of Sarajevo for best feature Film and best actor for Georg Friedrich, as well as the Cicae Arthouse Award at the 27th Sarajevo Film Festival.
Hadžihalilović’s debut mini-feature “La Bouche De Jean-Pierre” premiered at the Un...
Director and screenwriter Sebastian Meise will serve as jury president and fellow jurors include director, screenwriter and producer Lucile Hadžihalilović, writer-director Antoneta Alamat Kusijanović, actor Milan Marić and producer and senior consultant for international co-productions Katriel Schory.
Meise debuted with “Still Life,” which premiered at the San Sebastián International Film Festival and won several awards. His documentary film “Outing” was presented at the Hot Docs Festival in Toronto. His latest feature film “Great Freedom” was shown at the Cannes Film Festival, where it was awarded the Jury Prize – Un Certain Regard. The film was also awarded the Heart of Sarajevo for best feature Film and best actor for Georg Friedrich, as well as the Cicae Arthouse Award at the 27th Sarajevo Film Festival.
Hadžihalilović’s debut mini-feature “La Bouche De Jean-Pierre” premiered at the Un...
- 5/25/2022
- by Naman Ramachandran
- Variety Film + TV
Meise joined by Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic, Milan Maric, Katriel Schory.
Austrian writer-director Sebastian Meise will lead a five-person jury for the Competition programme of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival.
Meise will be joined by filmmakers Lucile Hadzihalilovic from France and Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic from Croatia; Serbian actor Milan Maric; and Katriel Schory, producer, consultant and former director of the Israel Film Fund.
Meise’s Great Freedom won the jury prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2021, going on to take the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film and for Best Actor for Georg Freidrich at last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival.
Austrian writer-director Sebastian Meise will lead a five-person jury for the Competition programme of the 28th Sarajevo Film Festival.
Meise will be joined by filmmakers Lucile Hadzihalilovic from France and Antoneta Alamat Kusijanovic from Croatia; Serbian actor Milan Maric; and Katriel Schory, producer, consultant and former director of the Israel Film Fund.
Meise’s Great Freedom won the jury prize in Un Certain Regard at Cannes 2021, going on to take the Heart of Sarajevo for Best Feature Film and for Best Actor for Georg Freidrich at last year’s Sarajevo Film Festival.
- 5/25/2022
- by Ben Dalton
- ScreenDaily
Regev has been the CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque since 2013.
Jerusalem Cinematheque CEO Noa Regev has been appointed as the new CEO of the Israel Film Fund (Iff) and is due to take up the role at the beginning of April.
She replaces veteran producer and broadcast executive Lisa Shiloach-Uzrad, who spent two-and-a-half years in the role having succeeded long-time executive director Katriel Schory in 2019.
Regev has been CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque since 2013. She took over the organisation at a delicate point in its history as its hands-on founder Lia Van Leer, who was then in her late 80s,...
Jerusalem Cinematheque CEO Noa Regev has been appointed as the new CEO of the Israel Film Fund (Iff) and is due to take up the role at the beginning of April.
She replaces veteran producer and broadcast executive Lisa Shiloach-Uzrad, who spent two-and-a-half years in the role having succeeded long-time executive director Katriel Schory in 2019.
Regev has been CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque since 2013. She took over the organisation at a delicate point in its history as its hands-on founder Lia Van Leer, who was then in her late 80s,...
- 2/4/2022
- by Melanie Goodfellow
- ScreenDaily
Other winners included P.S. Vinothraj’s ‘Pebbles’ and Martín de los Santos’s ’That Was Life’.
Russian director Philipp Yuryev was the big winner at this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival in Romania’s Cluj-Napoca, clinching the €10,000 Transilvania Trophy for his debut feature The Whaler Boy.
Distributed internationally by Laurent Danielou’s Paris-based Loco Films, the Russian-Polish-Belgian co-production also won the Director’s Award on its premiere at last year’s Venice Days.
It is the second Russian film in TIFF’s 20-year history to be presented with the top award: Ilya Krzhanovsky’s 4 shared the trophy with Juan Pablo Rebella...
Russian director Philipp Yuryev was the big winner at this year’s Transilvania International Film Festival in Romania’s Cluj-Napoca, clinching the €10,000 Transilvania Trophy for his debut feature The Whaler Boy.
Distributed internationally by Laurent Danielou’s Paris-based Loco Films, the Russian-Polish-Belgian co-production also won the Director’s Award on its premiere at last year’s Venice Days.
It is the second Russian film in TIFF’s 20-year history to be presented with the top award: Ilya Krzhanovsky’s 4 shared the trophy with Juan Pablo Rebella...
- 8/2/2021
- by Martin Blaney
- ScreenDaily
Jury includes ‘Amores Perros’ screenwriter Guillermo Arriaga.
Transilvania International Film Festival has revealed the 12 films that will screen in its official competition and its international jury.
Each title competing for the Transilvania Trophy will receive its Romanian premiere at the 20th edition of the festival, which is set to take place in-person in the city of Cluj-Napoca.
They include What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?, by Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze, which played in competition at the Berlinale, and Lili Horvát’s Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time, which was Hungary’s Oscar submission.
Transilvania International Film Festival has revealed the 12 films that will screen in its official competition and its international jury.
Each title competing for the Transilvania Trophy will receive its Romanian premiere at the 20th edition of the festival, which is set to take place in-person in the city of Cluj-Napoca.
They include What Do We See When We Look At The Sky?, by Georgian filmmaker Alexandre Koberidze, which played in competition at the Berlinale, and Lili Horvát’s Preparations To Be Together For An Unknown Period Of Time, which was Hungary’s Oscar submission.
- 7/2/2021
- by Michael Rosser
- ScreenDaily
After 10 consecutive days of violence, the renewed Israeli-Palestinian conflict is already considered the worst clash since 2014. For a film community known to be fiercely opposed to the politics led by Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, both Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers and producers fear the escalation of violence will cause irreparable damage. There have been countless fallouts between Israelis and Palestinians in the region over the last 70 years, but industry executives indicate that the proliferation of social media is taking commentary on the conflict to unprecedented levels.
“Today, because of social media, hatred is spreading much quicker. This is a nightmare, and it will affect relationships in the medium to long term,” predicts Rani Massalha, the Paris-based French-Palestinian producer of Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s “Gaza Mon Amour” which opened at Venice and represented Palestine in the Oscar race this year.
“When I started my career as a director with ‘Girafada,...
“Today, because of social media, hatred is spreading much quicker. This is a nightmare, and it will affect relationships in the medium to long term,” predicts Rani Massalha, the Paris-based French-Palestinian producer of Tarzan and Arab Nasser’s “Gaza Mon Amour” which opened at Venice and represented Palestine in the Oscar race this year.
“When I started my career as a director with ‘Girafada,...
- 5/19/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
The 21st European Film Festival also awarded trophies to Disco, Scandinavian Silence, Sister and Lara, while the Cineuropa Prize went to Open Door. The French title Twelve Thousand has been crowned Best Film at the 21st Lecce European Film Festival, an event which unfolded entirely online this year, between 31 October and 7 November, in full compliance with anti-Covid health regulations. Awarding the Golden Olive Tree to Nadège Trebal’s film, the jury presided over by Katriel Schory and composed of Beatrice Fiorentino, Mathilde Henrot, Antonio Saura and Mira Staleva also honoured Disco by Jorunn Myklebust Syversen for its screenplay and Scandinavian Silence by Martti Helde for its photography. Meanwhile, Svetla Tsotsorkova’s Sister and Jan-Ole Gerster’s Lara found themselves joint winners of the Special Jury Prize. The latter also claimed the Sngci Award for Best European Actor, courtesy of Corinna Harfouch. For its part, the Mario Verdone Award, which is now.
The Big Hit, Ladies of Steel and Advantages of Travelling by Train will vie for the European Comedy award. The European Film Awards has announced the nominations for the 2020 European Comedy category. The nominations were determined by a committee comprised of Efa Board Members Katriel Schory (Israel) and Angela Bosch Ríus (Spain), director-screenwriter Paddy Breathnach (Ireland), festival programmer Markus Duffner (Germany/Italy) and distributor-festival programmer Selma Mehadzic (Croatia). The nominated films are: European ComedyThe Big Hit - Emmanuel Courcol (France)Ladies of Steel - Pamela Tola (Finland)Advantages of Travelling by Train - Aritz Moreno (Spain) The nominated films will now be made available to the more than 3,800 Efa Members to elect the winner. The European Comedy 2020 will then be presented at the 33rd European Film Awards in December.
- 10/27/2020
- Cineuropa - The Best of European Cinema
The Venice Film Festival, which reinvigorated the fall festival season with a physical event that began on September 2 in Italy, concluded on Saturday with its annual awards ceremony. See the full list of winners and watch the live stream below.
Led by president Cate Blanchett, the jurors for the main competition included Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, actor Matt Dillon (“Crash”), and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.
Together, they awarded the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel. This year’s Golden Lion went to “Nomadland,” which received a rapturous reception out of the Toronto International Film Festival as well this week, and looks to be headed straight for Oscar contention.
Meanwhile, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition,...
Led by president Cate Blanchett, the jurors for the main competition included Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, actor Matt Dillon (“Crash”), and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.
Together, they awarded the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel. This year’s Golden Lion went to “Nomadland,” which received a rapturous reception out of the Toronto International Film Festival as well this week, and looks to be headed straight for Oscar contention.
Meanwhile, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition,...
- 9/12/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
As the Venice Film Festival ramps up for its 77th (and in-person!) run on September 2, now’s the time to peruse the lineup for the discoveries that will pop, especially in a festival season without many new major movies. One such discovery is the film from Kazakhstan “Yellow Cat,” set for the Horizons section dedicated to edgier fare looking to break out. IndieWire shares the exclusive first trailer for the film, which is directed by Adilkhan Yerzhanov. Check it out below.
It’s no coincidence that the music in the trailer sounds a lot like Carl Orff’s “Gassenhauer,” the theme for Terrence Malick’s debut “Badlands.” Like that film, “Yellow Cat” follows lovers on the lam, running from a criminal background but still entangled in all sorts of misadventures. The story centers on ex-con Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) and his beloved Eva (Kamila Nugmanova), who want to give up their...
It’s no coincidence that the music in the trailer sounds a lot like Carl Orff’s “Gassenhauer,” the theme for Terrence Malick’s debut “Badlands.” Like that film, “Yellow Cat” follows lovers on the lam, running from a criminal background but still entangled in all sorts of misadventures. The story centers on ex-con Kermek (Azamat Nigmanov) and his beloved Eva (Kamila Nugmanova), who want to give up their...
- 8/5/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
In a fraught years for film festivals, some good news: the Venice Film Festival, one of the world’s starriest annual film events — and one that has previously resisted pressure to program more female filmmakers — has nearly reached gender parity with its competition lineup. This year’s festival will host eight films directed by women in its highest-profile section, where they will compete for the Golden Lion. Only four women have won the prize since the festival started in 1932, with Sofia Coppola as the most recent winner for “Somewhere” in 2010. The other past winners were Mira Nair, Margarethe von Trotta, and Agnès Varda.
The 2020 festival will play home to new films from a variety of the industry’s top female directors, including Chloe Zhao, Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), Emma Dante (“Le Sorelle Macaluso”), Nicole Garcia (“Lovers”), Susanna Nicchiarelli (“Miss Marx”), Malgorzata Szumowska (“Never Gonna Snow Again”), Julia Von Heinz...
The 2020 festival will play home to new films from a variety of the industry’s top female directors, including Chloe Zhao, Mona Fastvold (“The World to Come”), Emma Dante (“Le Sorelle Macaluso”), Nicole Garcia (“Lovers”), Susanna Nicchiarelli (“Miss Marx”), Malgorzata Szumowska (“Never Gonna Snow Again”), Julia Von Heinz...
- 7/28/2020
- by Kate Erbland
- Indiewire
While the coronavirus pandemic has canceled major festivals such as Cannes and Telluride, the 2020 Venice Film Festival is moving ahead as planned and will be the world’s first major film festival since Sundance and Berlin at the start of the year. Venice 2020’s main selection will be split into three sections: Venezia 77 (aka the main competition), Out of Competition, and Horizons. The titles selected for the main competition will compete for the Golden Lion, which was awarded last year to Todd Phillips’ “Joker.”
As previously announced, Daniele Luchetti’s drama “Lacci” will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 2. The movie is the first Italian title to open Venice in 11 years. The last Italian opener was Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa” at the 2009 festival. “Lacci” is included in this year’s Out of Competition section. Chloe Zhao’s “The Rider” follow-up “Nomadland” was also confirmed for a world premiere...
As previously announced, Daniele Luchetti’s drama “Lacci” will open the 77th Venice Film Festival on September 2. The movie is the first Italian title to open Venice in 11 years. The last Italian opener was Giuseppe Tornatore’s “Baarìa” at the 2009 festival. “Lacci” is included in this year’s Out of Competition section. Chloe Zhao’s “The Rider” follow-up “Nomadland” was also confirmed for a world premiere...
- 7/28/2020
- by Zack Sharf
- Indiewire
Cate Blanchett will preside over this year’s Venice competition jury.
UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg, Austria’s Veronika Franz, Germany’s Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, French actress Ludivine Sagnier and Italian writer Nicola Lagioia will comprise the main competition jury for this year’s Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12)
They join previously announced jury president Cate Blanchett.
French filmmaker Claire Denis will preside over the Orizzonti jury, which also includes Spanish directors Oskar Alegria and Italy’s Francesca Comencini; US producer Christine Vachon and Israeli producer Katriel Schory, the former executive director of the Israel Film Fund...
UK filmmaker Joanna Hogg, Austria’s Veronika Franz, Germany’s Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, French actress Ludivine Sagnier and Italian writer Nicola Lagioia will comprise the main competition jury for this year’s Venice International Film Festival (September 2-12)
They join previously announced jury president Cate Blanchett.
French filmmaker Claire Denis will preside over the Orizzonti jury, which also includes Spanish directors Oskar Alegria and Italy’s Francesca Comencini; US producer Christine Vachon and Israeli producer Katriel Schory, the former executive director of the Israel Film Fund...
- 7/27/2020
- by 1101184¦Orlando Parfitt¦38¦
- ScreenDaily
The Venice Film Festival is setting up quite the internationally starry jury this year. Running September 2-12, the festival has revealed all its jury members as led by president Cate Blanchett. Joining her will be Austrian director Veronika Franz, British filmmaker Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Italian writer and novelist Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold, Romanian director Cristi Puiu, and French actress Ludivine Sagnier.
Together, they will award the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel.
Meaning, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition, French favorite Claire Denis will lead the jury comprised of Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel), and Christine Vachon (USA).
Heading the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France), and Dora Bouchoucha...
Together, they will award the festival’s top prizes, including the Golden Lion, which last year went to “Joker” under jury president Lucrecia Martel.
Meaning, in the Orizzonti, or Horizons, section running parallel to the main competition, French favorite Claire Denis will lead the jury comprised of Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel), and Christine Vachon (USA).
Heading the jury for the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France), and Dora Bouchoucha...
- 7/26/2020
- by Ryan Lattanzio
- Indiewire
The 77th Venice Film Festival (September 2 – 12) has revealed all jury members, with Competition jury president Cate Blanchett joined by Austrian director Veronika Franz (Goodnight Mommy), Brit filmmaker Joanna Hogg (The Souvenir), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia, German filmmaker Christian Petzold (Barbara), Romanian director Cristi Puiu (The Death of Mr. Lazarescu) and French actress Ludivine Sagnier (La Vérité).
The Orizzonti jury will be presided over by French director Claire Denis (High Life), and comprise Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel) and Christine Vachon (USA).
The selectors of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France) and Dora Bouchoucha (Tunisia).
The festival’s Venice Virtual Reality jury will be headed by Celine Tricart as president (USA), and also include Asif Kapadia (Great Britain) and Hideo Kojima (Japan).
The festival, the first major physical film get-together since the pandemic struck earlier this year,...
The Orizzonti jury will be presided over by French director Claire Denis (High Life), and comprise Oskar Alegria (Spain), Francesca Comencini (Italy), Katriel Schory (Israel) and Christine Vachon (USA).
The selectors of the “Luigi De Laurentiis” Venice Award for a Debut Film are Claudio Giovannesi (Italy) as president, Remi Bonhomme (France) and Dora Bouchoucha (Tunisia).
The festival’s Venice Virtual Reality jury will be headed by Celine Tricart as president (USA), and also include Asif Kapadia (Great Britain) and Hideo Kojima (Japan).
The festival, the first major physical film get-together since the pandemic struck earlier this year,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Andreas Wiseman
- Deadline Film + TV
The Venice Film Festival has revealed the rosters of its main juries — a move that indicates organizers expect a robust contingent of top international talent and industry executives to make the trek to the Lido for the fest’s planned physical edition in September.
The U.K.’s Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Germany’s Christian Petzold (“Undine”) and Romania’s Cristi Puiu (“Sieranevada”) are among the directors who will join the fest’s main jury, over which Cate Blanchett will preside, as previously announced.
Austrian auteur Veronika Franz (“The Lodge”), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia and French actor Ludivine Sagnier round out the Europe-centric main competition jury.
Meanwhile, French director, screenwriter and actor Claire Denis, whose “White Material” premiered in Venice in 2018, will oversee the jury for Venice’s more cutting-edge Horizons section.
Joining Denis on the Horizons jury are U.S. producer Christine Vachon, best known for shepherding Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven,...
The U.K.’s Joanna Hogg (“The Souvenir”), Germany’s Christian Petzold (“Undine”) and Romania’s Cristi Puiu (“Sieranevada”) are among the directors who will join the fest’s main jury, over which Cate Blanchett will preside, as previously announced.
Austrian auteur Veronika Franz (“The Lodge”), Italian writer Nicola Lagioia and French actor Ludivine Sagnier round out the Europe-centric main competition jury.
Meanwhile, French director, screenwriter and actor Claire Denis, whose “White Material” premiered in Venice in 2018, will oversee the jury for Venice’s more cutting-edge Horizons section.
Joining Denis on the Horizons jury are U.S. producer Christine Vachon, best known for shepherding Todd Haynes’ “Far From Heaven,...
- 7/26/2020
- by Nick Vivarelli
- Variety Film + TV
Irish producer Mike Downey, who was recently elected as chairman of the board of the European Film Academy, has told Variety that he’d like to work more closely with other film academies, including the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, as well as continuing Efa’s work as a campaigner for persecuted filmmakers.
Downey, CEO of Film and Music Entertainment, had previously served as Efa’s deputy chairman, and takes the baton as chairman from Polish director Agnieszka Holland, who has been at the helm for the past six years.
He told Variety: “I’ve just returned from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, run by our sister organization the Asia Pacific Screen Academy. We have much in common and support many of the same principles and goals. I’d like to reach out to our colleagues around the world, in Asia, the U.S. – and along with our...
Downey, CEO of Film and Music Entertainment, had previously served as Efa’s deputy chairman, and takes the baton as chairman from Polish director Agnieszka Holland, who has been at the helm for the past six years.
