Ten recent films offer ‘broader face of Israel’
Movies ‘a good way to show how people live’
“I cannot tell you that I am a big fan of movies,” said Eran Bester. “It’s just a coincidence that I found myself in this situation.”
Bester is founder and director of the Israel Film Festival (IFF), the ninth edition of which presents 10 recent films from the country, Saturday to Thursday. A resident of Tel Aviv, he had the idea for the event while working in Montreal a decade back.
“I lived here for a few years, representing an Israeli Bank in Montreal,” he said. “I decided I would like to show Montrealers and Canadians a broader face of Israel than you see in the media. The media usually just talks about the conflict; but you cannot define Israel only by the conflict, just like you cannot summarize Montreal by its horrible winters.
“Israel is so much more than the conflict, and the best way to show that is through films. Cinema is a very good means to show how people live.”
Bester prides himself on the variety in the fest’s modest lineup. He hand-picks the films himself from the 30 or so movies released annually in Israel. And so, while there are films on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, there are also films on other parts of day-to-day life in Israel.
“We have three films which deal with the conflict,” Bester said. “Each one is from a very different angle. The first, which opens the festival Saturday night, is (Yariv Horowitz’s) Rock the Casbah, about a group of Israeli soldiers caught in the middle of Gaza.
“It’s not a war movie, but it’s about the relations between soldiers and civilians, and about the soldiers themselves. It’s a nice film, that shows the complexity of the situation. It’s not black and white, with good guys and bad guys. You find out that nobody is bad or good, but that the situation is impossible.”
Director Horowitz will be in town to present the film and answer questions following the screening.
Michael Mayer’s Out in the Dark is a Romeo and, well, Romeo-styled gay love story between a Palestinian PhD student at a Tel Aviv University and an Israeli lawyer. Social norms on both sides are questioned, as circumstances conspire to keep the two men apart.
Jonathan Segal’s Lipstikka tells of two Palestinian women living in London, who look back on their shared past — specifically, a night in their teens when they crossed paths with a group of Israeli soldiers.
“They’re both from Ramallah, and each one remembers the story differently,” Bester said. “Memory fools them, as they each have their own version of events.”
Shemi Zarhin’s The World is Funny was the No. 1 film at the box office in Israel last year. The episodic storyline features multiple narratives, which emerged as the result of a writer’s workshop in Tiberias. Another crowd-pleaser is Doran Eran’s hugely popular Melting Away, which Bester is bringing back after it became a hit at last year’s festival. It’s a story about a father who disowns his son after he finds him dressing in women’s clothes, and his wife’s attempt to track the boy down four years later.
The IFF boasts a few documentaries, two of which close the festival on Thursday evening, with representatives from each film on-hand for a discussion.
Tamar Tal’s Life in Stills follows the fight of a 96-year-old widow, with help from her grandson, to preserve the life’s work of her late husband, Rudi, a former state photographer. The building containing all his work — including images of many of Israel’s defining moments — is slated to be torn down to make way for a residential development project.
Dani Menkin and Yonatan Nir’s Dolphin Boy tells of a boy from an Arab village in Israel’s north who is traumatized following a violent incident at school. Faced with sending him to a mental hospital, his father opts for an alternative treatment involving dolphins in Eilat.
“It’s a beautiful film about the power of nature to heal people,” Bester said.
“It’s very optimistic. I decided to finish the festival with an uplifting film.”
Both Toronto and Montreal editions of the IFF have had to find new venues, after Cineplex announced this year that it could not host the event. The Montreal edition will now be held at Guzzo’s Mega-Plex Sphèretech in Ville-St-Laurent.
Montreal’s Israel Film Festival takes place Saturday to Thursday at Mega-Plex Sphèretech, 3500 CôteVertu Blvd. For tickets and scheduling information: 514-937-2332, israelfilmfestival.ca.
The Festival de films de l’environnement de Montréal (FFEM) has bigger backing this year. Greenpeace has stepped on board as the official sponsor and will have representatives present most films, Saturday to Thursday at Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Parc Ave.
Craig Scott Rosebraugh’s Greedy Lying Bastards opens the fest. As the title suggests, the documentary explores big business’s ongoing campaign to thwart political action on climate change.
Emma Goude’s In Transition 2.0 details the transition movement, travelling to communities around the world that have found innovative ways to make the world a better place, from printing their own money to growing vegetables anywhere and everywhere.
Naturopolis: New York, la révolution verte, looks at attempts to reintroduce green space to the Big Apple.
For more information on the FFEM, visit cinemaduparc.com. Peru sabe: la cocina, arma social. After screening as part of the Latin American Film Festival last weekend, Jesus M. Santos’s documentary Peru Sabe begins a run Friday at Cinéma du Parc, 3575 Parc Ave.
Hosted by world famous Spanish Catalan chef Ferran Adria and Peruvian chef Gaston Acurio, the film examines the way Peruvian cuisine is sparking social change in the country. Buen provecho.