Nostalgia Sunday – Netanyahu’s fixer upper
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Israeliness, Movies, Music, Nostalgia Sunday, Politics
The members of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet went on a little trip today up to visit historic Tel Hai in the Galilee. Going on tiyul is quite common this season — dozens of people are hiking Shvil Yisrael, the Israel National Trail this month — but it’s unusual for members of Knesset to move en masse out of their comfort zone and into the periphery.
However, this was a special occasion. Today being the 90th anniversary of the battle at the Tel Hai compound — itself refurbished thanks to the efforts of The Society for Preservation of Israel Heritage Sites (SPIHS) — it was selected as an appropriate time and place for a cabinet meeting to approve a comprehensive plan, the largest ever, to “strengthen the national heritage infrastructures of the State of Israel”.
What is a national heritage infrastructure? As set out in Netanyahu’s plan (called TAMAR which in Hebrew is the acronym for “national heritage infrastructure”) it consists of about 150 “tangible/material cultural resources” (archaeological and historic sites) and “intangible/nonmaterial cultural resources” (archives and collections of literature, poetry, philosophy, arts, crafts, music and song, dance, theater, film, traditions, holidays, festivals, ceremonies, etc.) all in need of rehabilitation and/or enrichment. TAMAR will cost almost NIS 400 million, and will be funded by private donations to be matched by allocations from the budgets of 16 government ministries.
The list of sites — which is not yet finalized — includes 37 archaeological sites, 39 museums and collections, and 62 sites relating to Israel’s Jewish and Zionist heritage — many literally crumbling to bits, such as the magnificent painted ceiling in Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim Yeshiva. There are also 13 projects in the “intangible/nonmaterial” category that would restore cultural resources like the backlog of yet-uncatalogued movies still in cartons at the Israel Film Archive – as well as upgrade the archive building itself.
Two additional trails will be created in addition to Shvil Yisrael, promised Netanyahu, one a historic trail of archaeological sites from the biblical, Second Temple and other eras in the history of the Land of Israel, the other a trail tracing the places and events that gave rise to the modern-day State of Israel.
Netanyahu couldn’t have given a better example than this one: dowdy, dingy Independence Hall in Tel Aviv. “It is good that the city is open to the world and good that the city is alive and moving forward. But at 16 Rothschild Boulevard, there is a small auditorium in which the State of Israel was declared. There, David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first Prime Minister, declared the State of Israel.
“The hall is run-down. I am not saying that it is about to fall over but as far as the many young people and others, who flock to the street, to Rothschild Boulevard, are concerned, they do not know it. They do not visit it at all. And therefore, we will rehabilitate Independence Hall.”
The long-term payoff for TAMAR, say the plan’s authors, will be NIS 630 million in annual tourism revenue, job creation in the amount of 3,500 permanent positions plus 800 more during the 5-year period of the plan’s execution, and development of tourism to the Negev and Galilee regions. Later this week, the cabinet is due to approve the national transportation plan joining the Galilee and other regions to an accessible national transportation grid.
The cabinet also made a separate decision today on a new building for Israel’s National Library, funded by a donation from Yad Hanadiv (the Rothschild Foundation).
Fact and Fiction: Beit Avi Chai launches film series
Beit Avi Chai has launched a fascinating new lecture series at its Jerusalem headquarters. The program is called “Fact and Fiction: Diversity Within” and features documentary films followed by one-on-one discussions between the film director and Amy Kronish, a long-time movie maestro and critic who’s put together the series.
Last night was the opening session and it featured “The Name My Mother Gave Me,” a tearjerker of the Zionist kind. A group of Ethiopian and Russian pre-army teenagers undertake an emotional journey to Addis Ababa and Gondar to explore the Jewish roots of the most recent immigrants to Israel.
In the course of the trip, the Ethiopians visit villages they haven’t seen in a dozen or so years and the Russians gain an appreciation for the Ethiopians’ Jewish history. “Don’t let anyone tell you there were no Jews here” in Ethiopia, one of the Russian teens declares. By the end of the film, these two groups – who were once was at each other’s throats – became a single bonded unit.