He told Variety: “I’ve just returned from the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, run by our sister organization the Asia Pacific Screen Academy. We have much in common and support many of the same principles and goals. I’d like to reach out to our colleagues around the world, in Asia, the U.S. – and along with our...
- 12/10/2019
- by Leo Barraclough
- Variety Film + TV
The Closing Night Film at the Israel Film Festival Los Angeles, daring and funny…how can Palestinians criticize Israelis and Israelis criticize Palestinians? Make a comedy like ‘Tel Aviv on Fire’. In this interview with the director and co-writer, Sameh Zoabi, we explore the power and pitfalls of comedy in the international market place.
Commonly considered outside of the “arthouse” genre, comedy is a little looked down on by cinephiles. But this notion is belied by the social-political comedies of Ernst Lubitsch or Charlie Chaplin…and Life is Beautiful did win the Oscar in 1998.
Tel Aviv on Fire is about Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man who becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise — until the soldier and the show’s financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.
Commonly considered outside of the “arthouse” genre, comedy is a little looked down on by cinephiles. But this notion is belied by the social-political comedies of Ernst Lubitsch or Charlie Chaplin…and Life is Beautiful did win the Oscar in 1998.
Tel Aviv on Fire is about Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man who becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise — until the soldier and the show’s financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.
- 11/26/2019
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
The Telluride Film Festival has announced its 2017 lineup. As usual, the exclusive Colorado gathering features a range of buzzy fall season movies, including many films also premiering in Venice and Toronto as well as others resurfacing from earlier in the year, just in time for awards season. Filmmakers in this year’s program range from Alexander Payne to Angelina Jolie. The festival will also honor cinematographer Ed Lachman, actor Christian Bale, and screen a new cut of Francis Ford Coppola’s 1984 Harlem musical “The Cotton Club.”
One of the bigger films to make the cut in this year’s lineup should take no one by surprise: “Downsizing” (12/22, Paramount), Payne’s long-gestating near-future workplace satire starring Matt Damon, will screen at the festival where Payne has been a regular for years (both as a filmmaker and audience member). The movie opened the Venice Film Festival earlier this week, and was followed...
One of the bigger films to make the cut in this year’s lineup should take no one by surprise: “Downsizing” (12/22, Paramount), Payne’s long-gestating near-future workplace satire starring Matt Damon, will screen at the festival where Payne has been a regular for years (both as a filmmaker and audience member). The movie opened the Venice Film Festival earlier this week, and was followed...
- 8/31/2017
- by Eric Kohn and Anne Thompson
- Indiewire
Dea Kulumbegashvili, Maya Dreifuss also scoop awards from Jerusalem lab.
Israeli actor-filmmaker Pini Tavger’s debut feature Pinhas has won the top $50,000 prize at the final pitching event of the 6th edition of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.
The tale of a young Russian immigrant coming to terms with life with his single mother in a small Israeli town is produced by Haim Mecklberg of 2-Team Productions, whose recent credits include Elite Zexer’s Sand Storm, which won the Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in 2016.
“The presentation of Pinhas provided the jury with a powerful experience: a fascinating, sensitive and conflictual script based on semi-autobiographic hardships beautifully presented through a scene for the upcoming film,” said Hengameh Panahi, Celluloid Dreams founding chief and Sam Spiegel jury chair.
It is Tavger’s first feature after two short films: 10 Weitzman Street and Pinhas, which sowed the seeds for the feature. He also directed...
Israeli actor-filmmaker Pini Tavger’s debut feature Pinhas has won the top $50,000 prize at the final pitching event of the 6th edition of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab.
The tale of a young Russian immigrant coming to terms with life with his single mother in a small Israeli town is produced by Haim Mecklberg of 2-Team Productions, whose recent credits include Elite Zexer’s Sand Storm, which won the Sundance World Cinema Grand Jury Prize in 2016.
“The presentation of Pinhas provided the jury with a powerful experience: a fascinating, sensitive and conflictual script based on semi-autobiographic hardships beautifully presented through a scene for the upcoming film,” said Hengameh Panahi, Celluloid Dreams founding chief and Sam Spiegel jury chair.
It is Tavger’s first feature after two short films: 10 Weitzman Street and Pinhas, which sowed the seeds for the feature. He also directed...
- 7/15/2017
- ScreenDaily
31% of feature films made in Israel in 2016 were directed by women.
The Israeli film industry recorded a strong year for female filmmakers in 2016. At Jff last year, Screen reported that in 2015 only 10% of the country’s feature films were directed by women, but that figure rose sharply last year, clocking in at 31%.
In total, 10 of the 32 narrative feature films produced in Israel in 2016 were directed by female filmmakers, according to statistics compiled by Lior Elefant, who heads up lobbying organisation Women in Film and Television Israel Forum.
Speaking to Screen at last year’s Jff, Elefant predicted the situation would improve as the major Israeli film funds sought to place more emphasis on boosting women directors.
Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund, notes that he has recorded a significant rise in the number of women-directed projects his fund has backed.
“The percentage of women directors reached 37% in the last couple of years,” he says. “But...
The Israeli film industry recorded a strong year for female filmmakers in 2016. At Jff last year, Screen reported that in 2015 only 10% of the country’s feature films were directed by women, but that figure rose sharply last year, clocking in at 31%.
In total, 10 of the 32 narrative feature films produced in Israel in 2016 were directed by female filmmakers, according to statistics compiled by Lior Elefant, who heads up lobbying organisation Women in Film and Television Israel Forum.
Speaking to Screen at last year’s Jff, Elefant predicted the situation would improve as the major Israeli film funds sought to place more emphasis on boosting women directors.
Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund, notes that he has recorded a significant rise in the number of women-directed projects his fund has backed.
“The percentage of women directors reached 37% in the last couple of years,” he says. “But...
- 7/14/2017
- by tom.grater@screendaily.com (Tom Grater)
- ScreenDaily
“The Women’s Balcony” opened in New York Friday May 26 at both Lincoln Plaza Cinemas and Quad Cinemas. The film did amazing business last weekend and is now entering its 2nd weekend on a full schedule at the Lincoln Plaza, Quad Cinema and also opening at the E.86th Street Cinema. It’s also been a big hit in La and south Florida where it opened theatrically in March. It was the highest grossing film in Israel in the last three years with over 450,000 admissions and has been charming audiences everywhere.
It is both a New York Times and L.A. Times Critic’s Pick. The reviews have been fantastic and the film is expanding into 25 additional markets.
A rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power, empowering women, or as its director, Emil Ben-Shimon says, these are “brave, strong women who are fighting for their place.” That...
It is both a New York Times and L.A. Times Critic’s Pick. The reviews have been fantastic and the film is expanding into 25 additional markets.
A rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power, empowering women, or as its director, Emil Ben-Shimon says, these are “brave, strong women who are fighting for their place.” That...
- 6/5/2017
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Turkey’s decision to leave the European funding programme has taken EU and local culture organisations by surprise.
Changes are afoot at the European Union’s Creative Europe programme as Turkey has announced its decision to exit at the end of this year, while Israel is now close to signing up to become a member.
At the beginning of 2015, Turkey had become one of a number of non-eu member countries benefitting from the programme which supports the cultural and audiovisual sectors but the Commission is now “negotiating the conditions of Turkey’s withdrawal from the programme as of 1 January, 2017,” according to a spokesperson.
The unexpected move by Turkey has surprised EU officials and Turkish cultural organisations.
In a message to Turkish authorities, EU officials expressed “regret” over the decision: “The Delegation of the European Union regrets Turkey’s decision to suspend its participation to the Creative Europe programme and that cultural operators will miss future opportunities for cooperation...
Changes are afoot at the European Union’s Creative Europe programme as Turkey has announced its decision to exit at the end of this year, while Israel is now close to signing up to become a member.
At the beginning of 2015, Turkey had become one of a number of non-eu member countries benefitting from the programme which supports the cultural and audiovisual sectors but the Commission is now “negotiating the conditions of Turkey’s withdrawal from the programme as of 1 January, 2017,” according to a spokesperson.
The unexpected move by Turkey has surprised EU officials and Turkish cultural organisations.
In a message to Turkish authorities, EU officials expressed “regret” over the decision: “The Delegation of the European Union regrets Turkey’s decision to suspend its participation to the Creative Europe programme and that cultural operators will miss future opportunities for cooperation...
- 10/4/2016
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
A total of 11 projects were presented at the closing pitching event of fifth edition.
Israeli director Yona Rozenkier and producer Kobi Mizrahi have clinched the $50,000 top prize at the final pitching event of the fifth Sam Spiegel International Film Lab for their road-trip tale of an elderly father and son, Decompression.
Described as “a sad, late coming-of-age comedy”, it revolves around a journey from the north to the south of Israel on a tractor by 35-year-old Ben and his truculent, larger-than-life father.
“The jury was impressed by the genuine and emotional father-and-son story from north of Israel to south,” said jury president Slawomir Idzak. “The mix between drama and humour is very well balanced. The very visual metaphoric ending is so powerful, you will not forget it.”
Argentinian film-maker Gonzalo Tobal took the second prize of $20,000 for Dolores, a psychological drama about a young woman from a comfortable background awaiting trial on charges of killing her best...
Israeli director Yona Rozenkier and producer Kobi Mizrahi have clinched the $50,000 top prize at the final pitching event of the fifth Sam Spiegel International Film Lab for their road-trip tale of an elderly father and son, Decompression.
Described as “a sad, late coming-of-age comedy”, it revolves around a journey from the north to the south of Israel on a tractor by 35-year-old Ben and his truculent, larger-than-life father.
“The jury was impressed by the genuine and emotional father-and-son story from north of Israel to south,” said jury president Slawomir Idzak. “The mix between drama and humour is very well balanced. The very visual metaphoric ending is so powerful, you will not forget it.”
Argentinian film-maker Gonzalo Tobal took the second prize of $20,000 for Dolores, a psychological drama about a young woman from a comfortable background awaiting trial on charges of killing her best...
- 7/9/2016
- ScreenDaily
Mentors include Israel Film Fund executive director Katriel Schory and film director Thanos Anastopoulos.Scroll down for the nine projects
The TorinoFilmlab has revealed the nine projects that will take part in the 2016 edition of FrameWork, the initiative’s flagship lab for first and second feature film projects.
Amongst the first and second-time filmmakers is Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi, whose first feature A Respectable Family debuted in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2012, and Israeli director Tom Shoval, whose 2013 drama Youth was named best Israeli feature at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival.
This year’s mentors include Israel Film Fund executive director Katriel Schory, script consultants Franz Rodenkirchen, Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten and Anita Voorham, film director Thanos Anastopoulos, cinematographer Marko Brdar, post-production expert Niko Remus, producer Didar Domehri, acting coach and casting director Tatiana Vialle, sound designer Peter Albrechtsen and film promotion consultant Joanna Solecka.
The first session will take place in Izola (Slovenia) from May 30 to...
The TorinoFilmlab has revealed the nine projects that will take part in the 2016 edition of FrameWork, the initiative’s flagship lab for first and second feature film projects.
Amongst the first and second-time filmmakers is Iranian director Massoud Bakhshi, whose first feature A Respectable Family debuted in Directors’ Fortnight at Cannes in 2012, and Israeli director Tom Shoval, whose 2013 drama Youth was named best Israeli feature at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival.
This year’s mentors include Israel Film Fund executive director Katriel Schory, script consultants Franz Rodenkirchen, Marietta von Hausswolff von Baumgarten and Anita Voorham, film director Thanos Anastopoulos, cinematographer Marko Brdar, post-production expert Niko Remus, producer Didar Domehri, acting coach and casting director Tatiana Vialle, sound designer Peter Albrechtsen and film promotion consultant Joanna Solecka.
The first session will take place in Izola (Slovenia) from May 30 to...
- 4/13/2016
- ScreenDaily
Culture Ministry funds new stand with aim to increase Israeli presence at the festival.
The tension between Israel’s Ministry of Culture and the national film industry has entered a new phase following the department’s decision to sponsor a second Israeli film stand at the Cannes Film Festival.
According to the Ministry, the new stand is designed to offer a different and expanded perspective of the country’s filmmaking profile.
Judging by the careful phrasing of industry interviewed for this report, however, the move is seemingly a sensitive one.
“This is not supposed to be another Israeli stand selling and distributing Israeli films,” said Etti Cohen, head of the Film Desk at the Ministry of Culture.
“The role of the new [stand], to be inaugurated in Cannes by Culture Minister Miri Regev, is to unveil all of the activities that could not be exposed in the existing stand, such as presenting the many cinema schools in the...
The tension between Israel’s Ministry of Culture and the national film industry has entered a new phase following the department’s decision to sponsor a second Israeli film stand at the Cannes Film Festival.
According to the Ministry, the new stand is designed to offer a different and expanded perspective of the country’s filmmaking profile.
Judging by the careful phrasing of industry interviewed for this report, however, the move is seemingly a sensitive one.
“This is not supposed to be another Israeli stand selling and distributing Israeli films,” said Etti Cohen, head of the Film Desk at the Ministry of Culture.
“The role of the new [stand], to be inaugurated in Cannes by Culture Minister Miri Regev, is to unveil all of the activities that could not be exposed in the existing stand, such as presenting the many cinema schools in the...
- 3/21/2016
- by dfainaru@netvision.net.il (Edna Fainaru)
- ScreenDaily
Turkish festival announces films, guests and industry lineups amid challenging security climate.
The Istanbul Film Festival has announced the lineup of its 35th edition, which will take place from April 7-17.
This year the festival, Kerem Ayan’s first as director, will host 221 feature films from 62 countries, as well as panel discussions, concerts and industry pitching session Meetings on the Bridge.
Films participating in the festival’s International Golden Tulip competition include Brady Corbet’s The Childhood Of A Leader (pictured) and recent Berlin favourite United States Of Love.
Actresses Suzan Avci, Perran Kutman and Jeyan Ayral Tozum, director Ulku Erakalin, and producer Seref Gur will receive the festival’s Cinema Honorary Awards, while Belgica director Felix van Groeningen, recent Oscar nominee Ciro Guerra and Golden Bear winner Gianfranco Rosi will also make appearances.
Additionally, the festival will feature new music and ‘Hidden Gems’ sections as well as tributes to director Otto Preminger and American avant garde cinema...
The Istanbul Film Festival has announced the lineup of its 35th edition, which will take place from April 7-17.
This year the festival, Kerem Ayan’s first as director, will host 221 feature films from 62 countries, as well as panel discussions, concerts and industry pitching session Meetings on the Bridge.
Films participating in the festival’s International Golden Tulip competition include Brady Corbet’s The Childhood Of A Leader (pictured) and recent Berlin favourite United States Of Love.
Actresses Suzan Avci, Perran Kutman and Jeyan Ayral Tozum, director Ulku Erakalin, and producer Seref Gur will receive the festival’s Cinema Honorary Awards, while Belgica director Felix van Groeningen, recent Oscar nominee Ciro Guerra and Golden Bear winner Gianfranco Rosi will also make appearances.
Additionally, the festival will feature new music and ‘Hidden Gems’ sections as well as tributes to director Otto Preminger and American avant garde cinema...
- 3/16/2016
- ScreenDaily
This year we are seeing many films from Mena, that is an acronym for the Middle East and North Africa. More commonly called “Arab” cinema, (though the term is inaccurate because several countries in the region are not actually “Arab”) the films of this region are winning many awards and garnering much interest worldwide.
More than 10 Arab films participated in the Berlinale’s Forum and Forum Expanded programs this year, in addition to the ones which participated in the Official Competition (“Inhebek Hedi”/ “Hedi” from Tunisia and “A Dragon Arrives!” by Mani Haghighi from Iran). This makes an especially remarkable year for Arab cinema’s presence in Berlin.
The Forum focus on Arab cinema, represented with films from Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia highlights mostly young directors whose works explore both the past and present of their homelands.
The films included: “A Magical Substance Flows into Me” by artist Jumana Manna (Palestine), “Akher ayam el madina”/ “In the Last Days of the City” (Egypt) by Tamer El Said (international sales by Still Moving), documentary “Makhdoumin”/ “A Maid for Each” (Lebanon) by Maher Abi Samra (Isa: Docs & Film), “Barakah yoqabil Barakah”/ “Barakah Meets Barakah” (Saudi Arabia) by Mahmoud Sabbagh and Manazil (Isa: Mpm), “Bela abwab”/ “Houses without Doors” by Syrian-Armenian director Avo Kaprealian. Of course the 46th Berlinale Forum also screens films from European, Latin American and Asian directors.
The Tunisian film in Competition “Inhebek Hedi”/ “Hedi” by Mohamed Ben Attia, won the Best First Feature Award and its leading man, Majd Mastoura, received the prestigious Silver Bear for Best Actor for his role as Hedi. Attia’s debut feature film is a thoughtful love story about identity and independence in Tunisian society. It is being sold internationally by Luxbox.
Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel won the Silver Bear Jury Prize for Short Film for “ A Man Returned”, a 30-minute portrayal of a young refugee struggling to make a life for himself in Lebanon’s Ain El-Helweh camp, being sold internationally by 3.14 Collectif. He previously made an award-winning documentary about his own experience as a refugee. The short film was also selected as the Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards.
The Ecumenical Jury awarded the Forum Prize to Saudi filmmaker Mahmoud Sabbagh for his well-received romantic comedy “Barakah Yoqabil Barakah”/ “Barakah Meets Barakah”, a social commentary on the lives of young people in Saudi Arabia. It shared the prize with Danish production “Les Sauteurs”/ “Those Who Jump” – a film that also highlights the plight of Europe-bound refugees.
Egyptian filmmaker Tamer El-Said’s feature film “Akher Ayam El-Madina”/ “In the Last Days of the City” won the Caligari Film Prize. The film looks at a young filmmaker’s struggle to complete a film about Cairo. It was the only Egyptian film to participate in the 2016 Berlinale Forum.
Lebanese filmmaker Maher Abi Samra’s documentary “Makhdoumin”/ “A Maid for Each”, a look at the legal system that controls the lives of Lebanon’s foreign domestic workers, won the Peace Film Prize.
“Zinzana”/ “Rattle the Cage” director, Majid al Ansari, from the Arab Emirates, was honored with Variety’s Mid-East Filmmaker of the Year Award at the Berlinale. The film is the first genre movie of its kind produced in the UAE. It was financed and produced by Abu Dhabi’s ImageNation. It is repped for Us by Cinetic and international sales are by Im Global.
Projects “Mawlana”, based on Ibrahim Issa’s best-selling novel and shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize and director’s Mohamed Yassein’s “Wedding Song” based on Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature were being promoted at the Arab Cinema Center at the Market. Reflecting a decadent Egypt from the 1970s, “Wedding Song” is one of the largest TV productions in the Arab World in 2016.
“Theeb”, a Jordanian Epic about Bedouins, is the Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It played in Venice. International sales agent Fortissimo has licensed it to Film Movement for U.S., ABC for Benelux, New Wave for U.K., As Fidalgo for Norway, Jiff for Australia, trigon-film for Switzerland. Mad Solutions is handling the Middle East. “Ave Maria” a 14-minute Palestine satirical short is the Academy Award nomination for Best Short Fiction and is being sold internationally by Ouat Media. “ The Idol” (Palestine) played Tiff 2015 and other top fests and has sold widely throughout the world through Canada-based international sales agent Seville. Not since Elia Suleiman won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for “Divine Intervention” has a Palestinian film director made as much of an impact as “The Idol” director Hany Abu-Assad whose “Paradise Now” and “Omar” both went to the Academy Awards.
