Treasures From the Deep: Cinema of Israel

By: kuxa kanema

Following World War II , the British withdrew from their mandate of Palestine, and the UN partitioned the area into Arab and Jewish states, an arrangement rejected by the Arabs. Subsequently, the Israelis defeated the Arabs in a series of wars without ending the deep tensions between the two sides. On 25 April 1982, Israel withdrew from the Sinai pursuant to the 1979 Israel-Egypt Peace Treaty. Israel and Palestinian officials signed on 13th September 1993 a Declaration of Principles (also known as the Oslo accords) guiding an interim period of Palestinian self-rule. Outstanding territorial and other disputes with Jordan were resolved in the 26th October 1994 Israel-Jordan Treaty of Peace. In addition, on 25th May 2000, Israel withdrew unilaterally from southern Lebanon, which it had occupied since 1982. In keeping with the framework established at the Madrid Conference in October 1991, bilateral negotiations were conducted between Israel and Palestinian representatives and Syria to achieve a permanent settlement. On 24 June 2002, US President BUSH laid out a “road map” for resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which envisions a two state solution. However, progress toward a permanent status agreement has been undermined by Palestinian-Israeli violence ongoing since September 2000.

1896-1948 JEWISH CINEMA: BEFORE THE NATION OF ISRAEL
Only one Hebrew feature Oded hanoded (“Oded the Wanderer,” 1932), was made before sound film production began in Palestine. This can hardly be considered participation in the silent era of film history, neither in terms of quantity, nor chronologically. Talking pictures came to Hollywood in 1927 and the last major silent feature was released in 1930. And yet, there is a lot that can be said about silent filmmaking in Jewish Palestine, much of it interesting precisely because it is not comparable to the film history of any other country. It is ironic though, that while the American film industry became such a phenomenal business success in the hands of Jewish immigrants and their children, most of early Israeli film history was determined by financial limitations. Zionism, the political movement most responsible for Jewish rebirth as a nation, was only really born in the same years as the cinema, one must speak not of a national cinema that reflected a national identity, but of a “pre-national” cinema, one of whose tasks was to shape the identity of a nation in the making. Elsewhere, cinema may have passed from the hands of its inventors into the hands of showmen (ranging from the fairground variety to the Hollywood moguls). In Jewish Palestine, filmmaking began as just another arm of the Zionist propaganda apparatus and for many decades, even well after the establishment of the state, had great difficulty in maintaining any existence outside this framework.

Ukrainian born Yaacov Ben Dov was the school photographer at Bezalel, and his subsequent unceasing efforts to obtain his own film camera bore fruit in time for him to immortalize the most dramatic moment of the war in Palestine: the triumphant entry into Jerusalem at the end of 1917 of the British General Allenby. This marked the beginning of the most prolific career of Palestine’s silent film era. Both with and without the support of the JNF (and the Palestine Foundation Fund – Keren Hayesod – founded in 1920), Ben Dov would be the main film chronicler of Zionist work in Palestine until his inability to acquire sound equipment ended his career in the early 1930s.

In 1927 the first permanent production comapny Moledet was established by Nathan Axelrod an immigrant from Russia. In 1929 he would launch the Carmel newsreel and in 1933 he produced the country’s first fiction feature Oded the Wanderer. In the following years the Second War, poor facilities and lack of money prevented Hebrew cinema from expanding. In 1948 the nation of Israel was established, but for years Israeli cinema languished behind it’s competitors. It was not until the 1960’s that Israel began to find it’s cinematic voice.

Here are ten Israeli Filmmakers past and present who have stamped their own unique footprints on world cinema

1.Menahem Golan
As one of the leaders in Israeli cinema, filmmaker and producer Menahem Golan has collaborated with his cousin Yoram Globus since the early 1960s to produce over 150 movies. He spent many years directing theatrical productions in Israel before coming to the U.S. to study film in New York and later became a protegé of director Roger Corman. When Golan returned to his homeland, he and Globus worked together to create Israel’s film industry with prestigious films such as Sallah Shabati (1964), directed by Ephraim Kishon. Golan has also directed many notable films such as Kazbalan nominated for two Golden Globes and Mivsta Yonatan nominated for an Oscar in 1978. In 1979, Golan and Globus took over the Cannon group in Hollywood where for the next ten years they produced quality independent films such as Love Streams (1984) and Barfly (1987). In 1989, the two producers went their separate ways with Globus becoming the head of Pathe International, and Golan moving to take over the 21st Century Film Corporation. Golan continues to work in Hollywood, but one can only conclude that his directorial works throughout this period at best can be called variable.

