Banner years in the film world are often followed by quieter ones, but 2012
promises to be an interesting year for Israeli cinema.
On the
international film scene, the first big event of the year is always the Sundance
Film Festival, which runs from January 19-29. Sundance was founded by Robert
Redford to showcase the best in independent cinema from around the world, but it
has come under fire in recent years for having become too
commercial. Veteran journalists like to reminisce about how small and
intimate it was at first and how they used to get together and shoot pool with
Bob (Redford) in the early years.
But commercialized or not, it is still
one of the major world festivals, and Israeli movies have done well there. Last
year, Yossi Madmony’s
Restoration won the Best Screenplay Prize in the World
Drama competition, and in 2007 Dror Shaul’s
Sweet Mud was awarded the Grand Jury
Prize. This year, there will be three Israeli documentaries in competition:
5
Broken Cameras, directed by Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi;
The Law in These Parts
directed by Ra’anan Alexandrowicz; and
Gypsy Davy, directed by Rachel Leah
Jones. The first film is the chronicle of a Palestinian village’s resistance to
the separation fence;
The Law in These Parts is about the way Israel administers
the West Bank; and
Gypsy Davy is directed by an Israeli but tells the story of
an American young man who became a flamenco guitarist.
The next major
international festivals are Berlin in February and Cannes in May, but the
lineups for these have not yet been announced and it’s too early to know which
Israeli films may compete in them.
Israeli films have done quite well at
the increasingly important Tribeca Film Festival, held in New York in the
spring, as well as the Karlovy Vary Festival in the Czech Republic in the
summer, and at the Toronto and Venice film festivals in early autumn.
In
terms of film festivals here that feature Israeli films, this is a relatively
quiet period until DocAviv, the international documentary film festival in Tel
Aviv, which will take place from May 3-12. Also in May is the Cinema of the
South Festival in Sderot. It’s followed by the two biggest events on the Israeli
film calendar – the Jerusalem International Film Festival in early July and the
Haifa International Film Festival in early autumn.
What are Israel’s top
directors up to? Eytan Fox is probably the next prominent Israeli who will
release a film. He is busy editing
Yossi’s Story, a sequel to his acclaimed 2002 film Yossi & Jagger, which tells the story of two gay
soldiers in the IDF. Ohad Knoller reprises his role as Yossi. He will be
joined by veteran actor Lior Ashkenazi (who starred in Fox’s
Walk on Water) and
rising star Oz Zehavi, who is best known for his part on the TV series
Asfur and
appeared in the film
Infiltration. Orly Silbersatz co-stars as Jagger’s
mother.
Several top directors made films in 2010 and 2011 and have not
yet completed their follow-up films. Avi Nesher’s
The Matchmaker is set to be
released in the US in February, and Joseph Cedar’s
Footnote will open in America
in March.
Nesher’s next film will be shot abroad and is titled,
appropriately,
In a Strange Land. He has written an adaptation of Nathaca
Appanah’s novel
The Last Brother, which tells the little-known story of a group
of Jews imprisoned by the British in Mauritius during World War II. With a
budget of $8 million, it will star French actress Emmanuelle Béart. Actors Tim
Roth and Guy Pearce reportedly liked the script, and one of them may play the
male lead. It is being produced by Jean-Pierre Ramsey-Levi (
Total Eclipse) and
is set to start shooting in South Africa in the fall.
If you’ve been
waiting for the release of Ari Folman’s
The Congress, his first film after the
huge success of his animated documentary
Waltz with Bashir (2008), you’ll have
to wait a little longer. The Congress, which stars Robin Wright and Harvey
Keitel and is based on a science-fiction novel by Stanislaw Lem, is in
post-production but won’t be released until 2013. Sources describe it as 60
percent live action and 40 percent animation. But if it’s anything like
Bashir,
it should be worth the wait.