Kudos for much of the success of Arab cinema go to Mad Solutions, the Cairo, Abu Dhabi and New York based marketing and distribution company for its marketing and social media strategies as well as its release of “Theeb”, “Zinzana” and “Ave Maria”. It also helped create the Arab Cinema Center which was launched last year at the Berlinale and Efm.
In all, 20 Mena films played in the Festival and Market this year.
And what of that other small country in the region called Israel (and/ or Palestine) which is not included in the term Mena? While Israeli films that showed in Berlin received international praise, they will never show in any of the Arab countries and are sometimes boycotted by international film festivals who succumb to censorship tactics.
Most of the larger Israeli features go to Cannes, Venice and Toronto; “Afterthought” went to Cannes, “Mountain” to Venice, “Barash” to San Sebastian”, “Wedding Doll” to London and “A.K.A. Nadia” to Talinn Black Nights Film Festival. In Berlin many are screened as German Premieres.
What Israeli films have won acclaim lately? Is it possible that our hero, Katriel Schory, head of the Israel Film Fund, whose stand for true art has earned him Israeli government censure at home (A prophet is never honored in his own land) and fame abroad with new countries striving to create national cinema, is being eclipsed by the growth of “Arab” cinema?
“Sandstorm” directed by Elite Zexer (international sales by Beta) made its way to Panorama from its world premiere in Sundance where it won the Best Actress Award for Palestinian actress Lamis Ammar’s portrayal of a young Bedouin woman forced to choose between modern freedom or traditional societal strictures within an arranged marriage.
Panorama also screened “Junction 48” (international sales by The Match Factory) which received international praise and audience acclaim. The Israeli-Palestinian hip-hop movie by Israeli-American filmmaker, Udi Aloni, was supported by the Israel-based Rabinovich Foundation. The story is about Kareem who lives in a mixed Jewish-Arab crime-ridden ghetto outside Tel Aviv. He deals drugs and lives dangerously until he discovers hip-hop and decides to express his life as a Palestinian youth along with young singer Manar. Palestinian and Israeli musicians drive this music movie and for Aloni, just seeing the film made, and then shown at the Berlin Film Festival proves its success.
“Suddenly a group of people just choose to make a film and the film is extremely professional. It’s very important that this bi-national energy can create high quality stuff, the high quality is almost the symbol of the resistance. We should not even have to tell the story about the issue. The fact that we could create it is amazing,” Aloni told Euronews.
Thirty-seven-year-old Arab-Israeli rapper Tamer Nafar plays the lead role, and has known the 56-year-old Aloni for some time. “We have been on the same demonstrations, in the parties since 2000, so we live in each other’s world. He has been to my concerts many times, he directed a video clip, I was in his movies as a producer a few times. It’s not about an old generation and new generation, it’s just about creating the right generation,” he said. “He has that gift of being a good story teller and director but he gives us the stage, no, he doesn’t give us a stage, we are building a stage together… he has his own perspective but we are all on the same level,” said actress Samar Qupty. The struggle for equal rights for Palestinians or Arab Israelis inside Israel is at its crux.
Panorama Documents screened “Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?” directed by Tomer Haymann and Barak Heymann co-directed by Alexander Bodin Saphir and being sold by Austria’s Autlook. Forum showed “ Inertia” by Idan Haguel being sold by Oration Films’ Timothy O’Brian of the U.S., and “Between Fences” by Avi Mograbi, being sold by Docs & Film’s Daniela Elstner of France. Culinary Cinema showed “Café Nagler” by Mor Kaplansky and Yariv Barel is being sold internationally by Go2Films.
Teddy 30 (the retrospective of Teddy Award winners over the past 30 years) honored Dan Wolman’s 1979 film “Hide and Seek”/ “Machboim”. Berlinale Shorts screened Rotem Murat’s “Winds Junction” from Sapir College which also holds international rights; Generation 14 Plus screened “Mushkie” by Aleeza Chanowitz from the Jerusalem San Spiegel Film School, being sold by Cinephil. Seven other films were sold in the market by various sales agents.
One of the very special events I attended at the Berlinale this year was the Shabbat Dinner, held the first Friday in the Festival and hosted by Nicola Galliner, Founder and Force of the Berlin Jewish Film Festival. There was a table full of Jews: the new Director of the Jerusalem Film Festival, Noa Regev, PhD; Jay Rosenblatt, Program Director of San Francisco’sJewish Film Institute and its former Director, Peter Stein, now the Senior Programmer of Frameline, San Francisco’s Lgbtq Film Festival; Judy Ironside, the Founder and President of UK Jewish Film and of the sixth edition of the Geneva and Zurich Jewish Film Festivals, the new young director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival, Ariana Cohen-Halberstam who recently moved from the New York Jcc to Boston, the prolific Israeli director, filmmaker Dan Wolman whose new film will soon be out and whose 1979 film “Hide and Seek”/ “Machboim” was part of the Teddy 30th Anniversary Retrospective held by the Berlinale Panorama.
Talk was about films, about politics including gender politics, about our concerns, (we Jews are better worriers than warriors) and just plain gossip.
Now if my readers will excuse my interjecting myself into this article:
It is my opinion that the region of the world called the Middle East, and the three major monotheistic religions of the world whose origin is there had better learn to do more than merely co-exist peacefully if we are to see peaceful and fruitful consequences which will set the world back upon its proper axis.
Art breaks down borders; it is subversive rather than observant of the exigencies of ever changing governments. It creates new perspectives and breaks down old ways of seeing. What I call “Cinema” is Art. Other movies may simply entertain and not aspire to more or they may propagate dogmas, but Art serves no master; it is not tethered; it is freedom of expression which should be honored with freedom to travel.
More than 10 Arab films participated in the Berlinale’s Forum and Forum Expanded programs this year, in addition to the ones which participated in the Official Competition (“Inhebek Hedi”/ “Hedi” from Tunisia and “A Dragon Arrives!” by Mani Haghighi from Iran). This makes an especially remarkable year for Arab cinema’s presence in Berlin.
The Forum focus on Arab cinema, represented with films from Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon, Syria and Saudi Arabia highlights mostly young directors whose works explore both the past and present of their homelands.
The films included: “A Magical Substance Flows into Me” by artist Jumana Manna (Palestine), “Akher ayam el madina”/ “In the Last Days of the City” (Egypt) by Tamer El Said (international sales by Still Moving), documentary “Makhdoumin”/ “A Maid for Each” (Lebanon) by Maher Abi Samra (Isa: Docs & Film), “Barakah yoqabil Barakah”/ “Barakah Meets Barakah” (Saudi Arabia) by Mahmoud Sabbagh and Manazil (Isa: Mpm), “Bela abwab”/ “Houses without Doors” by Syrian-Armenian director Avo Kaprealian. Of course the 46th Berlinale Forum also screens films from European, Latin American and Asian directors.
The Tunisian film in Competition “Inhebek Hedi”/ “Hedi” by Mohamed Ben Attia, won the Best First Feature Award and its leading man, Majd Mastoura, received the prestigious Silver Bear for Best Actor for his role as Hedi. Attia’s debut feature film is a thoughtful love story about identity and independence in Tunisian society. It is being sold internationally by Luxbox.
Palestinian director Mahdi Fleifel won the Silver Bear Jury Prize for Short Film for “ A Man Returned”, a 30-minute portrayal of a young refugee struggling to make a life for himself in Lebanon’s Ain El-Helweh camp, being sold internationally by 3.14 Collectif. He previously made an award-winning documentary about his own experience as a refugee. The short film was also selected as the Berlin Short Film Nominee for the European Film Awards.
The Ecumenical Jury awarded the Forum Prize to Saudi filmmaker Mahmoud Sabbagh for his well-received romantic comedy “Barakah Yoqabil Barakah”/ “Barakah Meets Barakah”, a social commentary on the lives of young people in Saudi Arabia. It shared the prize with Danish production “Les Sauteurs”/ “Those Who Jump” – a film that also highlights the plight of Europe-bound refugees.
Egyptian filmmaker Tamer El-Said’s feature film “Akher Ayam El-Madina”/ “In the Last Days of the City” won the Caligari Film Prize. The film looks at a young filmmaker’s struggle to complete a film about Cairo. It was the only Egyptian film to participate in the 2016 Berlinale Forum.
Lebanese filmmaker Maher Abi Samra’s documentary “Makhdoumin”/ “A Maid for Each”, a look at the legal system that controls the lives of Lebanon’s foreign domestic workers, won the Peace Film Prize.
“Zinzana”/ “Rattle the Cage” director, Majid al Ansari, from the Arab Emirates, was honored with Variety’s Mid-East Filmmaker of the Year Award at the Berlinale. The film is the first genre movie of its kind produced in the UAE. It was financed and produced by Abu Dhabi’s ImageNation. It is repped for Us by Cinetic and international sales are by Im Global.
Projects “Mawlana”, based on Ibrahim Issa’s best-selling novel and shortlisted for the Arabic Booker Prize and director’s Mohamed Yassein’s “Wedding Song” based on Naguib Mahfouz’s novel, the Nobel Prize Winner for Literature were being promoted at the Arab Cinema Center at the Market. Reflecting a decadent Egypt from the 1970s, “Wedding Song” is one of the largest TV productions in the Arab World in 2016.
“Theeb”, a Jordanian Epic about Bedouins, is the Academy Award nomination for Best Foreign Language Film. It played in Venice. International sales agent Fortissimo has licensed it to Film Movement for U.S., ABC for Benelux, New Wave for U.K., As Fidalgo for Norway, Jiff for Australia, trigon-film for Switzerland. Mad Solutions is handling the Middle East. “Ave Maria” a 14-minute Palestine satirical short is the Academy Award nomination for Best Short Fiction and is being sold internationally by Ouat Media. “ The Idol” (Palestine) played Tiff 2015 and other top fests and has sold widely throughout the world through Canada-based international sales agent Seville. Not since Elia Suleiman won the Grand Jury Prize at the 2002 Cannes Film Festival for “Divine Intervention” has a Palestinian film director made as much of an impact as “The Idol” director Hany Abu-Assad whose “Paradise Now” and “Omar” both went to the Academy Awards.
Kudos for much of the success of Arab cinema go to Mad Solutions, the Cairo, Abu Dhabi and New York based marketing and distribution company for its marketing and social media strategies as well as its release of “Theeb”, “Zinzana” and “Ave Maria”. It also helped create the Arab Cinema Center which was launched last year at the Berlinale and Efm.
In all, 20 Mena films played in the Festival and Market this year.
And what of that other small country in the region called Israel (and/ or Palestine) which is not included in the term Mena? While Israeli films that showed in Berlin received international praise, they will never show in any of the Arab countries and are sometimes boycotted by international film festivals who succumb to censorship tactics.
Most of the larger Israeli features go to Cannes, Venice and Toronto; “Afterthought” went to Cannes, “Mountain” to Venice, “Barash” to San Sebastian”, “Wedding Doll” to London and “A.K.A. Nadia” to Talinn Black Nights Film Festival. In Berlin many are screened as German Premieres.
What Israeli films have won acclaim lately? Is it possible that our hero, Katriel Schory, head of the Israel Film Fund, whose stand for true art has earned him Israeli government censure at home (A prophet is never honored in his own land) and fame abroad with new countries striving to create national cinema, is being eclipsed by the growth of “Arab” cinema?
“Sandstorm” directed by Elite Zexer (international sales by Beta) made its way to Panorama from its world premiere in Sundance where it won the Best Actress Award for Palestinian actress Lamis Ammar’s portrayal of a young Bedouin woman forced to choose between modern freedom or traditional societal strictures within an arranged marriage.
Panorama also screened “Junction 48” (international sales by The Match Factory) which received international praise and audience acclaim. The Israeli-Palestinian hip-hop movie by Israeli-American filmmaker, Udi Aloni, was supported by the Israel-based Rabinovich Foundation. The story is about Kareem who lives in a mixed Jewish-Arab crime-ridden ghetto outside Tel Aviv. He deals drugs and lives dangerously until he discovers hip-hop and decides to express his life as a Palestinian youth along with young singer Manar. Palestinian and Israeli musicians drive this music movie and for Aloni, just seeing the film made, and then shown at the Berlin Film Festival proves its success.
“Suddenly a group of people just choose to make a film and the film is extremely professional. It’s very important that this bi-national energy can create high quality stuff, the high quality is almost the symbol of the resistance. We should not even have to tell the story about the issue. The fact that we could create it is amazing,” Aloni told Euronews.
Thirty-seven-year-old Arab-Israeli rapper Tamer Nafar plays the lead role, and has known the 56-year-old Aloni for some time. “We have been on the same demonstrations, in the parties since 2000, so we live in each other’s world. He has been to my concerts many times, he directed a video clip, I was in his movies as a producer a few times. It’s not about an old generation and new generation, it’s just about creating the right generation,” he said. “He has that gift of being a good story teller and director but he gives us the stage, no, he doesn’t give us a stage, we are building a stage together… he has his own perspective but we are all on the same level,” said actress Samar Qupty. The struggle for equal rights for Palestinians or Arab Israelis inside Israel is at its crux.
Panorama Documents screened “Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?” directed by Tomer Haymann and Barak Heymann co-directed by Alexander Bodin Saphir and being sold by Austria’s Autlook. Forum showed “ Inertia” by Idan Haguel being sold by Oration Films’ Timothy O’Brian of the U.S., and “Between Fences” by Avi Mograbi, being sold by Docs & Film’s Daniela Elstner of France. Culinary Cinema showed “Café Nagler” by Mor Kaplansky and Yariv Barel is being sold internationally by Go2Films.
Teddy 30 (the retrospective of Teddy Award winners over the past 30 years) honored Dan Wolman’s 1979 film “Hide and Seek”/ “Machboim”. Berlinale Shorts screened Rotem Murat’s “Winds Junction” from Sapir College which also holds international rights; Generation 14 Plus screened “Mushkie” by Aleeza Chanowitz from the Jerusalem San Spiegel Film School, being sold by Cinephil. Seven other films were sold in the market by various sales agents.
One of the very special events I attended at the Berlinale this year was the Shabbat Dinner, held the first Friday in the Festival and hosted by Nicola Galliner, Founder and Force of the Berlin Jewish Film Festival. There was a table full of Jews: the new Director of the Jerusalem Film Festival, Noa Regev, PhD; Jay Rosenblatt, Program Director of San Francisco’sJewish Film Institute and its former Director, Peter Stein, now the Senior Programmer of Frameline, San Francisco’s Lgbtq Film Festival; Judy Ironside, the Founder and President of UK Jewish Film and of the sixth edition of the Geneva and Zurich Jewish Film Festivals, the new young director of the Boston Jewish Film Festival, Ariana Cohen-Halberstam who recently moved from the New York Jcc to Boston, the prolific Israeli director, filmmaker Dan Wolman whose new film will soon be out and whose 1979 film “Hide and Seek”/ “Machboim” was part of the Teddy 30th Anniversary Retrospective held by the Berlinale Panorama.
Talk was about films, about politics including gender politics, about our concerns, (we Jews are better worriers than warriors) and just plain gossip.
Now if my readers will excuse my interjecting myself into this article:
It is my opinion that the region of the world called the Middle East, and the three major monotheistic religions of the world whose origin is there had better learn to do more than merely co-exist peacefully if we are to see peaceful and fruitful consequences which will set the world back upon its proper axis.
Art breaks down borders; it is subversive rather than observant of the exigencies of ever changing governments. It creates new perspectives and breaks down old ways of seeing. What I call “Cinema” is Art. Other movies may simply entertain and not aspire to more or they may propagate dogmas, but Art serves no master; it is not tethered; it is freedom of expression which should be honored with freedom to travel.
- 3/6/2016
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
School of Film Agents celebrated its third edition in Wroclaw, Poland, bringing together, once again, some of the best and most promising young players active in the European film industry today. The unique, core philosophy behind Sofa is the initiative's continuous commitment to strengthening the film landscape of countries in Central and Eastern Europe, Central Asia and the Caucasus States where unstable political and economical conditions result in an underdeveloped film industry.
Sofa-Founder Nikolaj Nikitin: "Granted, many films from these countries are being successfully screened at the big film festivals. Nonetheless, they are still lacking the necessary infrastructure and institutional support that not only acknowledges and strengthens the position of film as an art form and relevant socio-cultural and economic factor, but also backs the much-needed film mediators managing these initiatives - such as film festival-makers, distributors and cinema operators."
The Program
Ten intensive days of workshop participation were made available to the eight film agents and their top-class tutors, where, together, they were given the opportunity to successfully develop and push their promising ideas forward towards realization. Strengths and weaknesses of the projects pitched were openly and constructively discussed in close dialogue with some of the biggest names in the European film industry. Lectures and panel discussions dealing with the central topics at hand were visited and numerous in-depth one-to-one meetings took place. In comparison to last year's edition, this year, an intensive exchange between mentors and participants was able to take place already in advance guaranteeing optimal preparation for the workshop activities ahead.
The film agents and their film projects
In its third year, Sofa was, once again, able to pave the way towards realization for eight particularly committed projects. The eight participants were selected out of over one hundred applicants in total - the rising number of applications in 2015 is a clear confirmation of the growing popularity of Sofa.
The goal of strengthening the regional film culture and industries in their respective countries unified most of the participants' projects in 2015. Additionally the production and distribution of European co-productions within the international theatrical market also took center stage at this year's Sofa edition.
With her project Lviv Film Commission the Ukrainian participant Olha Reiter pursued the establishment of the first regional film commission in the Ukraine, a project which already commenced with its important work in August earlier this year.
The Dushanbe Documentary Film Center from Sergey Chutkov serves as a place for film education in Tajikistan - a platform providing space, equipment and seminars for the production of documentary films by young filmmakers.
The project Criss-Cross Film Lab developed by the Serbian participant Milica Bozanic would also like to provide a space for workshops and networking. In addition to bringing together young filmmakers with producers, business skills and marketing strategies will also be taught.
A mobile film educational project will be put into motion by the Polish participant Malgorzata Tusk. With her project Cinebus - Mobile Center of Audiovisual Education she would like to bring the already well-established workshop initiative "Film Spring Open" (led by the world-renowned Dop Slawomir Idziak) into light in Poland.
With his project Cuz We Are Talented, the Czech participant Michal Kracmer plans to steer the attention to young talents from countries in Central Europe while promoting co-productions between these countries.
Conceptualized as a full-service agency, the project Kaleidoscope, developed by the Slovakian participant Katarina Tomkova, intends to offer consultation and internationalization strategies from script to theatrical release.
The Romanian participant Dorina Oarga aims to digitize student films from the National University of Theatre and Film Archive and make them available online with her project Cinepub 2nd Life - a pilot project with the intention of preserving the film heritage of Romania.