1977 Mivtsa Yonatan
1975 Diamonds
1975 Lepke
1974 Kazablan
1972 Escape to the Sun
1972 Shod Hatelephonim Hagadol
1971 Katz V’Carasso
1971 Malkat Hakvish
1970 Attack at Dawn
1970 Lupo
1969 Margo Sheli
1969 What’s Good for the Goose
1968 Tevye and His Seven Daughters
1967 999 Aliza Mizrahi
1966 Einer spielt falsch
1966 Fortuna
1964 Dalia Vehamalahim
1964 Shemona B’Ekevot Ahat

2.Ephraim Kishon
Ephraim Kishon (Hebrew: אפרים קישון‎, August 23, 1924 – January 29, 2005) was an Israeli author, dramatist, screenwriter, and film director. He is one of the most widely-read contemporary satirists in the world. In 2001, Kishon was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Kishon’s books have been translated into 37 languages and sold particularly well in Germany. Kishon rejected the idea of universal guilt for the Holocaust. He said: “It gives me great satisfaction to see the grandchildren of my executioners queuing up to buy my books.”Until his death in 1979, Friedrich Torberg translated his work into German. Thereafter Kishon did the German translations himself. Kishon died in Switzerland at the age 80 of an apparent heart attack. His body was flown to Israel and buried in the artists’ cemetery in Tel Aviv. Kishon expanded into cinema in the early 1960s. He wrote, directed and produced five feature films (all of them comedic /satirical movies). Kishon was nominated twice for an Academy Award for best foreign language film and three times for a Golden Globe Award. He won two Golden Globe Best Foreign Language Film Awards, for Blaumlich Canal (1969) and The Policeman (1971).

1986 Zieh den Stecker raus, das Wasser kocht (TV movie)
1983 Der Trauschein (TV movie) (theatre version)
1978 Het was de leeuwerik (TV movie)
1978 Ha-Shu’al B’Lool Hatarnagalot
1970 Ha-Shoter Azulai
1969 Zieh den Stecker raus, das Wasser kocht (TV movie) (theatre version)
1969 Te’alat Blaumilch
1967 Ervinka
1964 Sallah Shabati

3.David Perlov
Perlov spent his childhood in Belo Horizonte. At the age of 10, he moved to São Paulo. In 1957 in Paris he made Tante chinoise (Old Aunt China), based on caustic drawings of a young girl of 12 years of the French provincial bourgeoisie of 1890 which he found in the cellar of the house he was living in. In 1958, he emigrated to Israel where in 1963 he made the 33 minutes documentary In Jerusalem (Be-Yerushalayim). This film became to be one of the most important films of Israeli documentary cinema. Although Perlov managed to make two feature films by 1972 (“The Pill” and 42:6), his film proposals were being repeatedly rejected by the Israeli establishment and the IBA. In early 1973 David Perlov decided to buy a 16 mm camera and film his everyday life alongside dramatic events that took place in Israel at the time. He had done so for 10 years until in 1983 Channel 4 of the British television showed their interest in screening the film. The result was Perlov’s epic work Yoman (יומן, diary). From 1973 Perlov taught in the department of film and television at Tel Aviv University.

