Animated memories

Beit Avi Chai collaborates with the families of fallen soldiers to create animated films in their memory

By BARRY DAVIS
‘A Wall in Her Heart’ animated film (photo credit: COURTESY BEIT AVI CHAI)
‘A Wall in Her Heart’ animated film
(photo credit: COURTESY BEIT AVI CHAI)
Over the years, Beit Avi Chai has brought us a wide range of cultural and artistic offerings, including quite a few left-field-leaning items. Four years ago, Yotvat Weil came up with the idea of paying tribute to some of the IDF’s fallen soldiers and their families in an innovative way.
The artistic venture Face of Our Memories, curated by Noam Nadav, provides a framework for creating animated films dedicated to the memory of victims of Israel’s wars and of acts of hostility. The films from the past three years, which can be viewed on the Beit Avi Chai website, are emotive in the extreme, and one wonders how the soldiers’ families relate to the works.
“There is certainly a therapeutic element to the films,” says Weil, who oversees the Face of Our Memories project, as well as being responsible for the website content. “This project is not suitable for everyone. These are not classic commemorative films. They are very different from what bereaved families are used to seeing and from what even people who have no connection to the fallen are used to. We tell the families beforehand that the movies will be a bit out of the ordinary.”
That, of course, also entails consulting with the families before the animators – most of whom are young and include graduates of the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design – get down to work.
“We explain to the families, more or less, how the films will look,” explains Weil. “The first year was the most difficult in that regard because there was nothing to show the families. But now they can see the films from past years on the website and get some idea of the end product.”
It must be a painful process for the bereaved.
“Yes, that’s true,” says Weil, “but there is also something healing about the process. We didn’t really aim for that, but that is something that has transpired.
By watching the films, the families get an opportunity to relive the memory and to reunite with the person they have lost. The films offer some kind of embrace, even if it is a virtual one, through the screen. It is a very powerful experience.”
One of this year’s batch of five films includes a hands-on contribution from a prominent member of the family. Internationally renowned writer David Grossman’s son Uri was killed in the last hours of the Second Lebanon War when his tank took a direct hit.
The film Uri was made by Guy Harlap and Sefi Geigo and is narrated by Grossman Sr. It is a touching film, but in keeping with the noted author’s generally sunny disposition, it is a surprisingly upbeat and positive film.
“We want to celebrate life, not death,” says Weil.
“That is something that informs the work of everyone involved in this project.”
One of the first films made in the project, Childhood Memory, certainly took the positive route and coincided with a happy event.
“It was based on the memory of someone who was three years old when his father went off to reserve duty and didn’t return,” Weil recalls. “We resurrected his earliest memories of his father – how his dad took him to kindergarten and carried him on his shoulders.
The film came out when he became a father himself. It provided him with some kind of closure as regards his own father’s death.”
Each of this year’s five films relates to a different war or a different fatal incident. The films include Distant Wave by Eyal Oren and Dafna Ben-Ami, dedicated to the memory of Benny Maimon Wasserman, who died in the mysterious sinking of the Dakar submarine en route to Israel in 1968; Mor Yisraeli and Idan Barzilay’s Yehuda Ken-Dror, about the eponymous soldier who sacrificed his life to save his unit comrades during the 1956 Sinai Campaign; My Older Sister, about Tali Ben-Armon, who died in a terrorist attack in Afula; and A Wall in Her Heart, based on the shared love of Revaya Cherlow and her soldier boyfriend Yuval Heiman of spending time on the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem. Heiman was killed in Gaza during last summer’s Protective Edge campaign.
The project entails an involved synergistic process with the bereaved and the animators.
“This is an artistic process that Noam Nadav, our artistic adviser, oversees,” explains Weil. “We [at Beit Avi Chai] generally don’t involve the families at the initial exploratory stage. We only meet them after the films have been completed.”
The bereaved are, however, consulted during the course of the creative continuum, and they contribute to the end product.
“This year for the first time, all the animators met the families, and it was a very moving experience for everyone,” Weil continues. “In the past, some animators did meet with the families, but each artist decided on their own approach as the needs arose. In general, we conveyed the materials – photographs and such – from the families to the filmmakers.”
A Wall in Her Heart is possibly the most personal of this year’s films and certainly the one that involved the most in-depth animator-bereaved level of cooperation.
“Revaya Cherlow and her boyfriend Yuval saw last year’s films. After Yuval died, Revaya contacted us and asked us to commemorate him,” says Weil. “They loved to sit on the walls of the Old City and to imagine all the people who had fought to defend the city, so that they could sit there and plan their future together, every Saturday night.”
The new films will be added to the website today, and there will be an official screening on April 21 at 9:30 p.m. at Beit Avi Chai. The event will include musical offerings by Dana Adini, Daniel Salomon, Shai Tzabari and Asaf Talmudi. And Cherlow will talk to the audience about Heiman. •
For more information: 621-5300 and www.bac.org.il