Creating new visibility for ambitious children's films is the goal of the möwe. derKinderFilmVerleih, conceptualized by the German Sofa-participant Hella Riehl.
The Lecturers
Each of the eight participants had a tutor by his/her side offering project feedback from his/her own special and professional perspective. The following mentors lent their expertise to Sofa this year: Claudia Dillmann (Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt), Maciej Jakubczyk (New Horizons Association, Wroclaw), Matthijs Wouter Knol (European Film Market, Berlin), Roberto Olla (Eurimages, Strasbourg), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund, Tel Aviv), Riina Sildos (Baltic Event, Tallinn), Tamara Tatishvili (Ablabudafilm, Tbilisi) und Kristina Trapp (Eave, Luxemburg). An additional lecture dealing with the topic of Marketing and Consumer Psychology was presented by Domenico la Porta (Cineuropa, Brussels).
Four further experts - each of whom have been an integral part of the Sofa-Team since the inception of the initiative - accompanied the participants from the first day to the very last of the workshop. Participants were able to develop individually tailored marketing strategies for their projects with Renaud Redien-Collot (Novancia Business School, Paris), while Pitching Expert Sibylle Kurz (Frankfurt am Main) ensured that projects are presented with a sense of confidence and ease. Oliver Baumgarten (Programme Director, Max Ophüls Preis, Saarbrücken) und Oscar-Winner Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film, Lodz) were also present, offering individual feedback-meetings aimed at stylistically and conceptually enhancing the participants' concept drafts as well as helping them to work out appropriate budgeting and realistic timeline schemes for their projects.
The Sofa-participants and lecturers were invited to attend a Film-Preview of the Cannes-premiered Swedish-Polish co-production "The Here After" in Wroclaw's largest arthouse cinema. After the screening director Magnus von Horn and producer Mariusz Wlodarski spoke about opportunities within and the challenges facing the European co-production scene.
Film culture for the future - success stories
A look back at the last two editions of Sofa proves that the pan-European Thinktank dedicated to the future of cinema is truly making waves with sustainable signs of change and the first projects bearing fruit. Many of the projects from the last two years have been able to be successfully realized or are close to realization and implementation.
The Eurimage-backed Serbian Sofa-project Fbo - Festival Box Office by Sonja Topalovic was launched as a beta version in February at the Berlinale. A presentation of the interactive online-database for film festivals followed in the Spring in Cannes. Meanwhile, Fbo is closely cooperating with the Film Center Serbia, officially evaluating for them the number of visitors and ticket sales of art house theaters participating at Serbian film festivals. Moreover, negotiations are continuously taking place with numerous international film festivals, not only keeping the project's network flow in full-swing, but also helping to supplement their valuable database at the same time. As an innovative business tool, Fbo has long-term, world-wide plans to evaluate the success of art house films screened at festivals, thereby giving key players in the industry invaluable insight into understanding public taste.
Leana Jalukse's project Doktok - a distribution initiative for Estonian documentary films was able to be realized with the help of Sofa. Leana was also able to participate in a six-week German language course in Munich where she completed a creative internship with Beta Cinema. This combination of language training with professional internship possibilities is the result of cooperation between Sofa and the Goethe-Institut Prague and will be continued in 2016. Former Sofa-participants Anna Bielak (Poland) and Gábor Böszörményi (Hungary) have also been able to take part in a German language course whilst building up their networks of German business contacts.
The Romanian Sofa-project Transilvania Film Fund by Cristian Hordila is close to being fully implemented and the Lithuanian Sofa-project Front - Film Republic of Networked Theatres by Kestutis Drazdauskas is making headway with the digitalization of cultural centers in Lithuania. The first agreements with local government administrative agencies have been reached and plans are being made to incorporate the private sector into the overall financing scheme of the project. Kestutis is also working out further financial support with Fatima Djoumer (Europe Cinemas), who plans to visit with him in Lithuania this Fall.
Sofa-Founder Nikolaj Nikitin: "Granted, many films from these countries are being successfully screened at the big film festivals. Nonetheless, they are still lacking the necessary infrastructure and institutional support that not only acknowledges and strengthens the position of film as an art form and relevant socio-cultural and economic factor, but also backs the much-needed film mediators managing these initiatives - such as film festival-makers, distributors and cinema operators."
The Program
Ten intensive days of workshop participation were made available to the eight film agents and their top-class tutors, where, together, they were given the opportunity to successfully develop and push their promising ideas forward towards realization. Strengths and weaknesses of the projects pitched were openly and constructively discussed in close dialogue with some of the biggest names in the European film industry. Lectures and panel discussions dealing with the central topics at hand were visited and numerous in-depth one-to-one meetings took place. In comparison to last year's edition, this year, an intensive exchange between mentors and participants was able to take place already in advance guaranteeing optimal preparation for the workshop activities ahead.
The film agents and their film projects
In its third year, Sofa was, once again, able to pave the way towards realization for eight particularly committed projects. The eight participants were selected out of over one hundred applicants in total - the rising number of applications in 2015 is a clear confirmation of the growing popularity of Sofa.
The goal of strengthening the regional film culture and industries in their respective countries unified most of the participants' projects in 2015. Additionally the production and distribution of European co-productions within the international theatrical market also took center stage at this year's Sofa edition.
With her project Lviv Film Commission the Ukrainian participant Olha Reiter pursued the establishment of the first regional film commission in the Ukraine, a project which already commenced with its important work in August earlier this year.
The Dushanbe Documentary Film Center from Sergey Chutkov serves as a place for film education in Tajikistan - a platform providing space, equipment and seminars for the production of documentary films by young filmmakers.
The project Criss-Cross Film Lab developed by the Serbian participant Milica Bozanic would also like to provide a space for workshops and networking. In addition to bringing together young filmmakers with producers, business skills and marketing strategies will also be taught.
A mobile film educational project will be put into motion by the Polish participant Malgorzata Tusk. With her project Cinebus - Mobile Center of Audiovisual Education she would like to bring the already well-established workshop initiative "Film Spring Open" (led by the world-renowned Dop Slawomir Idziak) into light in Poland.
With his project Cuz We Are Talented, the Czech participant Michal Kracmer plans to steer the attention to young talents from countries in Central Europe while promoting co-productions between these countries.
Conceptualized as a full-service agency, the project Kaleidoscope, developed by the Slovakian participant Katarina Tomkova, intends to offer consultation and internationalization strategies from script to theatrical release.
The Romanian participant Dorina Oarga aims to digitize student films from the National University of Theatre and Film Archive and make them available online with her project Cinepub 2nd Life - a pilot project with the intention of preserving the film heritage of Romania.
Creating new visibility for ambitious children's films is the goal of the möwe. derKinderFilmVerleih, conceptualized by the German Sofa-participant Hella Riehl.
The Lecturers
Each of the eight participants had a tutor by his/her side offering project feedback from his/her own special and professional perspective. The following mentors lent their expertise to Sofa this year: Claudia Dillmann (Deutsches Filminstitut, Frankfurt), Maciej Jakubczyk (New Horizons Association, Wroclaw), Matthijs Wouter Knol (European Film Market, Berlin), Roberto Olla (Eurimages, Strasbourg), Katriel Schory (Israel Film Fund, Tel Aviv), Riina Sildos (Baltic Event, Tallinn), Tamara Tatishvili (Ablabudafilm, Tbilisi) und Kristina Trapp (Eave, Luxemburg). An additional lecture dealing with the topic of Marketing and Consumer Psychology was presented by Domenico la Porta (Cineuropa, Brussels).
Four further experts - each of whom have been an integral part of the Sofa-Team since the inception of the initiative - accompanied the participants from the first day to the very last of the workshop. Participants were able to develop individually tailored marketing strategies for their projects with Renaud Redien-Collot (Novancia Business School, Paris), while Pitching Expert Sibylle Kurz (Frankfurt am Main) ensured that projects are presented with a sense of confidence and ease. Oliver Baumgarten (Programme Director, Max Ophüls Preis, Saarbrücken) und Oscar-Winner Ewa Puszczynska (Opus Film, Lodz) were also present, offering individual feedback-meetings aimed at stylistically and conceptually enhancing the participants' concept drafts as well as helping them to work out appropriate budgeting and realistic timeline schemes for their projects.
The Sofa-participants and lecturers were invited to attend a Film-Preview of the Cannes-premiered Swedish-Polish co-production "The Here After" in Wroclaw's largest arthouse cinema. After the screening director Magnus von Horn and producer Mariusz Wlodarski spoke about opportunities within and the challenges facing the European co-production scene.
Film culture for the future - success stories
A look back at the last two editions of Sofa proves that the pan-European Thinktank dedicated to the future of cinema is truly making waves with sustainable signs of change and the first projects bearing fruit. Many of the projects from the last two years have been able to be successfully realized or are close to realization and implementation.
The Eurimage-backed Serbian Sofa-project Fbo - Festival Box Office by Sonja Topalovic was launched as a beta version in February at the Berlinale. A presentation of the interactive online-database for film festivals followed in the Spring in Cannes. Meanwhile, Fbo is closely cooperating with the Film Center Serbia, officially evaluating for them the number of visitors and ticket sales of art house theaters participating at Serbian film festivals. Moreover, negotiations are continuously taking place with numerous international film festivals, not only keeping the project's network flow in full-swing, but also helping to supplement their valuable database at the same time. As an innovative business tool, Fbo has long-term, world-wide plans to evaluate the success of art house films screened at festivals, thereby giving key players in the industry invaluable insight into understanding public taste.
Leana Jalukse's project Doktok - a distribution initiative for Estonian documentary films was able to be realized with the help of Sofa. Leana was also able to participate in a six-week German language course in Munich where she completed a creative internship with Beta Cinema. This combination of language training with professional internship possibilities is the result of cooperation between Sofa and the Goethe-Institut Prague and will be continued in 2016. Former Sofa-participants Anna Bielak (Poland) and Gábor Böszörményi (Hungary) have also been able to take part in a German language course whilst building up their networks of German business contacts.
The Romanian Sofa-project Transilvania Film Fund by Cristian Hordila is close to being fully implemented and the Lithuanian Sofa-project Front - Film Republic of Networked Theatres by Kestutis Drazdauskas is making headway with the digitalization of cultural centers in Lithuania. The first agreements with local government administrative agencies have been reached and plans are being made to incorporate the private sector into the overall financing scheme of the project. Kestutis is also working out further financial support with Fatima Djoumer (Europe Cinemas), who plans to visit with him in Lithuania this Fall.
- 11/12/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Film about female empowement in a conservative Bedouin community wins showcase.
Elite Zexer’s first feature Sand Storm and Eitan Anner’s A Quiet Heart have won the First Look Award in Locarno’s showcase, which was dedicated this year to selected Israeli films in post-production.
Jury member Karel Och, director of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, presented the first prize of $66,000 (€60,000) worth of picture post-production services sponsored by Rotor Film to Sand Storm’s producers Haim Mecklberg and Estee Yacov-Mecklberg for its “mature, deeply observant storytelling and courageous depiction of the layered struggles of several generations of women”.
Sand Storm centres on a Bedouin mother and daughter testing the limits of their conservative community.
Fellow jury member, Sundance programming director John Nein handed over the second prize - $6,000 (€5,500) worth of advertising donated by the French trade magazine Le Film Francais - to A Quiet Heart’s producer Gal Greenspan of Green Productions for its “urgency...
Elite Zexer’s first feature Sand Storm and Eitan Anner’s A Quiet Heart have won the First Look Award in Locarno’s showcase, which was dedicated this year to selected Israeli films in post-production.
Jury member Karel Och, director of the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, presented the first prize of $66,000 (€60,000) worth of picture post-production services sponsored by Rotor Film to Sand Storm’s producers Haim Mecklberg and Estee Yacov-Mecklberg for its “mature, deeply observant storytelling and courageous depiction of the layered struggles of several generations of women”.
Sand Storm centres on a Bedouin mother and daughter testing the limits of their conservative community.
Fellow jury member, Sundance programming director John Nein handed over the second prize - $6,000 (€5,500) worth of advertising donated by the French trade magazine Le Film Francais - to A Quiet Heart’s producer Gal Greenspan of Green Productions for its “urgency...
- 8/11/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
According to local filmmakers, the recent suppression of documentary Beyond The Fear is just one episode in a quickening erosion of artistic freedom in Israel.
As Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre began to roll on the opening night of the Jerusalem Film Festival in the picturesque Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre in early July, another screening was kicking off just metres above the spectators’ heads.
On a terrace overlooking the event, some 50 film-makers and producers had gathered for a protest screening of Maria Kravchenko and the late Herz Frank’s Beyond The Fear.
They included The Kindergarten Teacher director Nadav Lapid; Keren Yedaya, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her debut work Or; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose credits include the award-winning The Law In These Parts; and Shlomi Elkabetz, co-director of the Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May 2014 and went on to win best film at...
As Nanni Moretti’s Mia Madre began to roll on the opening night of the Jerusalem Film Festival in the picturesque Sultan’s Pool amphitheatre in early July, another screening was kicking off just metres above the spectators’ heads.
On a terrace overlooking the event, some 50 film-makers and producers had gathered for a protest screening of Maria Kravchenko and the late Herz Frank’s Beyond The Fear.
They included The Kindergarten Teacher director Nadav Lapid; Keren Yedaya, who won Cannes’ Camera d’Or for her debut work Or; Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, whose credits include the award-winning The Law In These Parts; and Shlomi Elkabetz, co-director of the Golden Globe-nominated Gett: The Trial Of Viviane Amsalem which premiered in Cannes Directors’ Fortnight in May 2014 and went on to win best film at...
- 7/24/2015
- ScreenDaily
Producer-director Andrey Silvestrov’s The Ice Hole was named the winner of the first Screen International Best Pitch Award at the Moscow Business Square (Mbs).
The €400,000 comedy by Silvestrov’s new company Cooperation Propub is based on characters who are typical to the modern world: an artist, an oligarch, the Russian president and an alcoholic.
The ironic and tragic view of modern Russia also received an award sponsored by the Russian company Cosmosfilm.
In addition, the Finnish post-production house Post Control offered production services as a prize to Elizaveta Stishova’s Suleiman Mountain by Trikita Entertainment, which is being developed as part of the B’Est training programme.
The Mgap entertainment legal practice donated a prize of legal advice to the documentary project Baubxy about the Bauhaus and Vkhutemas movements by Sergei Shanovich.
Valeriy Polienko’s 1990s-set drama Kosa was selected by the Russian crowdfunding platform Planeta.ru to receive professional advice on its production.
The award-winning...
The €400,000 comedy by Silvestrov’s new company Cooperation Propub is based on characters who are typical to the modern world: an artist, an oligarch, the Russian president and an alcoholic.
The ironic and tragic view of modern Russia also received an award sponsored by the Russian company Cosmosfilm.
In addition, the Finnish post-production house Post Control offered production services as a prize to Elizaveta Stishova’s Suleiman Mountain by Trikita Entertainment, which is being developed as part of the B’Est training programme.
The Mgap entertainment legal practice donated a prize of legal advice to the documentary project Baubxy about the Bauhaus and Vkhutemas movements by Sergei Shanovich.
Valeriy Polienko’s 1990s-set drama Kosa was selected by the Russian crowdfunding platform Planeta.ru to receive professional advice on its production.
The award-winning...
- 6/24/2015
- by screen.berlin@googlemail.com (Martin Blaney)
- ScreenDaily
Exclusive: Diana Elbaum, Katriel Schory among speakers, strands added.
Cannes has revealed the programme for its producers workshop (May 13-16), with new additions including a speed-dating event aimed at spotlighting strong global coproduction markets.
Speakers at the workshop will include Lucius Barre, Diana Elbaum, Katriel Schory, Peter Wetherell, Sarah Calderon and Linda Beath.
Launched five years ago, the three-day event organized by the Marché du Film, aims to give up-and-coming producers hands on experience of the international market place.
The 2015 programme will include the following sessions:
B2B Marketing Tools & Strategies with Eave expert Sarah Calderon;
Mining Europe for Co-productions with Eave expert Linda Beath;
Branding Yourself and Your Projects with Eave expert Roshanak Behesht Nedjad;
What Kind of a Producer Are You? with Diana Elbaum and Katriel Schory;
How to Navigate the International Market and Festival Circuit with Tobias Pausinger and Jacobine Van Der Vloed.
Julie Bergeron, head of industry programmes for the Cannes Marché, said:...
Cannes has revealed the programme for its producers workshop (May 13-16), with new additions including a speed-dating event aimed at spotlighting strong global coproduction markets.
Speakers at the workshop will include Lucius Barre, Diana Elbaum, Katriel Schory, Peter Wetherell, Sarah Calderon and Linda Beath.
Launched five years ago, the three-day event organized by the Marché du Film, aims to give up-and-coming producers hands on experience of the international market place.
The 2015 programme will include the following sessions:
B2B Marketing Tools & Strategies with Eave expert Sarah Calderon;
Mining Europe for Co-productions with Eave expert Linda Beath;
Branding Yourself and Your Projects with Eave expert Roshanak Behesht Nedjad;
What Kind of a Producer Are You? with Diana Elbaum and Katriel Schory;
How to Navigate the International Market and Festival Circuit with Tobias Pausinger and Jacobine Van Der Vloed.
Julie Bergeron, head of industry programmes for the Cannes Marché, said:...
- 4/10/2015
- by andreas.wiseman@screendaily.com (Andreas Wiseman)
- ScreenDaily
Taking place April 4-19, the festival will feature over 200 films, including recent world premieres from Sundance and Berlin.
Istanbul Film Festival has unveiled the lineup to its upcoming edition, taking place from April 4-19.
This year will feature over 200 films from 62 countries, as well as free talks and workshops by film-makers and masterclasses. New sections at this year’s festival include a special focus on cinema of the Balkans and a focus on German animation.
The festival’s international competition includes the likes of Cédric Kahn’s Wild Life, Quentin Dupieux’s Reality, Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls and Thomas Vinterberg’s Far from the Madding Crowd, while the national competition will screen Ali Atay’s Lemonade, Selim Evci’s Secret and Mehmet Eryılmaz’s The Visitor, among others.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, Jc Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years and Matthew Warchus’ Pride are among this year’s Akbank Gala screenings...
Istanbul Film Festival has unveiled the lineup to its upcoming edition, taking place from April 4-19.
This year will feature over 200 films from 62 countries, as well as free talks and workshops by film-makers and masterclasses. New sections at this year’s festival include a special focus on cinema of the Balkans and a focus on German animation.
The festival’s international competition includes the likes of Cédric Kahn’s Wild Life, Quentin Dupieux’s Reality, Francesco Munzi’s Black Souls and Thomas Vinterberg’s Far from the Madding Crowd, while the national competition will screen Ali Atay’s Lemonade, Selim Evci’s Secret and Mehmet Eryılmaz’s The Visitor, among others.
Paul Thomas Anderson’s Inherent Vice, Jc Chandor’s A Most Violent Year, Andrew Haigh’s 45 Years and Matthew Warchus’ Pride are among this year’s Akbank Gala screenings...
