october 24--november 11, 1998

photo: BERLIN-JERUSALEM

Organized by the Film Society of Lincoln Center. Special thanks to Ella Shohat, the Jerusalem Cinematheque (Lia Van Leer), the Israel Film Festival (Meir Fenigstein), the National Center for Jewish Film (Sharon Rivo, Mimi Krantz), and the Consulate General of Israel in New York (Rafi Gamzou) for their support of this series.

AVANTI POPOLO
Rafi Bukaee, 1986; 84m
Based on a true story, AVANTI POPOLO follows two Egyptian soldiers (one of whom is a Shakespearean actor)--stranded in the Sinai Desert during the final hours of the 1967 Six Day War--as they make their painful way toward the Suez Canal. Delirious from thirst and later from their first taste of liquor, the two fall into situations ranging from the comic to the surreal. (At one point, the Arab Shakespearean plays Shylock to an audience of Israeli soldiers: "Has not a Jew eyes, emotions, senses? Do we not bleed?") Skewering the stupidity and wanton destructiveness of war, AVANTI was released in 1986, after the Israeli War in Lebanon, and generated considerable controversy as well as critical acclaim. ("Avanti Popolo" is an Italian Communist marching song.)
Saturday, October 24: 7:30 pm
Monday, November 9: 2 and 6:15 pm

MY MICHAEL
Dan Wolman, 1975; 88m
Faithfully adapted from a celebrated novel by Amos Oz, MY MICHAEL borrows a page from Belle de Jour: Bored to tears in her endless solitude, a lovely young wife spends her time fantasizing about being raped by two childhood friends (Arab boys). In the meantime, her sweetly unimaginative husband continues to believe in his "happy" marriage. As Hannah, Efat Lavie is full of gentle despair and charm.
Saturday, October 31: 6:15 pm

YOM YOM
Amos Gitai, 1998; 90m
The newest work by Israel's most celebrated-and controversial-filmmaker, Amos Gital's YOM YOM (DAY AFTER DAY) is the story of Mosh-well played by popular actor Moshe Ivgi-a 40-something only son who takes life pretty easily as it comes along, quietly accustomed to his job in the bakery owned by his parents. Yet change is threatening everywhere around him, and it's only a matter of time before Mosh will be forced to confront some realities about himself and his future. Set in and around Haifa, YOM YOM received the Best Feature Film Award at this year's Jerusalem Film Festival.
Saturday, October 24: 9:30 pm

SABRA / HALUTZIM
Aleksandr Ford, 1933; 84m
A powerful, beautifully photographed story about the trials and tribulations of Jewish pioneers, featuring an indomitable heroine who fights for the group's survival and success--in the face of drought, malaria, endless hard work and an Arab sheikh who goads his people into war. SABRA climaxes in visual explosions of rampaging humanity, gushing water, and other signs of passionate frontier life. Due to its Arab-Jewish tensions, the British Mandatory Government banned Polish director Ford's film in Palestine.
Sunday, October 25: 4:15 pm
Tuesday, October 27: 2 pm

THE SMILE OF THE LAMB / HIUCH HA'GDU
Shimon Dotan, 1986; 93m
Winner of 3 Israel Academy Awards in 1986:
Best Picture, Best Director and Best Actor.
Winner of the Silver Bear for Best Actor,
1986 Berlin Film Festival.
Adapted from a novel by David Grossman, LAMB is a courageous film exploring the complex emotional dynamics among three strong, very different personalities: a tough, unforgiving military governor, a compassionate doctor, and a wise old Arab, as at home in fantasy as in reality. (Arab actor Makram Khoury plays the Jewish commandant; Tuncel Curtiz, a Turk, won the Silver Bear at the Berlin Film Festival for his superb performance as Hilmi, the Arab recluse.) After failing to change his hard-liner friend, Dr. Laniado finds himself on the run. Taking shelter with Hilmi, the good liberal is plunged into fellowship with an apolitical Enemy who in turn is radicalized by an adopted son turned terrorist. A powerful study of politics and emotions within the context of the eternally embattled West Bank, under the shadow of the Holocaust and Arab folk memories.
Sunday, October 25: 6:30 pm
Tuesday, November 10: 2 pm;
Wednesday, November 11: 4 and 8:15 pm

ESTHER
Amos Gitai, 1985; 97m
A cinematic fiction mining the Old Testament story of Esther for modern political relevance, Gitai's film was shot in an abandoned Haifa slum (the Algerians had been evicted) where intrusions of contemporary reality--the honking of a car horn, the passing of a jet plane--frequently puncture the film. "An almost archetypal thriller about the good, the bad and the beautiful," with a provocatively mixed cast of Arab and Jewish actors.
Sunday, October 25: 8:45 pm
Sunday, November 8: 4 pm

