Another Israeli film about Lebanon gets award nomination
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Life, Movies, War
Congratulations to the makers of the film ‘Lebanon,’ which has just been nominated for five awards – including Best European Film of 2010 by the European Film Academy.
The film’s director, Samuel Maoz, was also nominated for the award of Best European Director and Best European Screenwriter.
The subject matter of the film is, of course, Lebanon. Israel’s invasion of the country in 1982, following years of attacks on its northern towns, resulted in an almost two decade occupation of the southern part of the country.
It’s now regarded as our very own version of Vietnam, and just as scores of films in the US about America’s involvement in Vietnam dotted the screen in the ensuing decades – from Full Metal Jacket to The Deer Hunter to Apocalypse Now – the same has happened in Israel with Lebanon.
Many films made by former IDF soldiers-turned-filmmakers have provided harrowing views of the Israeli experience in Lebanon, like the Oscar-nominated Beaufort and Waltzing with Bashir. ‘Lebanon’ tells its story through the binocular-aided eyes of soldiers like a young Maoz, who himself served there, aboard an armored vehicle as they enter a hostile southern Lebanon village.
The film trade magazine Variety has described the film as the boldest and best of the recent mini-wave of Israeli movies, while the New York Times has called it “an astonishing piece of cinema.”
Whether those accolades are for critics’ natural inclination to like anything perceived as ‘anti-war,’ or whether ‘Lebanon’ is truly a world class film is up for you to decide.
Oscar fever in Israel
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, Israeliness, Movies, Pop Culture
Ajami directors Scandar Copti (left) and Yaron Shani in Hollywood over the weekend (Photo: Reuters)
It’s the third year running that an Israeli film has been nominated (after Beaufort and Waltz With Bashir). And Ajami’s intense portrayals – intertwined stories of a young Muslim in the crime-ridden Ajami neighborhood of Jaffa gets caught in an Arab clan feud and his own forbidden romance with a Christian woman; a Jewish police officer in search of his missing soldier brother, and the tale of a Palestinian youth who sneaks into Israel for menial work – are making it, if not a favorite, then at least a strong contender for the Oscar.
And, as Hannah Brown wrote in The Jerusalem Post, Ajami has already won just by getting to the Hollywood ceremonies. Directed by an Arab – Scandar Copti – and a Jew – Yaron Shani, “it’s hard to overstate the symbolic value of the collaboration and friendship between these two, who are from different ethnic groups, religious affiliations and backgrounds. They spent seven years working on this gritty film about the crime-ridden Ajami neighborhood in Jaffa, which they managed to get into the Cannes Film Festival, where it won a special mention. These two young, first-time directors who had to live with relatives while making the film because they had put all their money into it, have seen it win honors and rave reviews on three continents.”
It’s been fun watching the the two, along with the cast and their families first forays into Hollywood – most of the cast consisted of Jaffa residents who weren’t really acting too much in their portrayals of the working class; for many, it was their first trip outside of Israel and for some, their first airplane ride. Star Shahir Kabahar, 25, had to take vacation days from his job as a bureka baker at his family’s Jaffa bakery, in order to travel to the ceremony.
Footage of them walking outside the Kodak Theater and staring wide-eyed at the spectacles on Hollywood Boulevard demonstrate the huge journey one can make with film and the impact on lives it can create. Good luck to Ajami tonight!
Israeli film ‘Ajami’ headed to the Oscars?
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence, Crime, General, Movies, Pop Culture
There’s something about Israeli films – they keep getting recognized for excellence. After two years in a row of Oscar nominations for Best Foreign Language film – for Beaufort and Waltz with Bashir respectively, it looks like we might get a hat trick.
The Academy of Arts and Sciences announced on Wednesday their shortlist of nine films out of hundreds of applicants for the category – and it included Ajami, Israel’s official selection for the Oscars.
This year’s shortlist also includes films from Argentina, Australia, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Kazakhstan, The Netherlands and Peru. The final five nominees will be announced when all the Oscar nominations are revealed, in a press conference on February 2.
Hannah Brown, The film critic for The Jerusalem Post, described Ajami as a gritty drama about crime in Jaffa. It was co-directed by two first-timers, Scandar Copti, an Israeli Arab Christian, and Yaron Shani, an Israeli Jew.
The film – which is in both Hebrew and Arabic – received a special mention at Cannes, as well as winning the Ophir Award, the Israeli Oscar, which made it Israel’s official selection.
Ajami is competing for one of the five nominated movies with Germany’s “The White Ribbon,” which won the 2010 Golden Globe for best foreign movie, “El Secreto de Sus Ojos” from Argentina; “Samson and Delilah,” from Australia; “The World Is Big and Salvation Lurks Around the Corner,” from Bulgaria; “A Prophet,” from France; “Kelin from Kazakhstan; and “Winter in Wartime,” from The Netherlands, in which a Dutch boy aids a downed British pilot during World War II.