- 3/13/2015
- by ian.sandwell@screendaily.com (Ian Sandwell)
- ScreenDaily
When I go to the Berlin Talents every February where I talk about the international film business, or when I teach at the Deutsche Welle Akademie to Film Festival Directors from Asia, Africa and Latin America, I am inspired to see the diversity of the well educated, articulate and idealistic younger generation.
This new generation is organizing festivals as new channels of distribution, creating new audiences from heretofore little heard-of places in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and via the Talents, everywhere else in the world. The Talents themselves are living all over the world, and their parents often come from still other faraway and little known countries and cities. These "third culture kids" aka Tck may well be running things very soon.
Last year when a young woman director, seeking some guidance began to explain to me that she knew being a woman with an Egyptian father and a Somalian mother, living in London was not exactly a recipe for success, I interrupted her to tell her never to explain, apologize or negate herself; that her origins and parentage are the new normal and they can make our world a new diverse world in which everyone has a share and in which unique stories that others want to hear can find their audiences.
My own proclivities to diversity -- I belong to a minority group that is increasingly vilified and yet is always at the forefront of every field (except sports and dance) -- that is, I am Jewish -- sensitizes me to what is good or bad for the Jews.
My reflex reaction to every news item reflects this. For example, Bernie Madoff : Bad for the Jews. Nobel prize winner? Good for the Jews.
I am also an American. And I am thrilled when I see The Americas bonding together to make movies. Los Cabos International Film Festival, with its motto, "Get to know your neighbors" and its mission of unifying a production community of both indies and studios from Mexico, U.S. and Canada (and the rest of the Americas) brought this exciting development to the forefront of my mind.
On the Jewish side of this development, it is also great because in our business there are always Jews, no matter where, even in Palestinian production, thanks to Katriel Schory of the Israel Film Fund. That is, in fact, why I entered this crazy business in the first place.
Recently I read the front page of the L.A. Times and saw that China is really seeking a foothold in our U.S. business. Megaconglomerate, Dalian Wanda -- employer of our dear friend, Rose Kuo, and employer of the former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Hawk Koch -- is eyeing Lionsgate (and MGM who still produces the James Bond franchise) for acquisition. Lionsgate already has a streaming VoD deal with the other Chinese megaconglomerate, Alibaba, which looks like it is about to dwarf Amazon.
That is natural connection in many ways. Lionsgate has a stable and friendly team whose players, from Jon Feltheimer, Michael Burns, John Dellaverson, Steve Beeks, Jason Constantine, Eda Kowan, and even the comparatively newcomer to LG, Patrick Wachsberger and his team, have been together a very long time making LG one of the most stable companies in the business. At face value, when reckoning the Us $40.9 million gross in China of "Escape Plan", a Us $25.1 million grosser in U.S., or "The Hunger Games" which in China grossed U.S. $27.9 million and in U.S. Grossed Us $408 million, this looks like a good match.
Let me go back one step before I step forward into the Dance of the New Year with the points I want to make in this blog.
One step back:
Three years ago, the Chinese paid for the most lavish Cannes Market Opening Night party we had seen in a very long time. The following year India hosted the party on a decidedly lesser budget. The following year it reverted to the Chinese. The Chinese firework display, their food, their extravaganza entertainment that first year had everybody buzzing, "The Chinese are taking over." This was said as a fearful revelation and with a tinge of xenophobia.
U.S. Debt: owned by China
African developing industry: owned by China
All the factories and steel of Germany: bought and exported by China
Cannes Market: owned by China (not so)
Everybody recognizes the might of China's economic power. Are we friends? Are they potential enemies? In trade we know friendliness is much more profitable than enmity, which is why the world needs to live in peaceful coexistence. China has 4,000 years of business dealings and bureaucratic and political infrastructure building, quite a jump over our measly 125 years of Capitalism.
That is Step One.
Steps Forward: Two and Three, Four, Five and Six
Step Two:
If Wang Jianlin, owner of Dalian Wanda Group buys Lionsgate and MGM, which seems likely in 2015, what does that mean for us? Lionsgate already has a deal for digital on demand with the Chinese megaconglomerate Alibaba.
One, as Jews, it is like the 1948 novel Peony by Pearl Buck. The Chinese don't care that the waves of Chinese populations act like tsunamis. And being engulfed in a tsunami does not mean an end to life. It means the continuation of new, formerly small forms of life which are presently defining themselves as recognizable market forces and which resemble the Afghan-Chinese children who were born in Africa but live in London, or The Jews who look Chinese or Indian rather than "white". These are the "Third Culture Kids", aka Tck, and they are our future.
Steps Three, Four, Five and Six
Lionsgate owns “The Hunger Games” franchise, The Tyler Perry franchise, and it has a solid share in The Eugenio Derbez (read "Latino") franchise, 3Pas Studios. What this promises for diversity is phenomenal:
Three:
Women have a share in "The Hunger Games"...and I hope that a new twosome for the big screen will soon be Reese Witherspoon and Eugene Derbez who have the potential of becoming this century's Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. "It Happened One Night" remains a classic.
Four:
African Americans have a share as a recognizable market force as the Tyler Perry franchise proves. The “new” demographic can define and refine new audiences in the rising middle classes of Africa. The extraordinary numbers of African buyers at Afm this year attest to their rising economic power.
Five:
Asian Americans have a huge new market too. Finally the niche indie players will find kindred groups in So. Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong, etc. who will show their appreciation of Hollywood trained talent who happen to also be Asian and have struggled for so long to find a foothold in this business.
Six:
And Latin America, the only region in the world without any vexing international competitive opponents, the only region never hit by the military war machine (not to say they have been free of military dictatorships in their histories or subjugated by colonial powers); Latam offers a potential audience of 470 million Spanish speakers.
The diversity of the niche streams will form a strong current. That is where I am seeing the excitement fomenting.
Giants do not live alone among themselves. Even in fairy tales, the people in the cities are the focus of their power. Analogous to that, the U.S. Major Studios, weakened by the growth of independent cinema are now finding major allies among the Chinese and Indians (Reliance does own Dreamworks and Im Global). And as they ever seek new talent to revitalize their propensity to grow fat and slower, so again we can watch and partake in a new growth, a new vitality in our worldwide moving picture industry. There is enough to go around. The majors, while guarding their lion’s share of the market still must spread the wealth because they no longer own all the means of production or distribution.
The 1% cannot hoard its wealth when a new giant is stalking the land and is spreading its wealth in creative ways which bring new life to the bit players looking for work.
More movies with bigger budgets and more megaplexes worldwide mean more actors, directors, writers, producers, teachers and trainers for both cineastes and the general public to buy more tickets...that is show business.
Out with the old stagnation, and in with the new currents. May they become a tonic wave of power that we all can ride into shore. (Thank you Stefan Zweig for your metaphor of 100 years ago.).
Have a healthy, happy and profitable 2015!
This new generation is organizing festivals as new channels of distribution, creating new audiences from heretofore little heard-of places in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and via the Talents, everywhere else in the world. The Talents themselves are living all over the world, and their parents often come from still other faraway and little known countries and cities. These "third culture kids" aka Tck may well be running things very soon.
Last year when a young woman director, seeking some guidance began to explain to me that she knew being a woman with an Egyptian father and a Somalian mother, living in London was not exactly a recipe for success, I interrupted her to tell her never to explain, apologize or negate herself; that her origins and parentage are the new normal and they can make our world a new diverse world in which everyone has a share and in which unique stories that others want to hear can find their audiences.
My own proclivities to diversity -- I belong to a minority group that is increasingly vilified and yet is always at the forefront of every field (except sports and dance) -- that is, I am Jewish -- sensitizes me to what is good or bad for the Jews.
My reflex reaction to every news item reflects this. For example, Bernie Madoff : Bad for the Jews. Nobel prize winner? Good for the Jews.
I am also an American. And I am thrilled when I see The Americas bonding together to make movies. Los Cabos International Film Festival, with its motto, "Get to know your neighbors" and its mission of unifying a production community of both indies and studios from Mexico, U.S. and Canada (and the rest of the Americas) brought this exciting development to the forefront of my mind.
On the Jewish side of this development, it is also great because in our business there are always Jews, no matter where, even in Palestinian production, thanks to Katriel Schory of the Israel Film Fund. That is, in fact, why I entered this crazy business in the first place.
Recently I read the front page of the L.A. Times and saw that China is really seeking a foothold in our U.S. business. Megaconglomerate, Dalian Wanda -- employer of our dear friend, Rose Kuo, and employer of the former President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), Hawk Koch -- is eyeing Lionsgate (and MGM who still produces the James Bond franchise) for acquisition. Lionsgate already has a streaming VoD deal with the other Chinese megaconglomerate, Alibaba, which looks like it is about to dwarf Amazon.
That is natural connection in many ways. Lionsgate has a stable and friendly team whose players, from Jon Feltheimer, Michael Burns, John Dellaverson, Steve Beeks, Jason Constantine, Eda Kowan, and even the comparatively newcomer to LG, Patrick Wachsberger and his team, have been together a very long time making LG one of the most stable companies in the business. At face value, when reckoning the Us $40.9 million gross in China of "Escape Plan", a Us $25.1 million grosser in U.S., or "The Hunger Games" which in China grossed U.S. $27.9 million and in U.S. Grossed Us $408 million, this looks like a good match.
Let me go back one step before I step forward into the Dance of the New Year with the points I want to make in this blog.
One step back:
Three years ago, the Chinese paid for the most lavish Cannes Market Opening Night party we had seen in a very long time. The following year India hosted the party on a decidedly lesser budget. The following year it reverted to the Chinese. The Chinese firework display, their food, their extravaganza entertainment that first year had everybody buzzing, "The Chinese are taking over." This was said as a fearful revelation and with a tinge of xenophobia.
U.S. Debt: owned by China
African developing industry: owned by China
All the factories and steel of Germany: bought and exported by China
Cannes Market: owned by China (not so)
Everybody recognizes the might of China's economic power. Are we friends? Are they potential enemies? In trade we know friendliness is much more profitable than enmity, which is why the world needs to live in peaceful coexistence. China has 4,000 years of business dealings and bureaucratic and political infrastructure building, quite a jump over our measly 125 years of Capitalism.
That is Step One.
Steps Forward: Two and Three, Four, Five and Six
Step Two:
If Wang Jianlin, owner of Dalian Wanda Group buys Lionsgate and MGM, which seems likely in 2015, what does that mean for us? Lionsgate already has a deal for digital on demand with the Chinese megaconglomerate Alibaba.
One, as Jews, it is like the 1948 novel Peony by Pearl Buck. The Chinese don't care that the waves of Chinese populations act like tsunamis. And being engulfed in a tsunami does not mean an end to life. It means the continuation of new, formerly small forms of life which are presently defining themselves as recognizable market forces and which resemble the Afghan-Chinese children who were born in Africa but live in London, or The Jews who look Chinese or Indian rather than "white". These are the "Third Culture Kids", aka Tck, and they are our future.
Steps Three, Four, Five and Six
Lionsgate owns “The Hunger Games” franchise, The Tyler Perry franchise, and it has a solid share in The Eugenio Derbez (read "Latino") franchise, 3Pas Studios. What this promises for diversity is phenomenal:
Three:
Women have a share in "The Hunger Games"...and I hope that a new twosome for the big screen will soon be Reese Witherspoon and Eugene Derbez who have the potential of becoming this century's Claudette Colbert and Clark Gable. "It Happened One Night" remains a classic.
Four:
African Americans have a share as a recognizable market force as the Tyler Perry franchise proves. The “new” demographic can define and refine new audiences in the rising middle classes of Africa. The extraordinary numbers of African buyers at Afm this year attest to their rising economic power.
Five:
Asian Americans have a huge new market too. Finally the niche indie players will find kindred groups in So. Korea, China, Japan, Malaysia and Thailand, Taiwan and Hong Kong, etc. who will show their appreciation of Hollywood trained talent who happen to also be Asian and have struggled for so long to find a foothold in this business.
Six:
And Latin America, the only region in the world without any vexing international competitive opponents, the only region never hit by the military war machine (not to say they have been free of military dictatorships in their histories or subjugated by colonial powers); Latam offers a potential audience of 470 million Spanish speakers.
The diversity of the niche streams will form a strong current. That is where I am seeing the excitement fomenting.
Giants do not live alone among themselves. Even in fairy tales, the people in the cities are the focus of their power. Analogous to that, the U.S. Major Studios, weakened by the growth of independent cinema are now finding major allies among the Chinese and Indians (Reliance does own Dreamworks and Im Global). And as they ever seek new talent to revitalize their propensity to grow fat and slower, so again we can watch and partake in a new growth, a new vitality in our worldwide moving picture industry. There is enough to go around. The majors, while guarding their lion’s share of the market still must spread the wealth because they no longer own all the means of production or distribution.
The 1% cannot hoard its wealth when a new giant is stalking the land and is spreading its wealth in creative ways which bring new life to the bit players looking for work.
More movies with bigger budgets and more megaplexes worldwide mean more actors, directors, writers, producers, teachers and trainers for both cineastes and the general public to buy more tickets...that is show business.
Out with the old stagnation, and in with the new currents. May they become a tonic wave of power that we all can ride into shore. (Thank you Stefan Zweig for your metaphor of 100 years ago.).
Have a healthy, happy and profitable 2015!
- 1/1/2015
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Shot entirely in the limited space of a courtroom and using uniquely subjective visual aesthetic, “Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” is Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz’ third feature film as a directing team. While most audiences might not be aware, this film is the third installment in a trilogy about Viviane’s struggles as a woman in Israel – the other two films are “ To Take a Wife” and “7 Days.” Unable to decide over her own life, Viviane is at the mercy of her husband’s willingness to grant her a divorce. Her freedom is at the center of a trial in which she has no voice. Sharing directorial duties with her brother Shlomi, Ronit Elkabetz also stars in the film as Viviane, a character they developed based on their mother’s life.
"Gett" is an extremely important film for Israel. While it was made as a work of art – and it has succeeded very well — Katriel Schory of the Israel Film Fund is emphatic about the film’s other purpose which is to make people aware of the extreme inequality of the divorce law in Israel. The process by which women must get divorced favors the man in an untenable way. To see the film is to become incensed by the humiliation a woman must endure as three orthodox rabbis decide her fate. The cruelty of the law shows that Israel must change the law to allow women equal rights…the closed door deliberations of three rabbis must be made public and there must be a way to appeal decisions which favor the man.
“Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” has received widespread success after screening at Cannes earlier this year and it’s now Israel’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The film has also just been nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Language Film.
Music Box Films will released the film theatrically on February 13th, 2015.
Carlos Aguilar met with the Elkabetz siblings recently in Los Angeles. Here is what they had to say about their latest outing as creative team.
Aguilar: Tell me about your experience developing this story together. What sparked the creative process for each of you and how did they come together as a singular voice on the screen?
Shlomi: The film is part of a trilogy that follows Vivian and Elisha in different stages of their life. We shot the first one about 10 years ago and the second installment about 5 years ago. The first two were in Cannes and Venice, but this one is the first one to come to the U.S. We started working on this trilogy 10 years ago, and it was conceived as a trilogy from the beginning. We knew we wanted to make three films, but we didn’t have the three scripts, we just had an idea about what we wanted to say and how we are going to say it. Then, many things happened, not only did we change as filmmakers throughout the making of the trilogy, but also, interestingly enough, the way the audience relates the trilogy also changed. The more each film becomes part of Israeli society and part of the international cinematic arena, the more we perceived hoe the characters have also changed.
With each film we were looking for a new perspective. We started from a very personal place. The first film had some autobiographical elements. Vivian, the main character, was inspired by our mother’s life and the story was similar to where we come from. The third film broadened the whole perspective in terms of our focus on Women’s Rights in Israel. We came from a very private place, something that was very national, and it has evolved to become something much more international.
Ronit: Since we were children I always wanted to work with Shlomi, but we were separated when I went to the army. I was 18 and he was about 10-years-old, but I knew that one day we would get to do something together. I didn’t know exactly what it would be but I had a feeling it would happen.
One day I had an idea and I started writing a script. Shlomi had been writing scripts since he was 14-years-old. Many years after I called him and I told him that I had an idea for our first film, at that point I was only acting and he was in New York. I came to New York and in three weeks we wrote our first script. It was very intense and very interesting, and I knew that after this experience we would have a new start in our relationship.
Since I was very young I was very aware and sensitive to the situation that the women around me had to experience. I felt that they were suffering, and I was very aware about my mother’s wish for freedom and for a good life. She wanted a different life. This was something I wanted to understand. I wanted to search for answers. We decided to write a story about woman looking for her freedom from life at home. When we met to write this we started to evoke all these memories and emotions.
Shlomi: The first film was something very personal.
Ronit: It all happened once I was ready to search for my mother’s freedom through a film. We started writing, and suddenly we understood we had a lot of material and that it would not fit in a single film. We decided to take our time and create three films. We knew that it was going to take us about ten years. Viviane, the character, is someone very special for us.
Aguilar: Since you created this story, and this character in particular, as creative partners, were there any disagreements or conflicts because of your individual ideas for the film?
Shlomi: We’ve developed this character for many years. The inspiration to create this story was the same for both of us, so most of the time we agreed on what we wanted for the character. We didn’t have many arguments or disagreements while writing the character.
Ronit: It was very clear most of the time. However, everything was always seen from two points of view. Not only because Shlomi is a man and I’m a woman, but also because we are brother and sister, two different people, two different egos. We saw everything from a lot of different perspectives.
Aguilar: You work as co-directors, but Ronit also stars in the film. How did this actor/director relationship work?
Ronit: Knowing that he is in front of me behind the camera changed everything. For the first film I was running like a crazy woman between the camera and the scene. I was acting but I also wanted to see what was happening behind the camera. Then, for the second film it became easier to do both, and for the third film I wasn’t that interested on seeing myself on screen. I let go a little bit.
I like when Shlomi watches me through the camera. I feel very comfortable and I know that if I look at him he will tell if I did good just with his eyes. Just by looking at each other we know if it was a good take or not. We don’t really talk. We take a lot of time before shooting to prepare the film.
We talk day and night during the months of pre-production. When we arrive on the set we don’t really feel like we need to talk, maybe a few words here and there. When each of us talks separately to a certain actor, we usually tell them the same thing because we really know each other and what we want at this point.
Shlomi: We spend a lot of time synchronizing, not only for this film, but it has been years and years of getting to know each other and how we work.
Ronit: Beyond the love that we feel for each other, there is a lot of professional appreciation.
Shlomi: We appreciate each other’s opinions. When you are making a film with someone else, you really have to come to the point where both people like what you are doing because you have to take mutual responsibility for what you shoot. We take joint responsibility for the choices we make. Every decision is always made by both of us even if there is a little of back and forth. I’d say, “Are you sure?” And she’ll said, “No, are you sure?” Once we start questioning each other it becomes very interesting because there is a dialogue happening between us.
Aguilar: [To Ronit] Viviane must hide her emotions and she has no right to defend herself. Creating this restrained performance must have been very difficult for you.
Ronit: It’s been a long journey I must say. I’m a person that works a lot when I’m preparing for a role whether it’s theater or cinema. I think this character comes from all the questions that I want to ask her, the things I want to know about her. I would like to know where she came from? What her dreams are? And what’s the main difficulty she is facing? I always try to work around a certain wound the character has and I try to find a way in which this character can move forward.
