Exclusive: Oscar Isaac, Evangeline Lilly, Elliott Gould and Billy Zane will voice the Gidi Dar-directed animated movie Legend of Destruction.
The Ushpizin‘s filmmaker’s latest project has been nine years in the making incorporating a unique visual style with 1,500 original still paintings by David Polonsky and Michael Faust, the artists behind Waltz with Bashir and The Congress. The paintings are edited together to produce an innovative cinematic language, in creating a full-fledged experience of an epic action war film.
The pic is set in 66 Ad, Judea, under Roman rule; a virtual powder keg waiting to explode. Its society is polarized, and there is rampant social injustice and corruption. When the Jews revolt against the Roman Empire, the situation quickly deteriorates into a brutal civil war and the Roman war beast is unleashed to crush the rebellion. The film ends in...
The Ushpizin‘s filmmaker’s latest project has been nine years in the making incorporating a unique visual style with 1,500 original still paintings by David Polonsky and Michael Faust, the artists behind Waltz with Bashir and The Congress. The paintings are edited together to produce an innovative cinematic language, in creating a full-fledged experience of an epic action war film.
The pic is set in 66 Ad, Judea, under Roman rule; a virtual powder keg waiting to explode. Its society is polarized, and there is rampant social injustice and corruption. When the Jews revolt against the Roman Empire, the situation quickly deteriorates into a brutal civil war and the Roman war beast is unleashed to crush the rebellion. The film ends in...
- 2/7/2023
- by Anthony D'Alessandro
- Deadline Film + TV
Memento International (“Call Me By Your Name”) has boarded “Legend of Destruction,” a thought-provoking animated feature by Israeli filmmaker Gidi Dar (“Ushpizin”), produced by Lama Films.
The film’s unique visual style is being created from 1,500 original paintings which are edited and animated together. The paintings and art direction are being handled by David Polonsky and Michael Faust, the artists behind the Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir.”
Dar co-wrote the script with Shuli Rand, a veteran Israeli actor with whom he also collaborated on “Ushpizin” which competed at Tribeca in 2004. On top of having co-written “Legend of Destruction,” Rand is also leading the voice cast.
Set in Jerusalem during the first Jewish–Roman War, “Legend of Destruction” follows an oppressive Roman governor who is driven out of the city by the people. Due to rampant social inequalities, corruption and injustice, secret groups of religious fanatics appear and seek to rebel in the name of God.
The film’s unique visual style is being created from 1,500 original paintings which are edited and animated together. The paintings and art direction are being handled by David Polonsky and Michael Faust, the artists behind the Oscar-nominated “Waltz With Bashir.”
Dar co-wrote the script with Shuli Rand, a veteran Israeli actor with whom he also collaborated on “Ushpizin” which competed at Tribeca in 2004. On top of having co-written “Legend of Destruction,” Rand is also leading the voice cast.
Set in Jerusalem during the first Jewish–Roman War, “Legend of Destruction” follows an oppressive Roman governor who is driven out of the city by the people. Due to rampant social inequalities, corruption and injustice, secret groups of religious fanatics appear and seek to rebel in the name of God.
- 6/14/2021
- by Elsa Keslassy
- Variety Film + TV
I love it when my friends take on hugely ambitious and relevant projects for the screen. This us why we do it, yes?, this cinema thing....
Our Producer pal Lisa Bellomo has put together a Us / Israeli co production on Kickstarter to bring to screen the Dear Sugar phenom which is an avidly, hugely followed advice column relevant to women and the gay community worldwide.
Producer Lisa Bellomo has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance this animated short film based on best-selling author Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar advice column. Israeli animator David Polonsky, art director and lead artist for the acclaimed Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning animated film Waltz With Bashir, will animate the film.
The short is based on The Baby Bird, the column that launched the Dear Sugar phenomenon ( read it Here). Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer (Getting On, Big Love) have written the screenplay adaption and Alex Borstein (Family Guy, Mad TV) will be the voice of Sugar.
In 2010 the Dear Sugar online advice column launched on TheRumpus.net and garnered a devoted underground following. Two years later the captivating voice was revealed to be that of American memoirist and novelist, Cheryl Strayed. Each column is like a short film because each tells a story unto itself. And whether Sugar is bestowing her “advice” to a grieving mother who has just miscarriage, or a father mourning the death of his young gay son and regretting the things he didn’t say, or as in our film, to a young woman grasping to find the meaning in her life, Sugar’s words of wisdom are delivered with compassion and a raw sense of direct honesty. It’s that quality that results in a deeply authentic exchange between Sugar and her questioners. It is an advice column unlike any other.
