Through the lenses of these films at San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 38, explore multiple approaches to topics and themes relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, historical legacies of the region, and the rhythms of modern daily life.
NEXT WAVE SPOTLIGHT. In 2007 Banksy slips into Palestine to paint on the West Bank Barrier. Someone takes offense at a piece depicting an Israeli soldier checking a donkey’s ID. A local taxi driver decides to cut it off and sell it on eBay. What follows is a story of clashing cultures, art, identity, theft and black market. Like Banksy’s art would be meaningless without its context, so the absence of it would be meaningless without an understanding of the elements that brought his artwork from Bethlehem to a Western auction house, along with the wall it was painted on.
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EAST BAY OPENING NIGHT. In 1992, with Israeli-Palestinian relations at a low and official communication suspended, an unlikely group of negotiators—two Israeli professors and three PLO members—met secretly in Norway. Faced with a Palestinian uprising in the West Bank, Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin needed a new direction. The political drama with all its intrigue, suspicion and discord is told through the actual diaries of the negotiators and the long-discarded footage of the actual Oslo negotiations.
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After heisting a priceless mezuzah, wily thief Amram needs a place to hide, a place no one would ever suspect. He lands in just the spot in a company of Orthodox Jews undergoing basic training for the Israeli army. Our anti-hero (or is it hero?) must now earn the trust of his comrades and pass basic training, all the while keeping his secret past hidden, as well as the stolen loot.
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Dutch filmmakers Stephane Kaas and Rutger Lemm create a delightfully surrealistic documentary about the beloved Israeli writer and humorist. Weaving animation, live action and interviews, the film takes us deep into the psyche of Keret, a son of Holocaust survivors, whose fiction explores the absurdities of daily life. Like friends Ira Glass and Jonathan Safran Foer, you’ll be charmed by Keret and be left with an intense desire to read (or reread) his stories.
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Considered one of the elite intelligence agencies in the world, the Mossad was created in 1949 as an insurance policy to defend the state of Israel. Utilizing intimate interviews, first person accounts, startling archival photographs and news footage, some leading figures in Israel’s intelligence community reveal their successes, failures and near misses. Although many were reluctant to discuss highly sensitive topics with the media, the cold calculations of their secret operations gradually unfold.
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Housing one of the world’s greatest collections of art and antiquities, the Israel Museum poses for its own portrait in this elegant observational documentary, revealing its central role in the complicated narrative of the nation. We eavesdrop on curators, museum guards, archaeological conservators, and visiting schoolchildren, who together form a kaleidoscopic picture of the way art, history and national destiny intersect. Ultimately, the museum emerges as a shining example of a nation’s highest aspirations.
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Shadi, an architect who lives in Italy, returns to Nazareth for the wedding of his sister. He helps his father, Abu Shadi (renowned actor Mohammed Bakri), deliver 340 wedding invitations by hand, according to Palestinian custom. When Abu Shadi wants to invite a Jewish friend who Shadi believes is part of Israeli military intelligence, we see the conflict through the eyes of two different generations of Palestinians in this superbly acted film.
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A group of soldiers was hours from home after fighting in the 2006 Lebanon War when a chance encounter ended one of their lives. Eleven years later the four remaining soldiers band together to rescue a family member abducted by a Colombian cartel. A big winner at Canneseries, TV series pilot When Heroes Fly offers a unique glimpse into how young men and women return to society after the devastation of mind and spirit.
Read More$110 JFI Members / $130 General Public
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