There is always a struggle to win or to achieve something. For me it was always clear that Viviane knows that in this trial she has no voice. She knows that she cannot speak. She knows that she needs to prepare herself for a very long journey. Her husband can refuse to give Viviane her freedom for the next ten years if he wants to, and she knows this. I had to prepare differently for this character because I knew that in court, as Viviane, I have no voice and I must just be there quietly.
It was like a being a long-distance runner trying to stay in that passive position for years until the moment that one couldn’t do it any longer. This is very difficult for Viviane because she is a very expressive woman and her husband reiterates this all the time. He tells everyone that she shouts, that she is difficult, that she always talks back. Being quiet and silent is the opposite of what she would have like to do, but she needs to stay focuses on her goal. Whatever happens she must not lose her strength and continue until the end, until she wins.
I thought meticulously about every aspect of her story, you might not see this on screen but I thought about of every detail in this woman’s life. Creating a character is like creating a film within the film, there is more to the story in me that what makes it onto the screen. There is the story in the film and the personal story of the character that I have to create. I know this kind of women quiet good in Israel, and I could really feel them inside me. They are part of me.
Aguilar: Vivian is legally denied her freedom and she depends on her husband’s decision over her life. Her individuality, her voice, is criminalized. How did you approach the film’s political angle?
Shlomi: In Israel both secular women and religious women are subjected to the same laws. Everyone woman in Israel is subject to this law, it doesn’t matter if you are sort of religious, orthodox, or completely secular. It has nothing to do with religion. This is the law in Israel. Even though the story is about Israel, it also became very international in many ways because women all over the world suffer discrimination in different aspects of their lives. Viviane is suffering from this specific type of discrimination, which prevents her freedom in this way. Everywhere we screen the film, in Europe, Asia and even in the Us, women identify with this woman's wish to be free, with her wish to determine what she wants to do with her life. She wants to wake up in the morning and decide, "I want to go" or " I want to stay."
Ronit: "I want to choose my life!" She questions herself all the time and that's the question the film asks, "Who am I?" "Who is choosing for me?" It's unbelievable to think that nowadays a story like this can be a reality for more than 10,000 women in Israel who are waiting and who are often denied a divorce, denied their freed. The big questions they are asking are, "Why do I need to be in this situation?" "Who decided I needed to ask someone for permission to be free?"
Addressing this issue was something that was really important for us. At the end of the film Viviane demands, "Give me my freedom. Give me my freedom." It's very difficult to understand how in our country, which is considered a democracy, something like this could exist.
Aguilar: Did you face any opposition from the government or religious organization in Israel given the film’s controversial themes?
Ronit: No, the film was like a gift for Israeli citizens. There have been a lot of discussions around the film. Everyone wants to talk about the film. There has been an overwhelmingly positive reaction towards the film, which means that it has touched everyone.
Shlomi: We've received very strong reactions towards the film from diverse streams of Israeli society. The Israeli ministry of justice wrote a post on her Facebook page endorsing the film and encouraging people to see it. Then we had rabbis encouraging the religious public to go see the film. They would say, “Maybe is not the most pleasant film for us to see but we still must see it and rethink how we do things.” The film has encouraged dialogue around the issue.
For a long time everyday there was something related to the film on the news, on the newspapers, on the radio. The film was at the center of every conversation for three or four weeks. Can you imagine something like this in the States? That’s what happened with this film in Israel.
Ronit: We thought that maybe men would not like the film, but it was the opposite. Everyone, men and women, really appreciated the film. It was a very nice surprise to see this reaction.
Shlomi: We though men might feel threatened by the film in some way or that they might not like the way we portray the male character, but on the contrary, most people think the film is an opportunity to create awareness about the issue. Who knows, maybe one day there will be a law preventing this and maybe they’ll call it “The Elkabetz Law” [Laughs].
This law would liberate women all over Israel, that’s our dream. Our first dream was to make the films, our second dream was to show them in Cannes and then all over the world, and now we hope that the film inspires change, maybe through a law.
It’s amazing that a film can create awareness, then this awareness creates a dialogue, and this dialogue could possibly create change. It’s incredible that in Israel no one can attend a divorce case at a court. You can attend a murder case just to be preset, but no one can attend a divorce case. The film is the first time the public gets to see what happens in these courts. We hope people see the film and form their own opinion.
Aguilar: There is a particular visual style in the film. It’s unusual but it works with this claustrophobic feeling that Viviane experiences.
Ronit: We thought about this a lot before because we wanted to find a visual language that would be loyal to the story. There are no master shots in the film from the director’s or outside perspective, everything is from the characters’ points of view and how they see each other. Only the last shot is from our perspective, the directors’ perspective.
Shlomi: In our mind we think that a courtroom is an objective place, but it’s not. As a director you can’t really shoot “the law, “ you can only shoot how the law affects people. We shot behavior and tried to understand what was happening according to how this affected the trial. We thought about what would happen if we shot the whole film from only one point of view by putting the camera in a character’s place for the entire time, maybe this way we could deconstruct the room. If I shoot Ronit talking to you, her attention would be divided between you and the camera, but if I shoot from her point of view, and then from another point of view, slowly we would be deconstructing the whole space. The more points of view you have the more details you can see in the story. This way we were able to create more suspense, more humor, more varied sensations.
Ronit: It was very interesting to shoot this way because we didn’t know if this language would work for us or not. We tried it for a couple days and after editing we though that it was something very special. We liked it and we went with it.
Shlomi: People working with us were afraid. The Dp, people from the film fund, other people from the production, they were all afraid. They asked us, “How will people know where they are if there are no master shots? They need to understand the geography of the room” Our answer was, “We can create a new geography.”
Shooting the entire film in one room was a radical decision. We wondered what effect would shooting in a conventional way have on our radical decision to make it in one room. In order for our radical approach to work we had to match every shot eye to eye with the next one. We had a piece of tape on the lens right where the actors needed to look. For every scene they needed to look directly into the tape on the lens. It was risky to shoot this way, but when we discovered it was working for us we went all the way.
Aguilar: How did this decision change your actors’ performances?
Shlomi: Every actor had to wait for three or four days before it was their time to shot their scenes because we had to shoot all these different points of view for every single since.
Ronit: But even if they were not being shot, we would ask them to be there in full costume and in character so the ones that were actually being shot could feel the emotion and could add based on that intensity. It was very difficult for them and it involved a lot of repetitions.
Shlomi: Since we were doing so many takes of the same scene to get different points of view, the actors heard each scene hundreds of times. We could spend 6 or 7 days on one single scene. All of us heard every scene hundreds of times.
Ronit: We had so much material
Shlomi: To shoot all the points of view in a scene involving 7 people you need at least 50 shots. Since we couldn’t spend so much time in each one we had to choose while shooting. We probably did between 10 and 24 shots per scene.
Ronit: It was very difficult for the actors, but they were so excited by the idea because they had never worked in this manner. They were always excited, and we were always thankful because we knew that what we were asking was difficult. We definitely had a very special experience making this film.
Aguilar: Tell me about your experience in Hollywood with your film representing Israel at the Oscars.
Shlomi: It’s an amazing experience. We always want to get our film out there as much as possible for people to see it. This film is very important for us because the more attention the film gets the more people will talk about the issue.
The reactions are always amazing wherever we go. Sometimes I sit in the theater and I feel like I’m sitting with an Israeli audience because they all react so strongly to the film. They seem to get all the jokes and the nuances of the film.
Aguilar: What happens to Viviane after this film?
Ronit: I’m also interested to find out because it would mean making another film, another dream, but we will see if that happens. Now she has bought her freedom with her freedom, but we still don’t know what kind of freedom she has. There is a big open window for us to dream. If we decide to continue with this story I’m sure it would be a very special experience once again.
Shlomi: It would be interesting to know what happens to this woman now that she is finally free. How does she cope with the fact that she has achieved her dream? It’s definitely a very interesting question.
"Gett" is an extremely important film for Israel. While it was made as a work of art – and it has succeeded very well — Katriel Schory of the Israel Film Fund is emphatic about the film’s other purpose which is to make people aware of the extreme inequality of the divorce law in Israel. The process by which women must get divorced favors the man in an untenable way. To see the film is to become incensed by the humiliation a woman must endure as three orthodox rabbis decide her fate. The cruelty of the law shows that Israel must change the law to allow women equal rights…the closed door deliberations of three rabbis must be made public and there must be a way to appeal decisions which favor the man.
“Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem” has received widespread success after screening at Cannes earlier this year and it’s now Israel’s official submission for the Best Foreign Language Film Academy Award. The film has also just been nominated for a Golden Globe Award as Best Foreign Language Film.
Music Box Films will released the film theatrically on February 13th, 2015.
Carlos Aguilar met with the Elkabetz siblings recently in Los Angeles. Here is what they had to say about their latest outing as creative team.
Aguilar: Tell me about your experience developing this story together. What sparked the creative process for each of you and how did they come together as a singular voice on the screen?
Shlomi: The film is part of a trilogy that follows Vivian and Elisha in different stages of their life. We shot the first one about 10 years ago and the second installment about 5 years ago. The first two were in Cannes and Venice, but this one is the first one to come to the U.S. We started working on this trilogy 10 years ago, and it was conceived as a trilogy from the beginning. We knew we wanted to make three films, but we didn’t have the three scripts, we just had an idea about what we wanted to say and how we are going to say it. Then, many things happened, not only did we change as filmmakers throughout the making of the trilogy, but also, interestingly enough, the way the audience relates the trilogy also changed. The more each film becomes part of Israeli society and part of the international cinematic arena, the more we perceived hoe the characters have also changed.
With each film we were looking for a new perspective. We started from a very personal place. The first film had some autobiographical elements. Vivian, the main character, was inspired by our mother’s life and the story was similar to where we come from. The third film broadened the whole perspective in terms of our focus on Women’s Rights in Israel. We came from a very private place, something that was very national, and it has evolved to become something much more international.
Ronit: Since we were children I always wanted to work with Shlomi, but we were separated when I went to the army. I was 18 and he was about 10-years-old, but I knew that one day we would get to do something together. I didn’t know exactly what it would be but I had a feeling it would happen.
One day I had an idea and I started writing a script. Shlomi had been writing scripts since he was 14-years-old. Many years after I called him and I told him that I had an idea for our first film, at that point I was only acting and he was in New York. I came to New York and in three weeks we wrote our first script. It was very intense and very interesting, and I knew that after this experience we would have a new start in our relationship.
Since I was very young I was very aware and sensitive to the situation that the women around me had to experience. I felt that they were suffering, and I was very aware about my mother’s wish for freedom and for a good life. She wanted a different life. This was something I wanted to understand. I wanted to search for answers. We decided to write a story about woman looking for her freedom from life at home. When we met to write this we started to evoke all these memories and emotions.
Shlomi: The first film was something very personal.
Ronit: It all happened once I was ready to search for my mother’s freedom through a film. We started writing, and suddenly we understood we had a lot of material and that it would not fit in a single film. We decided to take our time and create three films. We knew that it was going to take us about ten years. Viviane, the character, is someone very special for us.
Aguilar: Since you created this story, and this character in particular, as creative partners, were there any disagreements or conflicts because of your individual ideas for the film?
Shlomi: We’ve developed this character for many years. The inspiration to create this story was the same for both of us, so most of the time we agreed on what we wanted for the character. We didn’t have many arguments or disagreements while writing the character.
Ronit: It was very clear most of the time. However, everything was always seen from two points of view. Not only because Shlomi is a man and I’m a woman, but also because we are brother and sister, two different people, two different egos. We saw everything from a lot of different perspectives.
Aguilar: You work as co-directors, but Ronit also stars in the film. How did this actor/director relationship work?
Ronit: Knowing that he is in front of me behind the camera changed everything. For the first film I was running like a crazy woman between the camera and the scene. I was acting but I also wanted to see what was happening behind the camera. Then, for the second film it became easier to do both, and for the third film I wasn’t that interested on seeing myself on screen. I let go a little bit.
I like when Shlomi watches me through the camera. I feel very comfortable and I know that if I look at him he will tell if I did good just with his eyes. Just by looking at each other we know if it was a good take or not. We don’t really talk. We take a lot of time before shooting to prepare the film.
We talk day and night during the months of pre-production. When we arrive on the set we don’t really feel like we need to talk, maybe a few words here and there. When each of us talks separately to a certain actor, we usually tell them the same thing because we really know each other and what we want at this point.
Shlomi: We spend a lot of time synchronizing, not only for this film, but it has been years and years of getting to know each other and how we work.
Ronit: Beyond the love that we feel for each other, there is a lot of professional appreciation.
Shlomi: We appreciate each other’s opinions. When you are making a film with someone else, you really have to come to the point where both people like what you are doing because you have to take mutual responsibility for what you shoot. We take joint responsibility for the choices we make. Every decision is always made by both of us even if there is a little of back and forth. I’d say, “Are you sure?” And she’ll said, “No, are you sure?” Once we start questioning each other it becomes very interesting because there is a dialogue happening between us.
Aguilar: [To Ronit] Viviane must hide her emotions and she has no right to defend herself. Creating this restrained performance must have been very difficult for you.
Ronit: It’s been a long journey I must say. I’m a person that works a lot when I’m preparing for a role whether it’s theater or cinema. I think this character comes from all the questions that I want to ask her, the things I want to know about her. I would like to know where she came from? What her dreams are? And what’s the main difficulty she is facing? I always try to work around a certain wound the character has and I try to find a way in which this character can move forward.
There is always a struggle to win or to achieve something. For me it was always clear that Viviane knows that in this trial she has no voice. She knows that she cannot speak. She knows that she needs to prepare herself for a very long journey. Her husband can refuse to give Viviane her freedom for the next ten years if he wants to, and she knows this. I had to prepare differently for this character because I knew that in court, as Viviane, I have no voice and I must just be there quietly.
It was like a being a long-distance runner trying to stay in that passive position for years until the moment that one couldn’t do it any longer. This is very difficult for Viviane because she is a very expressive woman and her husband reiterates this all the time. He tells everyone that she shouts, that she is difficult, that she always talks back. Being quiet and silent is the opposite of what she would have like to do, but she needs to stay focuses on her goal. Whatever happens she must not lose her strength and continue until the end, until she wins.
I thought meticulously about every aspect of her story, you might not see this on screen but I thought about of every detail in this woman’s life. Creating a character is like creating a film within the film, there is more to the story in me that what makes it onto the screen. There is the story in the film and the personal story of the character that I have to create. I know this kind of women quiet good in Israel, and I could really feel them inside me. They are part of me.
Aguilar: Vivian is legally denied her freedom and she depends on her husband’s decision over her life. Her individuality, her voice, is criminalized. How did you approach the film’s political angle?
Shlomi: In Israel both secular women and religious women are subjected to the same laws. Everyone woman in Israel is subject to this law, it doesn’t matter if you are sort of religious, orthodox, or completely secular. It has nothing to do with religion. This is the law in Israel. Even though the story is about Israel, it also became very international in many ways because women all over the world suffer discrimination in different aspects of their lives. Viviane is suffering from this specific type of discrimination, which prevents her freedom in this way. Everywhere we screen the film, in Europe, Asia and even in the Us, women identify with this woman's wish to be free, with her wish to determine what she wants to do with her life. She wants to wake up in the morning and decide, "I want to go" or " I want to stay."
Ronit: "I want to choose my life!" She questions herself all the time and that's the question the film asks, "Who am I?" "Who is choosing for me?" It's unbelievable to think that nowadays a story like this can be a reality for more than 10,000 women in Israel who are waiting and who are often denied a divorce, denied their freed. The big questions they are asking are, "Why do I need to be in this situation?" "Who decided I needed to ask someone for permission to be free?"
Addressing this issue was something that was really important for us. At the end of the film Viviane demands, "Give me my freedom. Give me my freedom." It's very difficult to understand how in our country, which is considered a democracy, something like this could exist.
Aguilar: Did you face any opposition from the government or religious organization in Israel given the film’s controversial themes?
Ronit: No, the film was like a gift for Israeli citizens. There have been a lot of discussions around the film. Everyone wants to talk about the film. There has been an overwhelmingly positive reaction towards the film, which means that it has touched everyone.
Shlomi: We've received very strong reactions towards the film from diverse streams of Israeli society. The Israeli ministry of justice wrote a post on her Facebook page endorsing the film and encouraging people to see it. Then we had rabbis encouraging the religious public to go see the film. They would say, “Maybe is not the most pleasant film for us to see but we still must see it and rethink how we do things.” The film has encouraged dialogue around the issue.
For a long time everyday there was something related to the film on the news, on the newspapers, on the radio. The film was at the center of every conversation for three or four weeks. Can you imagine something like this in the States? That’s what happened with this film in Israel.
Ronit: We thought that maybe men would not like the film, but it was the opposite. Everyone, men and women, really appreciated the film. It was a very nice surprise to see this reaction.
Shlomi: We though men might feel threatened by the film in some way or that they might not like the way we portray the male character, but on the contrary, most people think the film is an opportunity to create awareness about the issue. Who knows, maybe one day there will be a law preventing this and maybe they’ll call it “The Elkabetz Law” [Laughs].
This law would liberate women all over Israel, that’s our dream. Our first dream was to make the films, our second dream was to show them in Cannes and then all over the world, and now we hope that the film inspires change, maybe through a law.
It’s amazing that a film can create awareness, then this awareness creates a dialogue, and this dialogue could possibly create change. It’s incredible that in Israel no one can attend a divorce case at a court. You can attend a murder case just to be preset, but no one can attend a divorce case. The film is the first time the public gets to see what happens in these courts. We hope people see the film and form their own opinion.
Aguilar: There is a particular visual style in the film. It’s unusual but it works with this claustrophobic feeling that Viviane experiences.
Ronit: We thought about this a lot before because we wanted to find a visual language that would be loyal to the story. There are no master shots in the film from the director’s or outside perspective, everything is from the characters’ points of view and how they see each other. Only the last shot is from our perspective, the directors’ perspective.
Shlomi: In our mind we think that a courtroom is an objective place, but it’s not. As a director you can’t really shoot “the law, “ you can only shoot how the law affects people. We shot behavior and tried to understand what was happening according to how this affected the trial. We thought about what would happen if we shot the whole film from only one point of view by putting the camera in a character’s place for the entire time, maybe this way we could deconstruct the room. If I shoot Ronit talking to you, her attention would be divided between you and the camera, but if I shoot from her point of view, and then from another point of view, slowly we would be deconstructing the whole space. The more points of view you have the more details you can see in the story. This way we were able to create more suspense, more humor, more varied sensations.
Ronit: It was very interesting to shoot this way because we didn’t know if this language would work for us or not. We tried it for a couple days and after editing we though that it was something very special. We liked it and we went with it.
Shlomi: People working with us were afraid. The Dp, people from the film fund, other people from the production, they were all afraid. They asked us, “How will people know where they are if there are no master shots? They need to understand the geography of the room” Our answer was, “We can create a new geography.”