The animation will be done in Israel and David Polonsky is the perfect person to oversee it for this film. Like the Dear Sugar columns, Waltz With Bashir also jumps back and forth between present day and flashbacks of traumatic memories from the past. That movie’s particular style of animation – which has a documentary feel to it - effectively captures the characters complex emotions, as they try to make sense of their lives. In that way it’s not unlike our Baby Bird story. Of course David and his animation partner Yoni Goodman will create a distinctive animation style for Sugar, but the Waltz With Bashir template is a good model for this project.
They're determined to get this Dear Sugar short film produced, but the big dream is that this short will be just the beginning for Sugar on the screen. Once the short is complete, the plan is to submit the film to domestic and international film festivals, and hope to premiere it at the Sundance Film Festival. After that, who knows…a feature film…a television series…The sky’s the limit because in the words of Sugar, “The best thing you can possibly do with your life, is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it”.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign here: http://ow.ly/wWESP
Follow them on twitter and instagram: [At]dearsugarfilm...
Our Producer pal Lisa Bellomo has put together a Us / Israeli co production on Kickstarter to bring to screen the Dear Sugar phenom which is an avidly, hugely followed advice column relevant to women and the gay community worldwide.
Producer Lisa Bellomo has now launched a Kickstarter campaign to help finance this animated short film based on best-selling author Cheryl Strayed's Dear Sugar advice column. Israeli animator David Polonsky, art director and lead artist for the acclaimed Oscar nominated and Golden Globe winning animated film Waltz With Bashir, will animate the film.
The short is based on The Baby Bird, the column that launched the Dear Sugar phenomenon ( read it Here). Mark V. Olsen and Will Scheffer (Getting On, Big Love) have written the screenplay adaption and Alex Borstein (Family Guy, Mad TV) will be the voice of Sugar.
In 2010 the Dear Sugar online advice column launched on TheRumpus.net and garnered a devoted underground following. Two years later the captivating voice was revealed to be that of American memoirist and novelist, Cheryl Strayed. Each column is like a short film because each tells a story unto itself. And whether Sugar is bestowing her “advice” to a grieving mother who has just miscarriage, or a father mourning the death of his young gay son and regretting the things he didn’t say, or as in our film, to a young woman grasping to find the meaning in her life, Sugar’s words of wisdom are delivered with compassion and a raw sense of direct honesty. It’s that quality that results in a deeply authentic exchange between Sugar and her questioners. It is an advice column unlike any other.
The animation will be done in Israel and David Polonsky is the perfect person to oversee it for this film. Like the Dear Sugar columns, Waltz With Bashir also jumps back and forth between present day and flashbacks of traumatic memories from the past. That movie’s particular style of animation – which has a documentary feel to it - effectively captures the characters complex emotions, as they try to make sense of their lives. In that way it’s not unlike our Baby Bird story. Of course David and his animation partner Yoni Goodman will create a distinctive animation style for Sugar, but the Waltz With Bashir template is a good model for this project.
They're determined to get this Dear Sugar short film produced, but the big dream is that this short will be just the beginning for Sugar on the screen. Once the short is complete, the plan is to submit the film to domestic and international film festivals, and hope to premiere it at the Sundance Film Festival. After that, who knows…a feature film…a television series…The sky’s the limit because in the words of Sugar, “The best thing you can possibly do with your life, is to tackle the motherfucking shit out of it”.
Check out the Kickstarter campaign here: http://ow.ly/wWESP
Follow them on twitter and instagram: [At]dearsugarfilm...
- 6/6/2014
- by Peter Belsito
- Sydney's Buzz
The Israeli Film Critics Association has announced the winners of their very first year-end film awards. And the winners are:
Best Foreign Film: Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron
(Leos Carax's Holy Motors and Pablo Larrain's No were runner-ups)
Best Israeli Film: Big Bad Wolves, directed by Nevot Papushado and Aharon Keshales
Best direction: (Tie) Big Bad Wolves and Bethlehem (directed by Yuval Adler)
Best Screenplay: "S#x Acts" by Rona Segal
Best Actor: Hitam Omary, "Bethlehem"
Best Actress: Sivan Levy, "S#x Acts"
Newcomer Award: Tom Shoval, the first-time director of "Youth"
Best technical achievement: Ari Folman, Yoni Goodman, David Polonsky and the animation team of "The Congress"...