1995Opera Hadasha (documentary)
1993 Tel Katzir 1993 (documentary)
1983 Yoman (documentary)
1977 Biba
1972 Ha-Glula
1970 42:6 – Ben Gurion
1967 Israeli Theatre 1967
1964 Tel Katzir
1963 B’Yerushalaim

4.Uri Zohar
Uri Zohar was born in Tel Aviv in 1934. In 1952, he graduated high school and did his military service in an army entertainment troupe. His first marriage ended in divorce. By 1956, he was a popular stand-up comedian. In 1960, he studied philosophy at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He was sentenced to three months of community service on charges of marijuana possession. In the 1960s, he directed and starred in Israeli films, among them A Hole in the Moon, Three Days and a Child, Every Bastard a King, Big Eyes and Metzitzim. He was the first filmmaker to win the Israel Prize, which he turned down. In the late 1970s, Zohar returned to religion, becoming a Haredi Orthodox Jew and a rabbi. He is active in the movement to attract secular Jews to religious orthodoxy, and uses his entertainment skills to promote this objective.

1977 Hatzilu Et HaMatzil
1974 Einayim G’dolot
1973 Boys Will Never Believe It
1972 Peeping Toms
1971 Bloomfield
1970 Hitromamut
1969 Lool (TV series)
1968 Kol Mamzer Melech
1968 Ha-Shehuna Shelanu
1967 Shlosha Yamim Veyeled
1966 Moishe Ventalator
1964 Hor B’Levana
1962 Etz O Palestina

5.Moshe Mizrahi
Moshé Mizrahi (Hebrew:משה מזרחי, b. 1931 in Alexandria, Egypt) is an Israeli film director. He has directed 14 films in both Israel and France. Three of his films were nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film, I Love You Rosa, The House on Chelouche Street and Madame Rosa, with the latter winning the award. His landmark film, Les Stances a Sophie, had gone practically unseen for twenty eight years until 2008 when it was re-released and profiled in The FADER by Alexander Geoffrey Frank. In September 1994, he was honored by the Haifa Film Festival for his lifetime contribution to Israel cinema. Today (16.03.2009) Moshe lives in Israel leading movie-making workshop in Tel Aviv University. His wife teaches acting class at Tel-Aviv University.

1986 Every Time We Say Goodbye
1985 War and Love
1983 Une jeunesse
1981 La vie continue
1980 I Sent a Letter to My Love
1977 La vie devant soi
1974 Rachel’s Man
1973 Ha-Bayit Berechov Chelouche
1973 Abu el Banat
1972 Ani Ohev Otach Rosa
1971 Sophie’s Ways
1970 Ore’ach B’Onah Metah

6.Jacques Katmor
Jacques Katmor only directed one feature film: A Woman’s Case, but this psychedelic, one of a kind gem from the late 1960’s has become one of the most innovative films to come out of Israel. Katmor was a leader of an Israeli avantguard group, “the 3d eye”. There is very little information on this group. The film tells the story of a man who works in publicity meets a woman modeling and together they spend a day in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. The model leads him to coffee houses and sexual parties, while the man takes her to a sculpturer’s workshop so that he’ll freeze her shape in cast. She’s trying to launch him into the constant flow and complexities of time while he’s trying to freeze her shape and set its Idea for future generations… A unique, one of a kind film which tried (and managed) to deviate from the general currencies of Israeli cinema of its time, influenced by European cinematic modernism and by the French New Wave, especially from Godard (note the use of slogans, pop art and graphics). The main actress, Hillit Yeshurun (here under the name Katmor, for she was married to the director), has become a excellent translator, and she’s responsible for mosr of Proust’s translations in Hebrew. She served as the expressive cinematic subject taht served the fantasies of the director allowing him to discuss the destructive and violent relation formed in films between the male gaze and his female object. The film will be remembered as one of the most unique creations in Israeli cinema which tried to take it to places few have dared to go since then.

