Waltz with Bashir snubbed in LA

February 24, 2009 - 1:24 PM by Harry · Leave a Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Art, General, Movies, Pop Culture 

Japan's DeparturesConventional wisdom unequivocally asserted that the only Best Foreign Language Film Oscar nominee to hold a candle to Waltz with Bashir was France’s The Class – but that even that movie was hardly as technically groundbreaking or thematically poignant as Israel’s nominee. Regardless, The Academy instead gave the award to Japan’s Departures (pictured in all of its smirking glory).

Bashir therefore joins a long list of Israel-made Oscar losers that includes Sallah Shabati and HaShoter Azoulay.

When Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort failed to take home a statuette a year ago, the director was gracious and stoic, putting the situation in the proper context. He even went so far as to give The Jerusalem Post the ultimate cliché Oscar loser soundbyte:

[Cedar] seemed to keep his hopes in check at a symposium prior to the ceremony, saying he was “happy just to have been nominated. I’m not even thinking about winning.”

….”We have shown that Israel can make very good movies,” Beaufort actor Eli Eltonyo told the cheering crowd [at a post-Oscars party], “and we will prove it again next time.”

Next time was earlier this week, but Eltonyo’s prediction didn’t come to fruition – at least not as fully as he might have hoped. But Bashir’s creative team was hardly as gracious as Beaufort’s was. The jPost caught up with director Ari Folman after the show:

“It’s a game,” Folman said, shrugging. “It’s 500 anonymous voters, and I don’t know a single one.”

He said he planned to drink the night away before getting on a plane home to Israel.

“I’ll be glad to be done with all of this traveling, though I am going to miss it in a few months – but right now I just want to go home and be with my kids,” Folman told the Post.

Back here in Israel, the rest of the Bashir team was even more disappointed, as Haaretz notes:

Nitzan Roiy, in charge of composing and special effects, stayed in his chair.

“It’s horrible,” he said. “When we came here we were sure we had it in our hand. It’s a shame.”

…. “We were very confident before the ceremony,” said Neta Holzer, one of the animators who joined the Israeli delegation to Los Angeles. “We didn’t talk about winning, but we had a very good gut feeling. Everyone is disappointed, but we’re getting used to it.”

With so many great movies continuing to come out of our local industry, we can all comfort ourselves by saying, “There’s always next year.” At least that;s what the good sports among us will say.

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The filmmakers’ visit

January 2, 2009 - 9:42 AM by Harry · 1 Comment
Filed under: A New Reality, Business, General, Movies, Pop Culture 

The Sixth SenseThere’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.

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