{"id":19818,"date":"2012-06-11T07:25:31","date_gmt":"2012-06-11T14:25:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19818"},"modified":"2012-06-15T09:02:50","modified_gmt":"2012-06-15T16:02:50","slug":"israel-film-fund-launches-a-decade-in-motion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=19818","title":{"rendered":"Israel Film Fund Launches “A Decade in Motion: The New Voice of Israeli Cinema”"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Heard the buzz about the Israeli film scene but not sure where to begin? The Israel Film Fund has just published \u201cA Decade in Motion: The New Voice of Israeli Cinema,\u201d a book of essays on current Israeli cinema. Israel Film Fund Director Katriel Schory, the book\u2019s Chief Editor, introduced the guide at the launch event held this morning, Monday, June 11, 2012 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque.<\/p>\n

The Israel Film Fund is a non-profit foundation established in 1979 that focuses exclusively on full length narrative fiction features, assisting, supporting and promoting films at all stages of the process. The results speak for themselves: Israeli films are screened in international festivals, winning awards, critical attention, and perhaps most important \u2013 the hearts of the audiences. Four Israeli films have been nominated for Oscars in the past five years, while Schory said that he is not particularly concerned with the prize, one cannot deny that for \u201cnon-English speaking films from a small country in an odd language, Israel is doing all right.\u201d<\/p>\n

The initiative for the guide, edited by Avital Bekerman and Noa Mendel, which features international contributors such as Ethan Bronner and Roger Ebert as well as Israeli writers, came from a sense that the past decade marks a crucial turning point in Israeli film. Looking back, Schory said that Israeli cinema \u201calmost disappeared\u201d in the 1990s, and \u201cwe managed to turn it around.\u201d Ascribing the change to \u201ctalented filmmakers who have learned to tell their stories in engaging, communicative ways, and producers who deliver on time and in budget,\u201d Schory said that the main challenge to Israeli film was at home: \u201cWe had to re-invent our audiences.\u201d By the late 90s, Israeli audiences were simply not interested in seeing Israeli films. According to Schory, box office statistics show that Israeli films represented only 3% of the films seen by Israelis.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first film that pulled us out of the red and recreated hope was Late Marriage (Dover Kosashvili) in 2001,\u201d Schory related. \u201c60% of the dialogue is in Georgian, it\u2019s about a community living in Or Yehuda,\u201d said Schory, explaining that the film made people realize that \u201cthis multicultural society we live in creates a lot of curiosity.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is not too surprising to learn from Schory that Israeli film is known to be \u201clow on adaptations, lots of stories come from personal experiences.\u201d\u00a0 Mentioning films such as Lebanon (Samuel Maoz 2009), Broken Wings (Nir Bergman2002), Late Marriage (Dover Kosashivili 2004); Schory noted that all three were based on the writer\/director\u2019s personal experiences, adding that many Israeli films tend to be \u201cabout families\u201d and that Israeli filmmakers tend to be \u201cinvolved in our immediate life.\u201d\u00a0 In terms of political themes, Schory said, \u201cthere is less flag-raising than when I grew up in the Israeli film industry in the 70s and 80s,\u201d when these themes appear in contemporary films, they \u201ccome in a more subdued way.\u201d<\/p>\n

Noting that the growth of the Israeli film industry in the past decade \u201ccouldn\u2019t have happened without the support and embrace of the international film industry,\u201d Schory mentioned the large (and ever-growing) number of co-productions. Israel currently has co-production agreements with Belgium, Bulgaria, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden, Poland, Canada, Australia, Hungary, Brazil and the U.K. Yet \u201cit\u2019s not a one-way street\u201d Schory noted, saying that the fund has recently financed 4 features directed by non-Israelis.<\/p>\n

Looking to the future, Schory conveys an open approach to all possibilities and initiatives, while remaining well-grounded, saying, \u201cOur films will always be small scale, with stories that are powerful, daring, free. We will not do car-chases because we don\u2019t have the budget, but we will make films that move and touch thousands of people.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Heard the buzz about the Israeli film scene but not sure where to begin? The Israel Film Fund has just published \u201cA Decade in Motion: The New Voice of Israeli Cinema,\u201d a book of essays on current Israeli cinema. Israel Film Fund Director Katriel Schory, the book\u2019s Chief Editor, introduced the guide at the launch […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-19818","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19818","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=19818"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19818\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=19818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=19818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=19818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}