TENT CITY / IR HA'OHELIM
Aryeh Lahola, 1951; 45m
In the early 50s, Israeli immigrants lived in temporary tent cities (ma'abarot), which were generally packed, muddy and boring. Here, two Jewish families--one German, the other Iraqi--are crammed into one tent, where physical, cultural, and social stress builds moment by moment. This no-punches-pulled exposé of problems associated with new immigrants, including Holocaust survivors, as well as tensions between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews so dismayed one potential investor that money was proffered to Lahola not to make the film!
with
AVODA
Helmar Lurski, 1930s; 30m
Dedicated to the pioneers in Palestine, this film, which was shot on location in the 1930s, is the Socialist-Zionist variation on the Soviet Montage cinema. The euphoria of Zionist pioneers "making the desert bloom" is captured through rhythmic editing, harmoniously orchestrated with the exhilarating music of the hammers.
Monday, October 26: 2 and 6:15 pm
Tuesday, October 27: 4 pm

THEY WERE TEN
Baruch Dienar, 1960; 105m
Based on the diaries of early Zionist settlers, THEY WERE TEN is set in the 1880s, when Israeli pioneers (a young couple and eight men) found a cooperative settlement, fighting against all odds to make a new home for themselves. Think of the Israeli equivalent of the American frontier, where a band of brave souls must clear rocky ground for planting, live under the most primitive conditions, fight neighboring Arabs for water, and somehow resist succumbing to despair. Director Dienar worked for authenticity, taking his cast and crew to live for three months in the harsh environs of western Galilee. With its striking visual artistry and complex characterizations, this powerful film marked a real turning point in Israeli filmmaking.
Monday, October 26: 4 and 8:15 pm

FIELD DIARY
Amos Gitai, 1982; 83m
A diary-format documentary shot in occupied territories immediately before and during Israel's invasion of Lebanon.
Tuesday, October 27: 6 and 9 pm

SALLAH SHABATI
Ephraim Kishon, 1964; 110m
The charismatic actor who would one day shorten his name to become the very famous Topol (Fiddler on the Roof) stars as Sallah in this good-natured satire of life in the newly created State of Israel. In 1948, Sallah arrives in the Promised Land with his wife and seven offspring, but this lazybones Oriental Jew can't seem to hold on to a job and must resort to a clever ruse to support his family. Nothing and no one is safe from Kishon's lampooning: the JNF (which plants trees and places revolving placards on each tree to please visiting contributors), kibbutzim policies, Europeans, Israelis and American tourists.
Thursday, October 29: 2 and 9 pm

CASABLAN
Larry Frisch, 1962; 85m
Based on a play by Yigal Mossinson, Larry Frisch's third feature takes a hard look at cultural differences between Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews in Israel. The generally well-educated, European Ashkenazi often looked down upon Jews from Arab countries as uneducated hicks--here, a Sephardic Jew plunges into petty crime after failing to find a way to successfully fit into an Ashkenazi community. Frisch had to make his film in Greece, so inhospitable to his subject matter was the State of Israel. (CASABLAN was filmed a decade later by Menachem Golan as an elaborate musical.)
Note: a dubbed print will be shown.
Thursday, October 29 and Saturday, October 31: 4 pm

HOLE IN THE MOON
Uri Zohar, 1965; 70m
HOLE is a zany, frequently improvised parody--of Westerns, Fellini, gangster films and the idealized Zionist style--set in 1960s Israel: an immigrant arrives by raft and opens a kiosk in the middle of the desert. His only customer is the proprietor of the other kiosk, located just across the road. The two make a living trading with each other until they decide to--what else!?--start making movies!
Friday, October 30: 2 and 6:15 pm
Saturday, October 31: 8:30 pm

I LOVE YOU ROSA / ANI OHEV OTACH ROSA
Moshe Mizrahi, 1972; 91m
A very old woman recalls her remarkable married life: Rosa (Michel Bat-Adam) is widowed at 21 and finds herself, according to Jewish law (it's 19th-century Jerusalem), the spousal possession of her late husband's brother--who is only 11! Child or not, Nissim (Gabi Otterman) is determined to face up to his responsibility, and before long love and desire arise. A charming and gentle comedy about Jewish family life, full of authentic and unforced emotion. Six years later, Mizrahi would win Best Foreign Film Oscar for his Madame Rosa.
Friday, October 30: 4 and 8:15 pm
Sun, Nov 1: 7:30 pm

TWO TREASURES FROM THE JERUSALEM CINEMATHEQUE:

