News of the Muse

Israeli film nominated for Cesars.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
The AMI Awards return In the few years since its launch, Israel's Music 24 cable channel has become a potent force in Israeli popular music by focusing on home-grown talent. Similar to a local MTV in its 80's heyday, the channel plays mostly music videos by Israeli artists mixed with concerts, commentary and archival clips from Israeli television, thus providing an alternative to the international programming of MTV and VH1. This Wednesday night at 8:30 p.m. the channel presents its second annual AMI (Arutz Musika Yisraeli) Music Awards, a star-studded gala awards ceremony in the tradition of the Grammies with awards for Song of the Year, Band of the Year, Video of the Year, etc. Unlike the Grammies however, the AMI Awards are decided by a combination of judges from the entertainment industry and voting by the general public. This year's show will include performances by Shotei Hanevuah, Yehudit Ravitz, Miri Mesika, Machina, Shiri Maimon and many more. - Gavriel Fiske Israeli film nominated for Cesars Eytan Fox's Walk on Water, the top-grossing Israeli movie in history, has just earned another distinction: It has been nominated for a Cesar, a French Academy Award, in the Best Foreign Film category. Walk on Water joins such distinguished competition as David Cronenberg's A History of Violence, Alejandro Amenabar's The Sea Within, Woody Allen's Match Point, and Clint Eastwood's Million Dollar Baby, in this category. The winners will be announced on February 25. Walk, the story of a Mossad agent who befriends the grandson of an infamous Nazi, was the first Israeli movie ever to open the prestigious Panorama section of the Berlin Film Festival, in 2004. - Hannah Brown Producers, front and center please For the first time ever in Israel, aspiring producers in the performing and plastic arts are going to have a chance to study the art. "See Under: Producers" is a series of courses, the brainchild of Yael Maimony and Anat Radnai, themselves independent, working producers. They've assembled some heavy-hitter lecturers for the 16 week course that starts in early March at Beit Tami in Tel Aviv. These include Atti Citron, a former Acre Festival artistic director, Renen Shor who heads the Sam Spiegel Film School in Jerusalem and attorney Ofir Tal, a contracts specialist. Students will learn all aspects of producing from casting to PR and budgeting, and the course is being offered because "to date, the field has lacked the professional touch," as the organizers put it. - Helen Kaye