Shooting the entire film in one room was a radical decision. We wondered what effect would shooting in a conventional way have on our radical decision to make it in one room. In order for our radical approach to work we had to match every shot eye to eye with the next one. We had a piece of tape on the lens right where the actors needed to look. For every scene they needed to look directly into the tape on the lens. It was risky to shoot this way, but when we discovered it was working for us we went all the way.
Aguilar: How did this decision change your actors’ performances?
Shlomi: Every actor had to wait for three or four days before it was their time to shot their scenes because we had to shoot all these different points of view for every single since.
Ronit: But even if they were not being shot, we would ask them to be there in full costume and in character so the ones that were actually being shot could feel the emotion and could add based on that intensity. It was very difficult for them and it involved a lot of repetitions.
Shlomi: Since we were doing so many takes of the same scene to get different points of view, the actors heard each scene hundreds of times. We could spend 6 or 7 days on one single scene. All of us heard every scene hundreds of times.
Ronit: We had so much material
Shlomi: To shoot all the points of view in a scene involving 7 people you need at least 50 shots. Since we couldn’t spend so much time in each one we had to choose while shooting. We probably did between 10 and 24 shots per scene.
Ronit: It was very difficult for the actors, but they were so excited by the idea because they had never worked in this manner. They were always excited, and we were always thankful because we knew that what we were asking was difficult. We definitely had a very special experience making this film.
Aguilar: Tell me about your experience in Hollywood with your film representing Israel at the Oscars.
Shlomi: It’s an amazing experience. We always want to get our film out there as much as possible for people to see it. This film is very important for us because the more attention the film gets the more people will talk about the issue.
The reactions are always amazing wherever we go. Sometimes I sit in the theater and I feel like I’m sitting with an Israeli audience because they all react so strongly to the film. They seem to get all the jokes and the nuances of the film.
Aguilar: What happens to Viviane after this film?
Ronit: I’m also interested to find out because it would mean making another film, another dream, but we will see if that happens. Now she has bought her freedom with her freedom, but we still don’t know what kind of freedom she has. There is a big open window for us to dream. If we decide to continue with this story I’m sure it would be a very special experience once again.
Shlomi: It would be interesting to know what happens to this woman now that she is finally free. How does she cope with the fact that she has achieved her dream? It’s definitely a very interesting question.
- 12/16/2014
- by Sydney Levine and Carlos Aguilar
- Sydney's Buzz
Los Cabos International Film Festival took place this month of November. It was a brave move to keep it going after Cabo had been so hard hit by Hurricane Odile with winds of 125mph less than a month earlier. The vast destruction in our part of town was quickly being repaired though traces remained visible and repairs still to be done necessitated cutting the normal invitation list by half and doubling up hotel rooms for a few unlucky journalists. That being said, there were 15,000 attending the festival. Volunteers wore the worthy words on their t-shirts: #Unstoppable, and they were that.
For all the infrastructure problems of the city in the midst of rebuilding itself, the festival seemed to thrive with all sorts of invitees showing up from all over the world. It seemed like gala events, panels, master classes, coproduction meetings, works in progress, screenings and interviews were constantly taking place. It was a great team and we all felt part of it.
The festival is overseen by the executive board members Eduardo Sánchez Navarro, Alfonso Pascal Barcenas, Scott Cross and Sean Cross (who also founded Vail Film Festival) and is organized by the festival team of Alonso Aguilar (General Director), Alejandra Paulin (General Coordinator) - who was a great market director in Guadajalara before coming here, Maru Garzon (Head of Programming), Ana Molinar Trujillo (Communication Manager), and Monica Herrera (Film Programmer). My friend from Guadalajara, normally an English teacher, Fabian Cruz was also there working for the festival.
When Eduardo Sánchez Navarro Redo remembers how he first came to Los Cabos, there is no doubt in his mind that destiny and luck played an important part. When he married his wife 30 years ago, he decided to travel along the entire Pacific Coast, from Acapulco to Mazatlan, where he crossed over to La Paz eventually driving to Los Cabos. The beauty of the area impressed him and it was during this trip that he and his wife decided to buy a vacation home in Los Cabos, thus beginning a distinguished career as a principal player and developer of what is Los Cabos today. Over the course of more than 20 years, his company, Grupo Questro, has emerged as one of the most highly respected developers in all of Mexico. He, together with Juan Gallardo Thurlow, Scott Cross, and Sean Cross, founded the festival in 2012.
My job as a journalist was to explore and write, hard to do when you are having such fun 24/7. We journalists were all in one hotel where we were given space and time to bond. Travel writers mixed with trade writers: from Film Journal David Noh, whose article is worth sharing here, my colleagues Peter Rainer from NPR and Christian Science Monitor, Anne Thompson from Thompson on Hollywood on Indiewire, Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com and many others met and mixed. Also Ira Deutchman of Colombia University Film School and Emerging Pictures and Robin Brock of Creative Coalition were there with time to share dinners.
The filmmakers, in another hotel, mixed by day and at the communal lunches and parties. I will write more on them in an upcoming blog! After all, filmmakers are the backbone of our industry. Without them, we have nothing!
The agents, mostly from CAA, were placed in another hotel, luxurious and far away. As someone said, Cabos is like Cannes, only in November. If so, perhaps they were at the Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes. (Actually they were at Hacienda Beach Club & Residences) CAA has always been an honored part of this festival. I have heard that that is because someone with lots of money from Mexico invests it in cinema through CAA and even started the festival. That is, however, pure conjecture. Under the guidance of CAA agent, Micah Green, people can be assured that the directions he sees and the decisions he makes about investing private individuals' capital into filmed entertainment is priceless. I could think of no one I would trust more --in this untrustworthy business we are in-- than Micah.
At least two other agents – Bec Smith and Rena Ronson from UTA -- were also there. Rena and Micah were on the Film Financing Panel moderated by Variety’s expert in all things Iberoamerican and my idol, John Hopewell. Other participants on the Film Finance Panel were Jonathan King, Evp of Production at Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media whose partnership with Canana formed Participant PanAmerican production fund. “No” by Pablo Lorrain was their first investment. Pp also financed "El Ardor" which played in Cannes and “Cesar Chavez”, directed by Diego Luna. Also on the panel were Mark Musselman of Canada’s 10X2yinc, the exec producer of “Eastern Promises” and most recently of “Remember” by Atom Egoyan which was also produced by Robert Lantos and son, also in Los Cabos. It went into production in 2014 and is tipped for Cannes. Other panelists included Raul Del Alto of Mexico’s Ag Studios (Itaca Films Mexico, Itaca Films USA, Itaca Films Colombia and Itaca Filkms Brazil, and Rena Ronson of UTA who, like Micah Green of CAA focuses on global film finance, distribution and marketing strategies for Independents and co-financed features and is fluent in Spanish because of her long time experience with Latin America.
At one point I looked up and found the European fund chiefs there as well, Laufey Gudjonsdottir from Iceland (where Interstellar was filmed), Katriel Schory from Israel Film Fund and Edith Sepp-Dallas from the Estonian Film Institute. They were there for Bpx. Best Practice Exchange is an initiative that brings together the leaders of film funding agencies from across the world to take part in high-level-workshops – one or two each year – designed to promote new standards of excellence in the provision of public funding for the support of film production, development and distribution. The aim of Bpx is to ensure that policies and procedures adopted by film funding agencies will act together, positively and proactively, to stimulate and sustain practices of international coproduction and cofinancing worldwide.
Triggered by the situation in which filmmaking outside the main production centers of Hollywood and Bollywood now finds itself, Bpx was created by Simon Perry, president of Ace (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen), in collaboration with Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund. It held its first workshop in February 2013 in Israel, and two further workshops in Toronto (September 2013) and Berlin (February 2014) and this was the third! Bravo!
Among the Mexican, Canadian and U.S. films that showed, the winners were as follow:
Mexico First
Mexico First winning film was ¨Llevate mis amores” ("All of Me") by Arturo Gonzalez. The film narrates the story of the generosity of the women of Las Patronas who feed the immigrants who ride La Bestia. The director was awarded a cash Prize of Usd $15,000. This film made me cry. I thought of it again when reading the L.A. Times article about the murder of Adrian Rodriguez and his assistant, Mexican good Samaritans who dedicated their scarce resources to feeding Central American migrants passing by on La Bestia, which is what the women in this movie do. And one of the women was at the festival too.
Los Cabos Competition
The Los Cabos Competition winner was “Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios, also a winner at the Berlinale, Jerusalem Film Festival, Tribeca, Toronto and San Sebastian. Being sold internationally by Mundial, the joint venture of Canana (again!) and Im Global, the film has sold to Kino Lorber for U.S., Cannibal for Mexico, Dreams Hill for Italy, Noori for So. Korea and Maison Motion for Taiwan … "Güeros" is the undeniable triumph of a nouveau director who dares to pay homage the French New Wave on a wild detective hunt through Mexico City. In light of the 43 murdered students, this film, about students on strike, strikes a chord within the watcher. The film´s producer won a Usd $15,000 cash prize.
Work In Progress Mexico
The second Work in Progress Mexico prize was awarded to "Los Herederos," by Jorge Hernandez, a film that describes adolescent effervescence and idleness through a group of friends who spend their vacations adrenaline-seeking through parties, sex and alcohol. The winner received a Usd $10,000 cash prize.
Mexico-usa-canada Co-production Forum
The winner of the first Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum was also announced: "Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo, based on the real life story of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Investigación Espacial e Investigación Astronómica of Zambia. Writer- Director Frances Bodomo received a Usd $8,000 cash prize. It also received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Mexico First: Fox +
In its second year running the México Primero: Fox+ chose one of the films that participated to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The México Primero: Fox+ prize consists of Usd $40,000 and was awarded to Isaac Ezban´s "El Incidente" ("The Incident"), two M.C. Escher-maze-like parallel stories about characters trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road… for a very long time. The international sales agent, Shoreline, will be showing the film at Ventana Sur December 3rd at 17:00 at Cinemark 3.
Work In Progress Mexico Fox +
In its second year running as well, Work in Progress México Fox+ selected a participating film to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The Usd $30,000 prize was awarded to Katina Medina Mora’s "Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz", produced by Gerardo Gatica and Alberto Muffelmann.
Work In Progress Mexico Chemistry
This Third edition of the Festival also witnessed the first Work In Progress México –Chemistry award. Chemistry post-production studios granted the winner, Jorge Hernandez’s "Los Herederos", $45,000 Usd in color correction services.
Mexico – USA – Canada Splendor Omnia Mantarraya Co-production Forum
On its first year running, the Coproduction Forum Mexico- USA- Canada Splendor Omnia – MANTArraya will be granting a $30,000 Usd equivalent prize worth 40 hours of color correction, 40 hours of sound mixing, as well as a paid stay in Tepoztlan Morelos, site of their studios, to the winner "Afronauts" by Francez Bodomo (U.S.).
The key phrase to understanding Cabo is "Seeing what the neighbors do" as the festival and market connects Canada, U,S, and Mexico in showing of films and exploring coproduction. And the mixing of filmmakers and journalists from all three Americas was exciting in the possibilities it offered to everyone.
As for the hard-core business done there:
Mark Kassen will be directing "Criminal Empire for Dummies" written by Cliff Dorman. Kassen will also be producing the film along with James Gibb of Cutting Edge Group and Greg Hajdarowicz of Gremi Films. The deal took place at the exclusive resort Hacienda Beach Club & Residences and was reported by Variety.
Actor and producer Luis Gerardo Mendez ("Nosotros Los Nobles") signed a representation agreement with Paradigm. Reported by Variety. So I guess Paradigm also sent agents to Los Cabos.
Pat Saperstein of Variety also attended Los Cabos and scooped a story, that “Wolverine Hotel” from director Patricia Chica who was participating in the Coproduction Forum, is closing in on production with a "recent financing commitment from Jean-Guy Després, who will serve as exec producer. The edgy crime thriller is produced by Canada-based Byron Martin. Looking to cast a Latino actor as co-star, Chica met with rising Mexican thesp Luis Gerardo Mendez ('We Are the Nobles') during Afm though he has not yet been attached. 'A Latino star opens up a market', said Martin."
Celebrated producer Monica Lozano announced the launch of Alebrije Distribución. She has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". "Instructions Not Included" the Us$ 5.5 million film that grossed Us$ 100 million worldwide was also her production. With this Pan-American initiative, the company will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets. Reported by Variety again!! You would think John was the only real reporter there. Pinske should be proud of him! Most of us got no scoops, but then, I guess we have to prove ourselves worthy - which I am not because at heart, I am not a reporter hunting for news, but rather a gatherer of information and a writer.
Speaking of Monica Lozano, the Germany-based international sales agent, Media Luna, acquired world rights to Internet Junkie, directed by Alexander Katzowicz and produced by Monica Lozano. Variety reports on this again!
"Yamaha 300", a participating project of the 1st Mexico – USA- Canada Coproduction Forum, produced by Valerium Arts (Mayra Espinosa y Jorge Michel Grau, producer and writer-director of the horror hit "Somos lo que hay" respectively, and Grau, the writer of the remake "We Are What We Are") and Uncorked Productions (Andrew Corkin, the producer of the horror film "What We Were"), will be one of the first projects to receive the development stage and postproduction support offered by The Good Film Fund, an initiative of Media Darling (Amy Darling) and The Chatanooga Film Festival. See Variety.
New York producer Dodgeville Films ("To Be Takei") will be joining Varios Lobos in Mexico to produce "Ya no estoy aquí", Fernando Frias’s second film, which was also a winner during Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition. This film in the Coproduction Forum was reported on in Variety.
"Siete Horas" ("Seven Hours"), one of the winning projects of the second Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund edition, which will be directed by Chema Rodriguez and produced by Francisco Vargas, the renowned director of the film "El violin", made an alliance with the Spanish production companies Sin un Duro and Noodles Prods to co-produce the project. (Variety)
CineTren closed deals to handle Latin American distribution for Spring, a Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film, whose Latin American Premiere was held at Los Cabos International Film Festival. Negotiations between Nate Bolotin and Marie Katz fromLos Angeles-based Xyz and Manuel Garcia from CineTren, took place at the Hotel Grand Solmar. Next time, I'll have to visit all the hotels!! See Variety article.
BH5 Group, which participates in the executive production of "Remember" by Atom Egoyan, will be working with Alonso Ruizpalacios, director of Güeros, in his second movie: Museo, a project that participated in the Ist Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum. Even though Variety wrote about this, my blog on the three year old conglomerate of companies, BH5, was more complete:
BH5 Group Makes a Splash with Three Impressive Films at Los Cabos Int'l Film Fest
BH5, a conglomerate of five formerly independent production companies all run by various friends from the same film school, will be working the international markets much more. Besides the Toronto hit, Jodorowsky's "Dance of Reality", they are working with larger companies like Pathe now. Their work in progress, "You Will Know What To Do With Me" ("Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz") which just won the The Usd $30,000 prize of Fox+, is seeking an international sales agent.
"Entrevero" by Max Zunino, also winner of the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition, was selected in the development project category by Ibermedia. See Variety.
And though Colombian Ciro Guerra, whose "The Wind Journeys" was produced by our German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner at Razor Film Production and by Burning Blue's prolific Diana Bustamente -- who is now also heading the Carthagena Film Festival -- showed in 2009 Cannes Un Certain Regard and was sold by Paris’ Elle Driver to 19 countries including Film Movement for U.S., announced to Variety's John Hopewell that his next film, "Embrace of the Serpent" will star U.S. actor Brionne Davis (“Savaged”) and Belgium’s Jan Bijvoet, the lead in Cannes Competition entry “Borgman” a really creepy dark comedy, he did not discuss his next project "Taganga" in the Coproduction Forum. "Taganga" is about a fisherman from a small village by the Colombian coast where many foreign-owned scuba diving centers have been established. A new law requiring local fisherman to change the motors of their boats forces him to earn quick money, so he chooses to dynamite to fish. The owner of the largest scuba diving center opposes this use of explosives. When the fisherman receives a death threat if he continues the dynamiting of fish, he assumes the center's owner is behind the threat. In order to prove it, he begins a series of fateful actions.
Finally, while it seems like Variety wrote all the news, I have one item which no one has reported on. Reese Witherspoon stated at her press conference in Los Cabos, where her film "Wild" premiered in a red carpet gala, that she is talking to Eugenio Derbez ("Instructions Not Included") to make a movie with him. I heard her say it and later spoke of this to Ben Odell (my next blog on Los Cabos features him). Ben (now partners with Eugenio at 3Pas Studios) said, Actually that would be a great idea but they had not spoken about it. However, they are both represented by CAA, so it would seem like a natural and really exciting pairing. After all, aren't "Legally Blond" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" the same film? She is certainly on a role as a producer with "Wild" and David Fincher's "Gone Girl" as he is with his U.S. career. The studios are all courting her now, she said. More to come on this...
For all the infrastructure problems of the city in the midst of rebuilding itself, the festival seemed to thrive with all sorts of invitees showing up from all over the world. It seemed like gala events, panels, master classes, coproduction meetings, works in progress, screenings and interviews were constantly taking place. It was a great team and we all felt part of it.
The festival is overseen by the executive board members Eduardo Sánchez Navarro, Alfonso Pascal Barcenas, Scott Cross and Sean Cross (who also founded Vail Film Festival) and is organized by the festival team of Alonso Aguilar (General Director), Alejandra Paulin (General Coordinator) - who was a great market director in Guadajalara before coming here, Maru Garzon (Head of Programming), Ana Molinar Trujillo (Communication Manager), and Monica Herrera (Film Programmer). My friend from Guadalajara, normally an English teacher, Fabian Cruz was also there working for the festival.
When Eduardo Sánchez Navarro Redo remembers how he first came to Los Cabos, there is no doubt in his mind that destiny and luck played an important part. When he married his wife 30 years ago, he decided to travel along the entire Pacific Coast, from Acapulco to Mazatlan, where he crossed over to La Paz eventually driving to Los Cabos. The beauty of the area impressed him and it was during this trip that he and his wife decided to buy a vacation home in Los Cabos, thus beginning a distinguished career as a principal player and developer of what is Los Cabos today. Over the course of more than 20 years, his company, Grupo Questro, has emerged as one of the most highly respected developers in all of Mexico. He, together with Juan Gallardo Thurlow, Scott Cross, and Sean Cross, founded the festival in 2012.
My job as a journalist was to explore and write, hard to do when you are having such fun 24/7. We journalists were all in one hotel where we were given space and time to bond. Travel writers mixed with trade writers: from Film Journal David Noh, whose article is worth sharing here, my colleagues Peter Rainer from NPR and Christian Science Monitor, Anne Thompson from Thompson on Hollywood on Indiewire, Godfrey Cheshire of RogerEbert.com and many others met and mixed. Also Ira Deutchman of Colombia University Film School and Emerging Pictures and Robin Brock of Creative Coalition were there with time to share dinners.
The filmmakers, in another hotel, mixed by day and at the communal lunches and parties. I will write more on them in an upcoming blog! After all, filmmakers are the backbone of our industry. Without them, we have nothing!