1969 A Woman’s Case

7.Boaz Davidson
Boaz Davidson (Hebrew: בועז דוידזון‎, born 8 November 1943) is an Israeli film director, producer and screenwriter. He was born in Tel Aviv, British Mandate of Palestine and studied film in London. He started his career by directing the television show Lool (1969) and the movie Shablul (1971). Later he directed Israeli cult films such as Charlie Ve’hetzi (1974) and Hagiga B’Snuker (1975). In 1974 he directed the film Mishpahat Tzan’ani. He directed the first four films in the Eskimo Limon series (Eskimo Limon (1978), Yotzim Kavua (1979), Shifshuf Naim (1981), Sapiches (1982). Eskimo Limon was entered into the 28th Berlin International Film Festival in 1978. In 1983 he directed Basis Sababa which is based on Sapiches. In 1986 he directed the cult film Alex Holeh Ahavah. In 1979 he moved from Israel to the United States and started working as a director, directing a remake of Eskimo Limon, The Last American Virgin in 1982. He continued to work there as a producer and a screenwriter. While many of his films can be classified as B movies, Davidson was also involved in producing several major films including 16 Blocks, The Wicker Man, The Black Dahlia and 2008’s Rambo, the Expendables and Herzog’s Bad Lieutenant.

1979Yotzim Kavua
1978 Eskimo Limon
1976 Lupo B’New York
1976 Mishpahat Tzan’ani
1976 The Girls Who’ll Do Anything
1975 Hagiga B’Snuker
1974 Charlie Ve’hetzi
1972 Azit Hakalba Hatzanhanit
1971 Fifty Fifty

8.Amos Gitai
Born in 1950 in Haifa, to architect Munio Weinraub and Zionist activist Efratia Margalit.² His father was architect of the pre-war Bauhaus movement in Germany. Gitai began his career directing documentaries that showcased his increasingly leftist politics. Field Diary, a critical look at the Lebanon War, was partially censored by the military in 1983, leading Gitai to leave Israel for France, where he would base his working life for the next decade, until the electoral victory of Yitzhak Rabin and the Oslo Accords convinced him to return to Israel permanently. While in France, Gitai directed a series of fiction films that led to great acclaim in his adopted country, the most well-known being Golem and Berlin/Jerusalem, which retold the true story of two women, one German and one Russian, who make their way to 1930s Jerusalem out of a passion for Zionist politics and the mythology of Jerusalem. Having returned to Israel, Gitai maintained his ties to the French film industry, and produced a series of increasingly acclaimed and successful films. Kadosh (1998) was an attack on the place of religion in Israeli society, and while criticized in Israel for its anti-religious bent, it proved a huge success overseas, garnering new attention for Gitai and Israeli cinema in general. Kippur (1999) was an even larger event, being Israel’s first large scale cinematic depiction of what many consider its most difficult and traumatic war. Critics in Israel and overseas praised its lack of sensationalism and its unsentimental depiction of war. However, it was criticized for historical inaccuracies, most especially its depiction of the Golan Heights as a rainy, muddy landscape.[citation needed] In fact, no rain fell on the Golan throughout the entirety of the Yom Kippur War. Gitai defended his film as truthful recounting of a personal story, and felt that his critics were concentrating on irrelevant details. Kedma (2001) was a critical retelling of Israel’s War of Independence, in which Gitai sought to revise what he saw as many of the myths surrounding Israel’s founding. It was less well received than his previous films and went largely ignored in his native country.[citation needed] Alila (2002) was a step back from the serious nature of Gitai’s previous work. It was a tragi-comedy set in a Tel Aviv apartment house, featuring an Altman-esque array of characters and an all-star Israeli cast. In recent years, Gitai has directed Promised Land (2004) about foreign prostitutes in Israel, and Free Zone (2005) with Israeli-American star Natalie Portman. The latter won the Best Actress Award at the 2005 Cannes Film Festival for Israeli actress Hanna Laslo.

2009 Carmel
2008 Later
2007 Disengagement
2007 To Each His Own Cinema (segment “Le Dibbouk de Haifa”)
2006 Home: News from House (documentary)
2005 Free Zone
2004 Welcome to São Paulo (documentary) (segment)
2004 Promised Land
2003 Alila
2002 11’09’’01 – September 11 (segment “Israel” / as Amos Gitaï)
2002 Kedma
2001 Eden
2000 Kippur
1999 Kadosh
1998 Yom Yom
1998 A House in Jerusalem (documentary)
1998 Tapuz (documentary)