Maybe this will be the year – following the nomination of nine Israeli films in past years – that one of ours – especially a ‘coexistence’ project like ‘Ajami’ will walk away with Israel’s first Oscar.
Israeli film ‘Lebanon’ takes top prize in Venice
Filed under: A New Reality, General, Movies, Pop Culture, War
It’s ironic that just as a group of well-known actors and filmmakers, among them Jane Fonda and Danny Glover, are calling to boycott this year’s Toronto International Film Festival because one program there will be devoted to films set in Tel Aviv to mark that city’s centennial, an Israeli film walked off with top honors at the 66th Venice Film Festival.
Israeli director Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon won the Golden Lion, the top prize, at the closing ceremony on Saturday night, the third Israeli film based on soldiers in Lebanon besides Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort in 2008 and Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir in 2009 to win major awards. None of those films could come close to being described as Israeli propoganda, as the pro-boycotters claim all Israeli film is, and in fact, they provide a critical look at Israeli society and the wars we’ve fought.
Lebanon, Maoz’ first feature film, received glowing reviews from critics, with The International Herald Tribune calling it “a powerful and original film.” Based on Maoz’s battle memories, Lebanon depicts the fate of an IDF tank and its crew behind enemy lines at the beginning of the first Lebanon War in 1982.
According to The Jerusalem Post, the hard-hitting film is shot almost entirely from the point of view of the soldiers inside the tank, and is uncompromising in its depiction of the confusion of war, the inevitability of casualties (both civilian and military), and the claustrophobia of being stuck inside a machine that protects soldiers but can also become a death trap at any moment. It is highly critical of the leadership that brought these soldiers into such a deadly situation and left them there with so little guidance.
Lebanon is nominated for several Ophir Awards, the prizes of the Israel Academy for Film, including Best Picture. The Ophir winners will be announced in a ceremony on September 26.
The winner of the Ophir Award becomes Israel’s official entry to be considered for a nomination for the Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
It’s also ironic, that as more and more quality Israeli films are being made that have nothing to do with war and conflict, it is precisely those war-based movies that are touching an international audience. If the naysayers who would deny audiences in Toronto from viewing the spectrum of film which reflect the diversity of Israeli culture – that don’t attempt to whitewash any blemishes or skirt over the pall of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – would only view some of the films themselves, they may reconsider their decision to boycott.
Is there a market for an Israeli comedy in the US?
The crowd-pleasing 2008 Israeli film ‘Lost Islands’ was featured over the weekend at the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles.
The comedy, produced by Dudi Zilber and directed by Reshef Levy, is about twin brothers in late-1970s Israel who fall in love with the same girl. And according to Zilber, that light remise might be precisely the reason why the film, the biggest box office hit locally last year, has not yet been able to procure American distribution.
All of the recent Israeli films that have resonated with American viewers have had something to do with the conflict – whether it be directly (“Waltz With Bashir,” “Beaufort”) or indirectly (“The Band’s Visit”).
“It’s a big disappointment,” Zilber told The Los Angeles Times, which ran a feature on the film. “Not even one distributor has given us an offer. No one is interested.”
According to Zilber, when it comes to foreign imports, US distributors are far more interested in serious, art-house dramas than in popular comedies. In fact, being a big comedy hit in Israel probably makes “Lost Islands” a harder sell than if it were a small, thoughtful adult drama.
“The movies that sell well overseas — and this is true if they are from France or Iran as well as from Israel — are the ones that have soft or delicate subject matter, a serious theme that would appeal to the U.S. art-house moviegoer,” says Zilber. “Non-English-speaking films are geared to a very specific audience in the U.S. — the cinephiles, the people who want serious drama. So actually, the more commercial the movie is in Israel, the less commercial it would be in America.”
However, even though nobody may want the rights to “Lost Islands”, they are interested in the story. Zilber told The Times that he’s in negotiations with several US-based film companies for the American remake rights to the film.
If remade, it would also join a trend of US adaptions of Israeli productions, ranging from HBO’s In Treatment to:
– Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi, – a 2003 Shemi Zarhin comedy being remade as Diego Ascending, by actress Salma Hayek’s production company about an underappreciated 16-year-old boy charged with taking care of his eccentric family.
- Wristcutters, the 2006 film adaption by director Goran Dukic of Etgar Keret’s short story Kneller’s Happy Campers.
– Colombian Love, a 2004 comedy by Shai Kannot about modern romance, acquired by a Hollywood production company that intends to remake it in an American setting.
So, remember, just because an Israeli film doesn’t have any soldiers in it or bombs going off, it doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s not bound for the bright lights of Hollywood.
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