The most emotional moments of the film were when the group visits an abandoned synagogue in a remote village that still has Hebrew prayer books, and the meeting of one of the Ethiopians with his mother who he’s been separated from for 14 years. The moment is heartbreaking, however, as the mother shows little interest in her son who has come so far for such a bittersweet reunion.
The film’s director Eli Tal-El described afterward how difficult it was to make the film. Israel Television said they’d pay him for his footage but only to use it as part of a muckraking documentary on the state of Ethiopian immigration in Israel. Tal-El refused. It took him some five years to finish the work and only then when Beit Avi Chai stepped in at the last moment with some long overdue funding.
“The Name My Mother Gave Me” has played at film festivals around the world. A trailer is streaming online; you can also purchase the movie at the same site for $29.90.
Future sessions of the film series will look at Israeli development towns, ultra Orthodox women entering the workforce and the “secret” of Russian aliyah success. More information at www.bac.org.il.
Nostalgia Sunday – Machboim
Filed under: General, Movies, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
Israeli director Dan Wolman is best-known for his film version of My Michael (1974) but another of his films, Machboim (Hide and Seek), made its own mark in 1980 as the first Israeli film about homosexuality.
If there was ever a reason to pick up a copy of Machboim, the shooting last night at a Gay-Lesbian youth drop-in center in Central Tel Aviv is enough. There have been other gay-themed films made since — from the late Amos Guttman’s film Nagua m which was hailed in 1983 as a groundbreaker for bringing AIDS to general awareness, to Yossi and Jagger (2002), about two soldiers who fall in love, which was all but mainstream at the box office.
But Machboim, which is set in 1946, was first to address the conflict, denial and ugly aggression against male homosexuality that is part and parcel of any macho society. That same machismo, the film suggests, was perhaps necessary to forge a national identity and bring the State of Israel into being, but is still rooted in the Israeli psyche. It is an uncomfortable thought.
A fairly short if uninformative interview with Woman can be found on YouTube. It’s not about Machboim. Probably just best to rent the film.
Come Out To DC Film Event To See Where Young American Journalists Meet Israel In “The Editors”
Filed under: A New Reality, coexistence
They couldn’t have come at a more dangerous time. Six university newspaper editors from America visited Israel for the first time last December, and the already planned trip happened to coincide with the first week of the recent Gaza Conflict.
In a reality style documentary, the young Americans had their week-long visit taped by a camera crew hired by Project Interchange, a Washington-based organization that develops seminars for Americans and international guests in Israel. The film is being screened tomorrow at Georgetown University.
In Israel, the editors, including Georgetown’s The Hoya newspaper editor Andrew Dubbins, met with a wide range of leaders and citizens in an attempt to get beyond the headlines to learn the complexities of the Middle East peace process.
(Vadim Lavrusik, Editor-in-Chief and Co-Publisher, The Minnesota Daily, University of Minnesota)
The documentary was written and directed by Patrick Ryan Morris from Project Interchange, and features Dubbins, along with other editors who were in Israel from December 30th to January 5th.
“I was an editor of a newspaper in college,” says Morris. “From that experience, I know that you cannot bring journalists to Israel, or anywhere for that matter, and force an ideology on them or a version of the truth.”
He hopes to screen the film at campuses throughout the United States.
Project Interchange brings new delegations of “influentials” to Israel twice a month from around the world. Muslim leaders from France came to a seminar in Israel in December, meeting Israeli President Shimon Peres and the President of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas. In November, women executives from the U.S. construction business enjoyed a week-long seminar. Before that, European environment leaders were in Israel. Each group of guests enjoy tailor-made trips, adapted to their interests and expertise.
The world premiere of the The Editors, the film, will take place tomorrow evening – April 20th at 8:00 pm, at Georgetown University’s ICC Auditorium. The screening will be followed by a wrap party at Cafe St. Ex.
For more details and a map of how to get there, see The Editors on Facebook.
For more about Project Interchange, see the ISRAEL21c feature story on the organization.
