Golden Globe for Waltz with Bashir
The innovative retro-animated documentary Waltz with Bashir won the Golden Globe Award for Best Foreign Film yesterday in California, and director Ari Folman did not miss the opportunity to reflect on the poignancy of the victory from the podium.
It’s a big deal when any Israeli film wins a big international award, regardless of how many it won in the past or how much buzz there is over the possibility of an Oscar nod when the nominations are announced in about two weeks.
But with an ongoing conflict in Israel’s south making for a parallel media war battling over the opinion of the world’s citizens, an Israeli victory in Hollywood becomes even more significant – especially given the movie’s introspective soldier’s experience narrative.
The Jerusalem Post today sums up Folman’s acceptance speech thusly:
Folman thanked his team and his wife and dedicated the award to the babies born to his team members over the four years during which the film was made.
Expressing his wish to see peace arrive in the war-torn Middle East, Folman said he hoped one day these babies will regard the film and the war it describes as an old video game with which they had nothing to do.
Sadly, war’s status as hell is a timeless theme, one which speaks to the Israeli experience far more than it ought to, and The Hollywood Reporter managed to get Folman talking about it even more behind the scenes, and thankfully, with a tinge of optimism:
Folman was a man of few words backstage but did say he is sad that his film, about conflict in the Middle East, is relevant in light of the current Gaza incursions. “Unfortunately, this film is always relevant,” he said. “It has only one major statement (one of anti-war). It was relevant two years ago (when I began making it), and it’s still now.” Folman said he hopes for the best for that part of the world. “I am very optimistic (for peace), or I wouldn’t have done this,” he said. “It’s a matter of leadership: A time will come that both sides will have clever leaders who will work it out.”
Image courtesy fuxoft from Flickr under a Creative Commons license.
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.
Nostalgia Sunday – Sallah Shabati
Filed under: General, History and Culture, Immigrant Moments, Movies, Nostalgia Sunday, Pop Culture
If you don’t know the film Sallah Shabati then go out and rent it right away because you don’t know Israel. Yes, that’s how strongly I feel about it. Go, go, go out and get it now.
Okay, are you back? Good. Without giving away anything of the plot, Sallah is a film about the immigrant experience and although Israel has changed since 1964 when the movie was made, there are certain constants of Israeli society that humorist Ephraim Kishon put his finger on 44 years ago which still remain the same – bureaucracy, cronyism, societal divides, JNF tree plantings – all the things from which great humor is derived.
The film stars Haim Topol – who went on to have a successful international careers, as well as a very young Arik Einstein, an equally young Gila Almagor and a host of other well-known Israeli actors. It won two Golden Globes and was nominated for an Oscar in the Best Foreign Film category.
Now, the Cameri Theater is reviving the highly successful musical version of Sallah, which first premiered at Habima in 1988. It promises to be good. Here’s the movie version of Sallah’s big number, “Mashiach HaZaken.”
And a clip from the 1988 stage version starring Zeev Revah.
Bashir still dancing
Under the auspices of the Haifa Film Festival and the Tel Aviv Journalists’ Association, the Israeli Film Critics Awards ceremony gave Ari Folman’s Waltz with Bashir a statuette for being the year’s “Best Israeli Film” earlier this week.
The IFC award will have to vie for surface space on Folman’s mantelpiece, as Bashir, a new fusion of genres (documentary and animation), has been garnering accolades for quite some time now. Aside from perhaps finally heralding the dawn of the Israeli feature film animation industry, the movie received mad love at Cannes this past summer.
Now people are starting to wonder if it could be a contender for an Academy Award in the “Foreign Language” category – the category that allowed Joseph Cedar’s Beaufort to beat out The Band’s Visit for an Oscar nomination at the last ceremonies. Could Israeli films possibly be nominated for two Oscars in two years?
The Academy recently released a list of 67 movies chosen for the award by 67 countries, with Waltz with Bashir representing Israel. Since no animated movie has ever received a nomination in the Foreign Language category, it’s highly unlikely that Folman will make it to the red carpet. But then again, given that the Jews rule Hollywood with an iron fist, one never knows….
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