{"id":8139,"date":"2010-10-30T03:31:38","date_gmt":"2010-10-30T10:31:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8139"},"modified":"2010-10-31T02:06:49","modified_gmt":"2010-10-31T09:06:49","slug":"etgar-keret-and-michal-rovner-decorated-as-chevalier-de-l%e2%80%99ordre-des-arts-et-des-lettres","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/?p=8139","title":{"rendered":"Etgar Keret and Michal Rovner Awarded French Order of Arts and Letters"},"content":{"rendered":"
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French Ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot with Michal Rovner and Etgar Keret\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

French Ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot, awarded the Chevalier de l\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Order of Arts and Letters), one of France\u2019s most distinguished titles, to writer\/filmmaker Etgar Keret and contemporary artist Michal Rovner in a ceremony which took place at the Ambassador\u2019s residence on Thursday, October 28, 2010.<\/p>\n

Ambassador Bigot praised Rovner\u2019s work for its investigation of human nature and identity in all its complexity. The Ambassador took note of the video art display in the entrance to Yad Vashem, the Holocaust History Museum, showing the life of the Jewish world before the Holocaust, and her Makom series, created from stones the artist has collected from the remains of old Israeli and Palestinian houses from Jerusalem, Haifa, Nablus, the Galilee and Hebron. Accepting the honor, Rovner recalled her connection to France and French culture which began in childhood family trips, even humming a few notes of the French national anthem with the Ambassador. Rovner\u2019s first museum show Fields, was presented at the Jeu de Paume in Paris in 2005. A new work by Rovner will be exhibited at the Louvre in May 2011.<\/p>\n

Citing Etgar Keret as a leader of the younger generation, Ambassador Bigot recalled first seeing Jellyfish, winner of the Camera d\u2019Or at the 2007 Cannes Festival, saying \u201cI was captivated.\u201d Keret\u2019s work, translated into French by Rosie Pinhas-Delpuech and published by Actes Sud, has enjoyed success in France; ever since the first publication of La Colo de Kneller in 2001 (Kneller\u2019s Happy Campers appears in English in The Bus Driver Who Wanted to be God and Other Stories, Toby Press, 2004).<\/p>\n

Keret said that people often called Jellyfish (directed by Keret with his wife Shira Geffen, based on a short story written by Geffen) \u201cthe French Film.\u201d \u201cIn the beginning I was a little annoyed,\u201d said Keret, feeling that there wasn\u2019t anything particularly French about the film. After the film\u2019s success at Cannes, he realized it was \u201cbecause the French people \u2018get it\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
First moments as Chevaliers: Michal Rover and Etgar Keret pin on their medals with \u00e9lan while preparing for a toast with French Ambassador to Israel Christophe Bigot\/Photo: Elizur Reuveni <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Keret\u2019s off-the-cuff wit entertained the audience as he recalled that when he was five, his kindergarten teacher asked the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. \u201cThe boys all wanted to be pilots,\u201d said Keret, \u201cexcept one fat boy, who wanted to be a cop. I said that I wanted to be a knight. The teacher said that I couldn\u2019t be a knight and suggested that I find another option.\u201d At that point in the story, the young Keret began to cry. \u201cAs the years went by,\u201d Keret continued, with an almost marginal expression of regret, \u201cI saw all the boys in my class become pilots, except the one fat boy who became a cop. And today \u2013 I am a knight.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Order of Arts and Letters was established on May 2, 1957 by the Minister of Culture, in recognition of significant contributions to the arts, literature or the propagation of these fields. Awarded to \u201cindividuals who have distinguished themselves by their creativity in the artistic or literary field, or the contribution they have made to the promotion of arts and literature in France and worldwide.\u201d Members are not limited to French nationals, and in recent years the number of foreign recipients has grown. Israeli recipients of the title include: actor and writer Yossi Banai, director Eran Baniel, choreographer Ohad Naharin, authors David Grossman and Amos Oz, Director of the Suzanne Dellal Centre Yair Vardi, and founder and former Director of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, Lia Van Leer. The most recent Israeli honorees are Yossi Tal Gan, Director of the Israel Festival; James Snyder, Director of the Israel Museum; Dubi Lenz, broadcaster and lecturer on World Music, and film maker Raphael Nadjari.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French Ambassador to Israel, Christophe Bigot, awarded the Chevalier de l\u2019Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (The Order of Arts and Letters), one of France\u2019s most distinguished titles, to writer\/filmmaker Etgar Keret and contemporary artist Michal Rovner in a ceremony which took place at the Ambassador\u2019s residence on Thursday, October 28, 2010. Ambassador Bigot praised […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8139","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8139","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=8139"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8139\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8139"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8139"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.midnighteast.com\/mag\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8139"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}