Waltz with Bashir gets Oscar nod and Beirut screening
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, History and Culture, Movies, Pop Culture, War, coexistence
In the same week that saw Waltz with Bashir finally secure a place on the short list of movies nominated for the Best Foreign Film Academy Award, the movie was finally shown to the public in Beirut, where much of it takes place. Waltz with Bashir is officially banned by Lebanon, but through a loophole, a Lebanese multimedia war archive organization called UNAM was able to show the movie to a modest crowd of 90 at a “private party,” a piece in Variety reports.
Already a bona fide marvel for the innovative manner in which it melds documentary footage with animated dreamscapes, Ari Folman’s tour de force garnered acclaim on the international festival circuit before winning a Golden Globe earlier this month.
As of late last week, Bashir is one of five finalists for that Oscar, nominated alongside offerings from Austria, Germany, France and Japan, with the winner to be announced at the award ceremony on February 22. Following Beaufort’s nomination a year ago, Bashir making the short list of Foreign Language Oscar nominees means that two Israeli movies focusing on the IDF’s role in Lebanon have received Oscar nods in as many years.
Folman himself is generally skeptical that Bashir is in a position to make a difference in the world, telling the international press on numerous occasions that he sees war as an unfortunate fixture. On the other hand, now that his movie has screened in Beirut, he has modified his stance. “In principle I don’t believe movies can change the world, but I’m a great believer in their ability to form small bridges,” Folman told Haaretz in the context of that newspaper’s coverage of the Beirut screening.
Small bridges of coexistence and peace indeed. The movie has already been shown in Ramallah and may soon receive a modest theatrical release in the gulf states, according to the Haaretz article, and last Saturday’s screening in a Beirut suburb was not simple to arrange either. The UMAM organization’s leadership is proud to have accomplished what it has with the Israeli movie:
“The subject of this film is a crucial moment in the history of Lebanon, for the history of Israel, for the history of the Palestinians, and for the history of Palestinian life in Lebanon,” UMAM founder Monika Borgmann told Haaretz.
“At some point every state must deal with its violent past and the sooner it does so the better. That’s why I think this movie should be shown,” she said.
“Yesterday, my phone didn’t stop ringing…everyone wants a copy of the film,” she said. “I think it comes out on DVD in March. The next day, it’s going to be pirated all over Lebanon.”
The filmmakers’ visit
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Movies, Pop Culture
There’s plenty of buzz surrounding the possibility that Israeli animated documentary Waltz with Bashir may end up nominated for a Foreign Language Oscar. The official Academy Award nominations won’t be announced until January 22, leaving us plenty of time to focus instead on how the movie has already helped a great deal with putting Israeli film on the international award map, and how the global movie industry and Israel have been going had-in-hand more and more.
Israeli lawmakers took major steps towards enabling Hollywood “runaway production” here this past summer.
More recently, studio mogul Jeffrey Katzenberg organized for Ben Stiller, Chris Rock and Jada Pinkett Smith to attend the Netanya premiere for Madagascar 2, whipping local fans and less local media outlets into a celeb-feeding storm.
And last month, William Morris Agency senior Motion Picture Department executive David Lonner teamed up with the Los Angeles Jewish Federation to bring several top movie execs to Israel to check out the scene here. Lonner organized a similar trip two years ago, but this time, he managed to bring big names like director Peter Sollett (Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist) and producers Nathan Kahane (Juno), Darren Star (Sex and the City) and Roger Birnbaum (The Sixth Sense, pictured). The Jerusalem Post recounts the experience in detail, with coverage including these moguls’ advice for how ambitious Israeli filmmakers can make it big overseas:
“They’ve got to cross the bridge,” says Kahane. “Make films inside the system, like some directors from Mexico have recently – Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu, Alfonso Cuaron and Guillermo del Toro. They came and conquered Hollywood, then they can go back and work at home again. But they’ve branded themselves in the international community. It creates the opportunity to grow and play in the A-game. And it broadens the conversation on cultural identity outside the film industry as well.”
Birnbaum agrees, saying, “If they want to be competitive in the world marketplace, they need to tell stories that are more universal and make movies that work all over the world.”
Moreover, the trip included visits to tourist hotspots, a Q/A session at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and a meet-and-greet dinner with local industry luminaries like actress Ronit Elkabetz, the Oscar-nominated writer-director Joseph Cedar and writer Etgar Keret. “They were very eager, very knowledgeable, a talented and diverse group of people,” Kahane says of the group.