9.Eytan Fox
Fox was born in New York City and moved with his family to Israel when he was two. His father, Seymour Fox, was a Conservative rabbi and a leading professor of Jewish education at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. His mother, Sara Kaminker-Fox, was the head of the Jerusalem city council and involved in Jerusalem urban planning. He grew up in Jerusalem, served in the army, and studied at Tel Aviv University’s School of Film and Television. He is openly gay. He and his partner, Gal Uchovsky, have been together for over 18 years. They are also professional collaborators, Uchovsky, a writer and journalist, is involved in much of the scriptwriting for Fox’s movies. His first feature, Song of a Siren (1994), a comedy set in Tel Aviv during the First Gulf War, was a hit in his country. After working for three years for Israeli TV (Gotta Have a Heart (1998), a musical drama, and “Florentine” (1997), a series about the post-Army years of a group of friends in Tel Aviv), Eytan returns to the big screen with Yossi & Jagger (2002). Two years later, he directs the masterful, unforgettable Walk on Water (2004) , about the ambiguous relationship linking a Mossad agent and the grandson of a former Nazi officer, which brought him international recognition. His most recent work, The Bubble (2006) is remarkable as well, synthesizing all his former films and reflecting the contradictions of Israel in a unique blend of comedy and tragedy.

10.Ari Folman
Ari Folman (Hebrew: ארי פולמן) (born December 17, 1962) is an Israeli film director, screenwriter and film score composer. Ari Folman was born in Haifa to Holocaust survivors. His wife is also a film director. They live in Tel Aviv. Ari Folman’s memories of the aftermath of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila massacre which took place when he was a 19-year old soldier, served as the basis for his movie Waltz with Bashir. The film follows his attempt to regain his memories of the war through therapy as well as conversations with old friends and other Israelis that were present in Beirut around the time of the massacre.

2008 Waltz with Bashir
2001 Made in Israel
1996 Clara Hakedosha

OTHER KEY FILMS TO NOTE
Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer, Thorald Dickinson, 1955
Hour of Truth, Henri Calef, 1965
Sinai Commandos: A Story of the Six Day War, Raphael Nussbaum, 1968
But Where Is Daniel Wax, Avraham Heffner, 1972
Passover Plot, Michael Campus, 1976

the Big Hit, Assi Dayan, 1979
the Troupe, Avi Nesher, 1979
Under the Nose, Jacob Goldwasser, 1982
Great Sadness of Zohara, Nina Menkes, 1983
Avanti Popolo, Rafi Bukai, 1986

Aviya’s Summer, Eli Cohen, 1988
Sadot Yerakum, Yitzhak Yeshurun, 1989
Amazing Grace, Amos Guttman, 1992
Life According To Agfa, Assi Dayan, 1992
the Reconstruction, Avi Mograbi, 1994

Under the Domim Tree, Eli Cohen, 1994
Electric Blanket Named Moshe, Assi Dayan, 1995
How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon, Avi Mograbi, 1999
Trance, Uri Tzaig, 1999
Time of Favour, Joseph Cedar, 2000

Late Marriage, Dover Koshashvili, 2001
Broken Wings, Nir Bergman, 2002
August: A Moment Before the Eruption, Avi Mograbi, 2002
Temptation, Eran Riklis, 2002
Gift From Above, Dover Koshashvili, 2003

James’ Journey To Jerusalem, Ra’anan Alexandrowicz, 2003
Campfire, Joseph Cedar, 2004
Syrian Bride, Eran Riklis, 2004
Ushpizin, Gidi Darr, 2004
Avenge But One of My Two Eyes, Avi Mograbi, 2005

Sweet Mud, Drur Shaul, 2006
Beaufort, Joseph Cedar, 2007
Band’s Visit, Eran Kolirin, 2007
Father My Lord, David Volach, 2007
Lemon Tree, Eran Riklis, Lemon Tree, 2008

For My Father, Dror Zahavi, 2008
Lebanon, Samuel Maoz, 2009
Jaffa: the Orange’s Clockwork, Eyal Sivan, 2009
Eyes Wide Open, Haim Tabakman, 2009