Best Foreign Film: Gravity, Alfonso Cuaron
(Leos Carax's Holy Motors and Pablo Larrain's No were runner-ups)
Best Israeli Film: Big Bad Wolves, directed by Nevot Papushado and Aharon Keshales
Best direction: (Tie) Big Bad Wolves and Bethlehem (directed by Yuval Adler)
Best Screenplay: "S#x Acts" by Rona Segal
Best Actor: Hitam Omary, "Bethlehem"
Best Actress: Sivan Levy, "S#x Acts"
Newcomer Award: Tom Shoval, the first-time director of "Youth"
Best technical achievement: Ari Folman, Yoni Goodman, David Polonsky and the animation team of "The Congress"...
- 12/16/2013
- by Manny
- Manny the Movie Guy
A scene from Ari Folman's The Congress
Photo: Courtesy of Slash Film Israeli director Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir was a big hit in 2008 and ultimately earned a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination, and many thought it should have won though it ended up losing to Departures out of Japan. His follow-up, The Congress, a loose adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's "The Futurological Congress," has been discussed here and there starting with Yair Raveh's interview with Folman at Cinemascope in which Folman gave details as to what direction the film will take: "We'll take elements from Bashir, mainly in how the story is structured, but instead of traveling backwards with the characters, this time we will travel forward, jumping into the future. The present will be shot in live-action, the future will be animated. The main character will be played by An Actress Playing Herself. The film is a co-production between Israel,...
Photo: Courtesy of Slash Film Israeli director Ari Folman's Waltz with Bashir was a big hit in 2008 and ultimately earned a Best Foreign Language Oscar nomination, and many thought it should have won though it ended up losing to Departures out of Japan. His follow-up, The Congress, a loose adaptation of Stanislaw Lem's "The Futurological Congress," has been discussed here and there starting with Yair Raveh's interview with Folman at Cinemascope in which Folman gave details as to what direction the film will take: "We'll take elements from Bashir, mainly in how the story is structured, but instead of traveling backwards with the characters, this time we will travel forward, jumping into the future. The present will be shot in live-action, the future will be animated. The main character will be played by An Actress Playing Herself. The film is a co-production between Israel,...
- 4/12/2010
- by Brad Brevet
- Rope of Silicon
I voted for the Cinema Eye Honors for nonfiction film this year, so I was hardly an impartial attendee at last night's show at the Times Center, where Waltz with Bashir took four awards, prompting the sole representative of the film in attendance, art director David Polonsky, to quip, "They're giving me trouble at the airport later." Because of my role in helping to select the winners, I'll refrain from commenting on the awards themselves (indieWIRE has the full list of winners). As for the show itself, it's come a long way from last year's somewhat scrappy installment at the IFC Center. In 2009, the Cinema Eye team gracef ...
- 3/30/2009
- by Karina Longworth
- Spout
Release date (limited): Dec. 26
Director/Producer/Writer: Ari Folman
Art Director: David Polonsky
Starring: Folman, Ori Sivan
Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 87 mins.
Animated “documentary” reclaims darkest memories
As much about memory’s hallucinatory inventions as the facts of the 1982 massacre at a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut by the so-called Phalangist Christian militia, Ari Folman’s animated Waltz With Bashir begins with 26 barking dogs rushing through a city. From there, the emotional intensity doesn’t let up. Though Folman, a veteran Israeli documentarian, calls Bashir a documentary based on the interviews at its core (mostly with fellow soldiers), his cameras go places the handiest cinematographer could never venture: Beams of light bend between branches during a forest battle; and the dream images of rising naked from the sea—while balls of fire fall from the sky—are just as real as the chasm-like blank spots in Folman...
Director/Producer/Writer: Ari Folman
Art Director: David Polonsky
Starring: Folman, Ori Sivan
Studio/Run Time: Sony Pictures Classics, 87 mins.
Animated “documentary” reclaims darkest memories
As much about memory’s hallucinatory inventions as the facts of the 1982 massacre at a Palestinian refugee camp in Beirut by the so-called Phalangist Christian militia, Ari Folman’s animated Waltz With Bashir begins with 26 barking dogs rushing through a city. From there, the emotional intensity doesn’t let up. Though Folman, a veteran Israeli documentarian, calls Bashir a documentary based on the interviews at its core (mostly with fellow soldiers), his cameras go places the handiest cinematographer could never venture: Beams of light bend between branches during a forest battle; and the dream images of rising naked from the sea—while balls of fire fall from the sky—are just as real as the chasm-like blank spots in Folman...
- 12/26/2008
- Pastemagazine.com
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