Hardly a Lemon
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Life, Movies, Pop Culture, coexistence
For those of us who live in the Modiin area, the reality of being surroun
ded by Arab villages is a part of daily life. The 443 Highway, which connects greater metro Tel Aviv with greater metro Jerusalem Modiin sitting ab
out halfway in between snakes alongside the Green Line for its main
stretches. I used to live in Jerusalem, though, where the Muslim call to prayer could be heard many times daily. The Sharon region, which stretches north and slightly east of Tel Aviv, is itself adjacent to Samaria, where the bulk of the non-Gazan, non-Galilean Palestinian population is located.
So for much of Israel, the reality of living in a Jewish homeland thats situated in a Muslim-centric region extends well beyond our news headlines, our military-security efforts as a collective and the diplomacy moves of our politicians. The children of Isaac and the children of Ishmael are neighbors here.
Fictional community Tzur Hasharon, apparently located in the Sharon region, is the setting of Eran Riklis recent movie, Lemon Tree (trailer streams here), which serves to juxtapose the public-collective Jewish-Muslim relations with the personal-neighborly ones. Of course, its the latter that comes off as more connected to reality in the movie not such a stretch when the Israeli defense ministers wife forges an unlikely friendship with a Muslim neighbor, whose lemon grove ends up in the middle of an international media and diplomacy firestorm.
Riklis likewise nuanced 2004 movie The Syrian Bride garnered several international awards following its overseas cinematic distribution run. And now Lemon Tree has joined the stable of local films enjoying critical, box office and statuette-based success outside of Israel.
We at Israelity have our fingers crossed for at least one win for the movie at the European Film Academys European Film Awards tomorrow night in Copenhagen. Held somewhere different each year (except every other year, when it always takes place in Berlin), the 2008 European Film Awards have nominated Lemon Tree in two categories: Hiam Abbass for Best Actress, and Suha Arraf and Eran Riklis for Best Screenplay. The latter category impressively includes another Israeli nominee, the beloved animated documentary Waltz with Bashir.
While our hopes are high, The Jerusalem Posts Hannah Brown points out that The Bands Visit won Israeli actor Sasson Gabbai a 2007 Best Actor award, which might make more Israeli prizes less likely. We shall see very soon.
Nostalgia Sunday
I’ve been thinking a lot about The Blaumilch Canal lately. Maybe it’s the heat, maybe it’s summer ennui, or maybe it’s simply because they showed this classic Israeli film on cable a few weeks ago. I dunno, everything lately seems a bit Blaumilchy and it keeps flashing through my mind.
In the movie, written and directed by the late and very great Ephraim Kishon, a escapee from a lunatic asylum bcomes enamored of a jackhammer and, one bright day, starts digging up Allenby Street. By mid-morning, there’s a big pile of dirt jamming traffic and bothering the neighbors whose complaints spur the municipality into misguided, malicious action. Unwilling to admit they know nothing about the project, two warring city offiicals begin assisting the unplanned project in an ever-escalating show of one-upsmanship, sending in more workers, earth movers and police guards.
Meanwhile, the crazy man with the jackhammer continues steadily onwards toward the beach. When he finally reaches the Mediterranean, the floodgates open, water rushes up Allenby and Tel Aviv is declared “The Venice of the Middle East” at a grand ceremony presided over by a myopic mayor and his self-serving flunkies – who of course take all credit for having planned, overseen and executed the thing. Little do they know that in the meantime, jackhammering has commenced over at Kikar Malchei Yisrael (today’s Rabin Square).
Wikipedia has a nice summary of the movie. It’s also fun to watch because of the mod fashion, groovy soundtrack and arty editing. Check out the opening scenes on YouTube (or watch the full version):
Of course, like all works of satire, Blaumilch is intended as a parable, in this case about bureaucracy and politics. The frightening part is that, even though the movie is almost 40 years old, it still rings true today. And not just in Israel. The film’s international title was “The Big Dig”. As I’m from Boston – home of the 20 year long project of the same name which was supposed to take half that time – I can only shake my head in amazement.
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