THE LIFE OF JEWS IN PALESTINE
(The Misrach Company, 1913) and
SHIVAT ZION (Jaacov Ben Dov, 1921); approximately 100 minutes
Both films will have musical accompaniment.
SHIVAT ZION has Czech titles; simultaneous translation will be provided.
We are pleased to present (courtesy of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and its director, Lia Van Leer) two rare silent films. Only recently rediscovered, THE LIFE OF JEWS IN PALESTINE was made as an early promotional film for the Zionist movement, showing how firmly the recently arrived settlers had taken root in Palestine. The film was considered a great success in its era, and was screened internationally. A key work by Zionist filmmaking pioneer Jaacov Ben Dov, SHIVAT ZION chronicles the everyday lives of Jewish settlers as well as important events (such as Winston Churchill's visit to Palestine); film historian Amy W. Kronish hails the film as "a triumph of photographic composition and content."
Sunday, November 1: 4:30 pm

LATE SUMMER BLUES /
BLUES LAHOFESH HAGADOL
Renan Schorr, 1986; 101m
During the summer after their high-school graduation, a group of close friends celebrate the bittersweet changes coming to their lives: adult responsibilities, grown-up romance--and the sobering fact that some of their number are being drafted into the Israeli army. BLUES has very much the feel of a high-school beach-party movie--with music, in Hebrew--until a sudden and disturbingly realistic reminder of their own mortality violently penetrates the kids' cheerful, close-knit obliviousness. -- Susannah R. Mandel, IMDB
Sun, Nov 1: 9:15 pm
Mon, Nov 2: 2 and 6:15 pm

THE BLACK BANANA /
BANANA HASHEHORA, HA-
Ben Hayeem, 1976; 85m
Hilariously parodying many aspects of Israeli life and culture, from the Hassidic community to the chronically inept police force, BANANA follows three young people running away from their respective parents. Brilliantly scripted and edited, director Hayeem's radically experimental film serves up wild images, fantasies, satire and many of the traditional elements of a classic Jewish-Israeli movie: a Jewish wedding, an exorcism, and bonhomie between Jews and Arabs. -- from Amy W. Kronish's World Cinema 6: Israel
Monday, November 2: 4 and 8:15 pm

HIDE AND SEEK / MACHBOIM
Dan Wolman, 1980; 90m
Set in Jerusalem in 1946, HIDE AND SEEK focuses on the relationship between a twelve-year old boy, his mother, and his tutor. His crisis of self-discovery is engendered by his discovery of the homosexual relationship between the gentle tutor and an Arab, pointing to the sensitive issue of forbidden love between Arab and Jew. The film's subdued drama reflects the conformism of a society living in a state of crises and siege, permeated by a kind of muffled everyday political violence. By returning to a scene in some ways less complicated than the anguished present, HIDE AND SEEK, as well as other personal films, communicates a sense of lost possibilities on both a human and a political. level. Made with the collaboration of his immediate family, Wolman's film adopts a low-budget approach, eschewing the well made Hollywood formula in favor of a modest strategy more in keeping with the resources available to Israeli filmmakers.
Tuesday, November 3: 2 and 6 pm

PARATROOPERS
Yehuda (Judd) Ne'eman, 1977; 90m
The first Israeli film to deal critically and openly with problems of military service, PARATROOPERS was shot without the cooperation of the Israeli army. Reflecting a new emphasis on individual rather than collective experience, the film follows a sensitive young recruit through a tough training program in which conformity is demanded on every front. When the boy falls fatally short of fitting in, his ambitious squad commander must wrestle between guilt and his lifelong commitment to military life.
Tues, Nov 3: 4 pm
Wed, Nov 4: 4 and 8:15 pm

TRANSIT
Dan Wachsmann, 1980; 87m
A highly personal and introspective film, TRANSIT focuses on a German refugee (Gedalia Besser) living in Israel who is so alienated by the Middle Eastern lifestyle--the crowds, the bad manners, the language and the filth--he constantly dreams of going home to Berlin. Since the tale is unreeled--years afterward--by the man's uncomprehending son, TRANSIT measures a generation gap as well as cultural differences, suggesting that Israel may be a country of uprooted souls. -- from Amy R. Kronish's World Cinema 6: Israel
Wednesday, November 4: 2 and 6:15 pm

THE VULTURE / AYIT, HA-
Yaki Yosha, 1981; 96m
Based on The Last Jew, a novel by Yoram Kaniuk, THE VULTURE turns on the tension between the pull of war's memories and the need to adapt to peacetime. Boaz cannot rid himself of guilt that his best friend died in the war and he survived. Confronted by the grieving parents, he creates an idealized hero through a memorial album. Soon, he's obsessed with making a living off memories of the dead, locked forever in the role of a morbid resurrection-man.
Thursday, November 5: 2 and 6 pm