The agents, mostly from CAA, were placed in another hotel, luxurious and far away. As someone said, Cabos is like Cannes, only in November. If so, perhaps they were at the Eden Roc in Cap d’Antibes. (Actually they were at Hacienda Beach Club & Residences) CAA has always been an honored part of this festival. I have heard that that is because someone with lots of money from Mexico invests it in cinema through CAA and even started the festival. That is, however, pure conjecture. Under the guidance of CAA agent, Micah Green, people can be assured that the directions he sees and the decisions he makes about investing private individuals' capital into filmed entertainment is priceless. I could think of no one I would trust more --in this untrustworthy business we are in-- than Micah.
At least two other agents – Bec Smith and Rena Ronson from UTA -- were also there. Rena and Micah were on the Film Financing Panel moderated by Variety’s expert in all things Iberoamerican and my idol, John Hopewell. Other participants on the Film Finance Panel were Jonathan King, Evp of Production at Jeff Skoll’s Participant Media whose partnership with Canana formed Participant PanAmerican production fund. “No” by Pablo Lorrain was their first investment. Pp also financed "El Ardor" which played in Cannes and “Cesar Chavez”, directed by Diego Luna. Also on the panel were Mark Musselman of Canada’s 10X2yinc, the exec producer of “Eastern Promises” and most recently of “Remember” by Atom Egoyan which was also produced by Robert Lantos and son, also in Los Cabos. It went into production in 2014 and is tipped for Cannes. Other panelists included Raul Del Alto of Mexico’s Ag Studios (Itaca Films Mexico, Itaca Films USA, Itaca Films Colombia and Itaca Filkms Brazil, and Rena Ronson of UTA who, like Micah Green of CAA focuses on global film finance, distribution and marketing strategies for Independents and co-financed features and is fluent in Spanish because of her long time experience with Latin America.
At one point I looked up and found the European fund chiefs there as well, Laufey Gudjonsdottir from Iceland (where Interstellar was filmed), Katriel Schory from Israel Film Fund and Edith Sepp-Dallas from the Estonian Film Institute. They were there for Bpx. Best Practice Exchange is an initiative that brings together the leaders of film funding agencies from across the world to take part in high-level-workshops – one or two each year – designed to promote new standards of excellence in the provision of public funding for the support of film production, development and distribution. The aim of Bpx is to ensure that policies and procedures adopted by film funding agencies will act together, positively and proactively, to stimulate and sustain practices of international coproduction and cofinancing worldwide.
Triggered by the situation in which filmmaking outside the main production centers of Hollywood and Bollywood now finds itself, Bpx was created by Simon Perry, president of Ace (Ateliers du Cinéma Européen), in collaboration with Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund. It held its first workshop in February 2013 in Israel, and two further workshops in Toronto (September 2013) and Berlin (February 2014) and this was the third! Bravo!
Among the Mexican, Canadian and U.S. films that showed, the winners were as follow:
Mexico First
Mexico First winning film was ¨Llevate mis amores” ("All of Me") by Arturo Gonzalez. The film narrates the story of the generosity of the women of Las Patronas who feed the immigrants who ride La Bestia. The director was awarded a cash Prize of Usd $15,000. This film made me cry. I thought of it again when reading the L.A. Times article about the murder of Adrian Rodriguez and his assistant, Mexican good Samaritans who dedicated their scarce resources to feeding Central American migrants passing by on La Bestia, which is what the women in this movie do. And one of the women was at the festival too.
Los Cabos Competition
The Los Cabos Competition winner was “Güeros” by Alonso Ruizpalacios, also a winner at the Berlinale, Jerusalem Film Festival, Tribeca, Toronto and San Sebastian. Being sold internationally by Mundial, the joint venture of Canana (again!) and Im Global, the film has sold to Kino Lorber for U.S., Cannibal for Mexico, Dreams Hill for Italy, Noori for So. Korea and Maison Motion for Taiwan … "Güeros" is the undeniable triumph of a nouveau director who dares to pay homage the French New Wave on a wild detective hunt through Mexico City. In light of the 43 murdered students, this film, about students on strike, strikes a chord within the watcher. The film´s producer won a Usd $15,000 cash prize.
Work In Progress Mexico
The second Work in Progress Mexico prize was awarded to "Los Herederos," by Jorge Hernandez, a film that describes adolescent effervescence and idleness through a group of friends who spend their vacations adrenaline-seeking through parties, sex and alcohol. The winner received a Usd $10,000 cash prize.
Mexico-usa-canada Co-production Forum
The winner of the first Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum was also announced: "Afronauts" by Frances Bodomo, based on the real life story of the Academia Nacional de Ciencias, Investigación Espacial e Investigación Astronómica of Zambia. Writer- Director Frances Bodomo received a Usd $8,000 cash prize. It also received funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
Mexico First: Fox +
In its second year running the México Primero: Fox+ chose one of the films that participated to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The México Primero: Fox+ prize consists of Usd $40,000 and was awarded to Isaac Ezban´s "El Incidente" ("The Incident"), two M.C. Escher-maze-like parallel stories about characters trapped in illogical endless spaces: two brothers and a detective locked on an infinite staircase, and a family locked on an infinite road… for a very long time. The international sales agent, Shoreline, will be showing the film at Ventana Sur December 3rd at 17:00 at Cinemark 3.
Work In Progress Mexico Fox +
In its second year running as well, Work in Progress México Fox+ selected a participating film to have its distribution rights pre-bought for the Latin American and Caribbean (Except Brazil) markets. The Usd $30,000 prize was awarded to Katina Medina Mora’s "Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz", produced by Gerardo Gatica and Alberto Muffelmann.
Work In Progress Mexico Chemistry
This Third edition of the Festival also witnessed the first Work In Progress México –Chemistry award. Chemistry post-production studios granted the winner, Jorge Hernandez’s "Los Herederos", $45,000 Usd in color correction services.
Mexico – USA – Canada Splendor Omnia Mantarraya Co-production Forum
On its first year running, the Coproduction Forum Mexico- USA- Canada Splendor Omnia – MANTArraya will be granting a $30,000 Usd equivalent prize worth 40 hours of color correction, 40 hours of sound mixing, as well as a paid stay in Tepoztlan Morelos, site of their studios, to the winner "Afronauts" by Francez Bodomo (U.S.).
The key phrase to understanding Cabo is "Seeing what the neighbors do" as the festival and market connects Canada, U,S, and Mexico in showing of films and exploring coproduction. And the mixing of filmmakers and journalists from all three Americas was exciting in the possibilities it offered to everyone.
As for the hard-core business done there:
Mark Kassen will be directing "Criminal Empire for Dummies" written by Cliff Dorman. Kassen will also be producing the film along with James Gibb of Cutting Edge Group and Greg Hajdarowicz of Gremi Films. The deal took place at the exclusive resort Hacienda Beach Club & Residences and was reported by Variety.
Actor and producer Luis Gerardo Mendez ("Nosotros Los Nobles") signed a representation agreement with Paradigm. Reported by Variety. So I guess Paradigm also sent agents to Los Cabos.
Pat Saperstein of Variety also attended Los Cabos and scooped a story, that “Wolverine Hotel” from director Patricia Chica who was participating in the Coproduction Forum, is closing in on production with a "recent financing commitment from Jean-Guy Després, who will serve as exec producer. The edgy crime thriller is produced by Canada-based Byron Martin. Looking to cast a Latino actor as co-star, Chica met with rising Mexican thesp Luis Gerardo Mendez ('We Are the Nobles') during Afm though he has not yet been attached. 'A Latino star opens up a market', said Martin."
Celebrated producer Monica Lozano announced the launch of Alebrije Distribución. She has had her hand in 23 productions since her first film, "Amores Perros". "Instructions Not Included" the Us$ 5.5 million film that grossed Us$ 100 million worldwide was also her production. With this Pan-American initiative, the company will acquire distribution rights for the Latin and North American markets. Reported by Variety again!! You would think John was the only real reporter there. Pinske should be proud of him! Most of us got no scoops, but then, I guess we have to prove ourselves worthy - which I am not because at heart, I am not a reporter hunting for news, but rather a gatherer of information and a writer.
Speaking of Monica Lozano, the Germany-based international sales agent, Media Luna, acquired world rights to Internet Junkie, directed by Alexander Katzowicz and produced by Monica Lozano. Variety reports on this again!
"Yamaha 300", a participating project of the 1st Mexico – USA- Canada Coproduction Forum, produced by Valerium Arts (Mayra Espinosa y Jorge Michel Grau, producer and writer-director of the horror hit "Somos lo que hay" respectively, and Grau, the writer of the remake "We Are What We Are") and Uncorked Productions (Andrew Corkin, the producer of the horror film "What We Were"), will be one of the first projects to receive the development stage and postproduction support offered by The Good Film Fund, an initiative of Media Darling (Amy Darling) and The Chatanooga Film Festival. See Variety.
New York producer Dodgeville Films ("To Be Takei") will be joining Varios Lobos in Mexico to produce "Ya no estoy aquí", Fernando Frias’s second film, which was also a winner during Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition. This film in the Coproduction Forum was reported on in Variety.
"Siete Horas" ("Seven Hours"), one of the winning projects of the second Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund edition, which will be directed by Chema Rodriguez and produced by Francisco Vargas, the renowned director of the film "El violin", made an alliance with the Spanish production companies Sin un Duro and Noodles Prods to co-produce the project. (Variety)
CineTren closed deals to handle Latin American distribution for Spring, a Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead film, whose Latin American Premiere was held at Los Cabos International Film Festival. Negotiations between Nate Bolotin and Marie Katz fromLos Angeles-based Xyz and Manuel Garcia from CineTren, took place at the Hotel Grand Solmar. Next time, I'll have to visit all the hotels!! See Variety article.
BH5 Group, which participates in the executive production of "Remember" by Atom Egoyan, will be working with Alonso Ruizpalacios, director of Güeros, in his second movie: Museo, a project that participated in the Ist Mexico- USA- Canada Co-production Forum. Even though Variety wrote about this, my blog on the three year old conglomerate of companies, BH5, was more complete:
BH5 Group Makes a Splash with Three Impressive Films at Los Cabos Int'l Film Fest
BH5, a conglomerate of five formerly independent production companies all run by various friends from the same film school, will be working the international markets much more. Besides the Toronto hit, Jodorowsky's "Dance of Reality", they are working with larger companies like Pathe now. Their work in progress, "You Will Know What To Do With Me" ("Sabras que hacer conmigo" aka "En Contraluz") which just won the The Usd $30,000 prize of Fox+, is seeking an international sales agent.
"Entrevero" by Max Zunino, also winner of the Gabriel Figueroa Film Fund second edition, was selected in the development project category by Ibermedia. See Variety.
And though Colombian Ciro Guerra, whose "The Wind Journeys" was produced by our German friends Roman Paul and Gerhard Meixner at Razor Film Production and by Burning Blue's prolific Diana Bustamente -- who is now also heading the Carthagena Film Festival -- showed in 2009 Cannes Un Certain Regard and was sold by Paris’ Elle Driver to 19 countries including Film Movement for U.S., announced to Variety's John Hopewell that his next film, "Embrace of the Serpent" will star U.S. actor Brionne Davis (“Savaged”) and Belgium’s Jan Bijvoet, the lead in Cannes Competition entry “Borgman” a really creepy dark comedy, he did not discuss his next project "Taganga" in the Coproduction Forum. "Taganga" is about a fisherman from a small village by the Colombian coast where many foreign-owned scuba diving centers have been established. A new law requiring local fisherman to change the motors of their boats forces him to earn quick money, so he chooses to dynamite to fish. The owner of the largest scuba diving center opposes this use of explosives. When the fisherman receives a death threat if he continues the dynamiting of fish, he assumes the center's owner is behind the threat. In order to prove it, he begins a series of fateful actions.
Finally, while it seems like Variety wrote all the news, I have one item which no one has reported on. Reese Witherspoon stated at her press conference in Los Cabos, where her film "Wild" premiered in a red carpet gala, that she is talking to Eugenio Derbez ("Instructions Not Included") to make a movie with him. I heard her say it and later spoke of this to Ben Odell (my next blog on Los Cabos features him). Ben (now partners with Eugenio at 3Pas Studios) said, Actually that would be a great idea but they had not spoken about it. However, they are both represented by CAA, so it would seem like a natural and really exciting pairing. After all, aren't "Legally Blond" and "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" the same film? She is certainly on a role as a producer with "Wild" and David Fincher's "Gone Girl" as he is with his U.S. career. The studios are all courting her now, she said. More to come on this...
- 12/1/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund sent this:
"Dear Friend,
One of the three major newspapers in Israel, "Haaretz" newspaper, decided to dedicate its weekend edition's editorial, to the Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker Suha Arraf and her film "Villa Touma" which the Film Fund supported and the Minister of Culture seems to be extremely unhappy."
Stop political persecution in Israel's film industry
The culture ministry's 'Zionist' war on Arab-Israeli filmmaker Suha Arraf and other such campaigns will have dire consequences for Israeli cinema and culture.
Haaretz Editorial | Aug. 8, 2014 | 3:42 Am
Filmmaker Suha Arraf received funding from Israeli institutions, primarily the Israel Film Fund, for the production of “Villa Touma.” She chose, however, to submit it to the Venice Film Festival as a Palestinian film. The move ignited a campaign of persecution against Arraf, and subsequently against the executive director of the Israel Film Fund, Katriel Schory, who refused to join the assault on Arraf.
Now Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat wants the funding provided by the foundation returned. This, despite Arraf’s willingness, with Schory’s encouragement, to remove “Palestine” from the film’s country of origin. “The opinion of the Culture Ministry’s legal counsel underscores the concern that the film’s maker of the film behaved cynically when she sought recognition and support for her film as an Israeli film,” Livnat said. “Film funds that serve as a conduit for financial support have a duty to ascertain that they are used for this purpose. It would appear that in the case of ‘Villa Touma,’ the film fund did not perform its duty.”
In response, Schory said that he too had expected Arraf to present her film as Israeli, but he stressed that there is no contractual obligation regarding the way a film is submitted to festivals. So far, he added, Arraf has met all her obligations, including detailed credit to the Israeli film funds that took part in financing her production.
Arraf’s decision does not justify the persecution campaign against her and against the film fund and Schory. The government of Israel should learn to accommodate all the complexities in the identity of its Palestinian citizens, and in any event to prevent political interference in the state’s cultural institutions — a practice that Livnat has actually upheld. The culture minister, who apparently envies her rivals on the right who are vying with each other in hate speech against Arabs, has launched all-out “Zionist” war on the filmmaker, and in so doing is crushing the Israel Film Fund underfoot.
Thanks to the film funds, the Israeli film industry presents the beautiful face of Israel to the world. Political interference will bring down the curtain on it and on Israeli culture in general.
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By Nirit Anderman | Aug. 8, 2014 | 1:02 Pm
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By Dafna Arad | Jul. 22, 2014 | 4:10 Am
Punch a lefty, save the homeland: Israel rediscovers political violence
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"Dear Friend,
One of the three major newspapers in Israel, "Haaretz" newspaper, decided to dedicate its weekend edition's editorial, to the Palestinian-Israeli filmmaker Suha Arraf and her film "Villa Touma" which the Film Fund supported and the Minister of Culture seems to be extremely unhappy."
Stop political persecution in Israel's film industry
The culture ministry's 'Zionist' war on Arab-Israeli filmmaker Suha Arraf and other such campaigns will have dire consequences for Israeli cinema and culture.
Haaretz Editorial | Aug. 8, 2014 | 3:42 Am
Filmmaker Suha Arraf received funding from Israeli institutions, primarily the Israel Film Fund, for the production of “Villa Touma.” She chose, however, to submit it to the Venice Film Festival as a Palestinian film. The move ignited a campaign of persecution against Arraf, and subsequently against the executive director of the Israel Film Fund, Katriel Schory, who refused to join the assault on Arraf.
Now Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat wants the funding provided by the foundation returned. This, despite Arraf’s willingness, with Schory’s encouragement, to remove “Palestine” from the film’s country of origin. “The opinion of the Culture Ministry’s legal counsel underscores the concern that the film’s maker of the film behaved cynically when she sought recognition and support for her film as an Israeli film,” Livnat said. “Film funds that serve as a conduit for financial support have a duty to ascertain that they are used for this purpose. It would appear that in the case of ‘Villa Touma,’ the film fund did not perform its duty.”
In response, Schory said that he too had expected Arraf to present her film as Israeli, but he stressed that there is no contractual obligation regarding the way a film is submitted to festivals. So far, he added, Arraf has met all her obligations, including detailed credit to the Israeli film funds that took part in financing her production.
Arraf’s decision does not justify the persecution campaign against her and against the film fund and Schory. The government of Israel should learn to accommodate all the complexities in the identity of its Palestinian citizens, and in any event to prevent political interference in the state’s cultural institutions — a practice that Livnat has actually upheld. The culture minister, who apparently envies her rivals on the right who are vying with each other in hate speech against Arabs, has launched all-out “Zionist” war on the filmmaker, and in so doing is crushing the Israel Film Fund underfoot.
Thanks to the film funds, the Israeli film industry presents the beautiful face of Israel to the world. Political interference will bring down the curtain on it and on Israeli culture in general.
Related Articles
Minister demands subsidy back after director classifies film as Palestinian
By Nirit Anderman | Aug. 8, 2014 | 1:02 Pm
Israeli artists opposing the war come under attack on social networks
By Dafna Arad | Jul. 22, 2014 | 4:10 Am
Punch a lefty, save the homeland: Israel rediscovers political violence
By Asher Schechter | Jul. 24, 2014 | 7:58 Am...
- 8/12/2014
- by Sydney Levine
- Sydney's Buzz
Suha Arraf’s Villa Touma, selected for Venice Critics’ Week, received $400,000 from the Israel Film Fund but has been classified as Palestinian by the director.
The Israeli government has demanded the return of funding for Villa Touma, a film from Israeli-Arab director Suha Arraf that has been selected for Venice Critics’ Week (Aug 27-Sep 6), following its classification as Palestinian.
Arraf’s decision to brand the film as Palestinan was in defiance of the contract she signed with the Fund, which specified that support has been granted for the purpose of making an Israeli film.
And despite its classification as Palestinian, the film print and publicity material credits all the Israeli institutions that provided support.
Suha has since requested all festivals not to brand the film as Palestinian and leave the origin blank, and the Venice Critics’ Week website no longer carries the Palestine origin of the film.
But Limor Livnat, Israel’s minister...
The Israeli government has demanded the return of funding for Villa Touma, a film from Israeli-Arab director Suha Arraf that has been selected for Venice Critics’ Week (Aug 27-Sep 6), following its classification as Palestinian.
Arraf’s decision to brand the film as Palestinan was in defiance of the contract she signed with the Fund, which specified that support has been granted for the purpose of making an Israeli film.
And despite its classification as Palestinian, the film print and publicity material credits all the Israeli institutions that provided support.
Suha has since requested all festivals not to brand the film as Palestinian and leave the origin blank, and the Venice Critics’ Week website no longer carries the Palestine origin of the film.
But Limor Livnat, Israel’s minister...
- 8/8/2014
- by dfainaru@netvision.net.il (Edna Fainaru)
- ScreenDaily
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