Avi Nesher's movie halts production due to coronavirus lockdown decision

Director Avi Nesher announced Friday that due to the upcoming lockdown approved by the coronavirus cabinet, he had no choice but to temporarily halt production on his latest movie, Portrait of Victory, which had been shooting in the Negev for several weeks.The film’s producers released a statement saying that they had made this decision “with no choice and great sorrow.”Nesher said, “After all the careful preparations of the wonderful actors and creators who worked with us for many months on the cinematic texture of the film, it is of course a severe disappointment, but these are difficult times for all of us and we must abide by regulations designed to end the damn plague. We will return to filming soon when this storm passes.”Portrait of Victory, Nesher’s 21st film as director, is a fact-based epic set during the War of Independence. It tells the story of Mira Ben-Ari, a fiercely independent and young wireless operator, and Lt. Avraham Schwarzstein, who emerged from the smoky ruins of Kibbutz Nitzanim in June 1948 to face Egyptian officers backed by tanks and cannons, and a young Egyptian journalist and photographer who had come from Cairo to document the Israeli surrender.The story is told from the points of view of the Israelis and the Egyptians. The film stars Joy Rieger, who appeared in Nesher’s previous two films, The Other Story and Past Life, as Mira.The rest of the cast includes Amir Khoury, Yadin Gellman, Eliana Tidhar, Meshi Kleinstein, Tom Avni, Elisha Banai, Ala Dakka, Kamal Zaid and Noa Roth.To make the Negev set look like the Egyptian border, Nesher had 100 truckloads of sand brought in and also restored actual tanks from 1948 to be used in the film.But the shadow of the virus haunted the production, and Nesher estimated that following the coronavirus regulations inflated the budget by about 25%.