BERLIN-JERUSALEM
Amos Gitai, 1989; 89m
This remarkable drama portrays the lives of two visionary women: German Expressionist poet Else Lasker-Schüler and Russian revolutionary Many Shohat. Gitai contrasts Lasker-Schüler's Berlin in the 1920s with Shohat's pioneering community in Palestine during the 20s and 30s. As the film follows the lifelong friendship between these two vibrant heroines, it also chronicles the cultural and social history of a critical period in 20th-century history. Visually stunning, BERLIN-JERUSALEM was photographed by Henri Alekan, noted for his camerawork on films by Jean Renoir, Abel Gance, Jean Cocteau and Wim Wenders.
Thurs, Nov 5 and Sat, Nov 7: 4 pm

EASTERN WIND / HAMSIN
Dan Wachsmann, 1982; 90m
"Well made and well acted, skillfully drawing together themes of class conflict, racial tension, and eroticism." -- Holt Foreign Film Guide
The fates of the families of a Jewish farmer in Galilee and his chief Arab worker have been intertwined for generations, but now the Israeli government has decided to appropriate the Arab's land. This development, along with an illicit love affair between the farmer's sister and his employee, utterly destroys the families' long-term equilibrium--with tragic consequences. Friday, November 6: 2 and 6:15 pm

REPEAT DIVE / TZLILA CHOZERET
Shimon Dotan, 1982; 87m
Winner of 3 Israel Oscars in 1982:
Best Film, Best Director and Best Editor.
"Visually stunning and lyrical film...of breathtaking beauty and power"--Channel 5, NYC.
A couple of elite navy commandos--Yoav and Amos--are the first to volunteer for the most dangerous missions, but find personal relationships somehow more daunting. Trying to bring comfort and support to the widow of a dead comrade, Yoav is misunderstood--lost in obsessive memories, the woman comes to believe he loves and wants to marry her. And that, in her wounded heart, means his life must never be risked again.
Friday, November 6: 4 and 8:15 pm

RAGE AND GLORY / ZA'AM V'TEHILAH
Avi Nesher, 1985; 118m
Described as possibly the best Israeli action film ever made, RAGE AND GLORY explores the intricate relationship between ideology and violence. The events narrated in the film are loosely based on the activities of the Stern Gang--known in Israel as Lehi--the Jewish movement that resisted the British occupation of Palestine in the 40s. At a time when other Jewish resistance movements had suspended attacks on the British in order to counteract the Nazis, the Stern Gang's efforts became increasingly bold and brutal. Nesher succeeds in depicting the "human face" behind bloody terrorist activity, leading the viewer to a sense of empathy for the embattled and paranoid existence of the members of the gang.
Saturday, November 7: 6 pm
Sunday, November 8: 8:30 pm

BEYOND THE WALLS / ME'AHOREI HASORAGIM
Uri Barbash, 1986; 103m
This gripping and realistic maximum-security prison drama stirs up a volatile mix of Jewish criminals, Arab political prisoners and guards who play one faction off another. Forging a surprising bond, an Israeli and an Arab unite forces in order to set off a prison strike and escalating violence. This belljar situation--strikingly visualized--is worked as a metaphor for the kinds of everlasting tensions outside the prison walls.
Sat, Nov 7: 8:30 pm
Sun, Nov 8: 6:15 pm

HIMMO, KING OF JERUSALEM
Amos Gutmann, 1987; 84m
Based on a novel by Yoram Kaniuk, HIMMO is set during the War of Independence in Jerusalem. A young nurse volunteers to care for wounded men in a monastery comandeered as a hospital during the siege of the city. Ministering to the worst cases, she falls in love with Himmo, maimed most terribly and hungry for death. Her other patients, consumed with jealousy, begin to see Himmo as their real enemy. Beautifully shot in atmospheric light and shadow, HIMMO is fueled by powerful symbolism, including Christian crucifixion and Jewish rebirth.
Monday, November 9: 4 and 8 pm

SUMMER OF AVIYA
Eli Cohen, 1988; 88m
In 1951, shortly after Israel has become a state, Aviya and her troubled mother, a Holocaust survivor who has been in and out of mental hospitals, spend a very special summer together. Aviya fantasizes that her father--lost in Auschwitz--is still alive and will return to his family. A haunting tale of post-Holocaust trauma and the wonderful power of a child's imagination.
Tuesday, November 10: 4 pm
Wednesday, November 11: 2 and 6:15 pm