Full Description
Three Israeli friends concoct Total Love, a new aphrodisiac, and make plans to smuggle it abroad. The story follows the misadventures of these 20-somethings dabbling in minor-league recreational drug peddling, a journey that takes them from Israel to Amsterdam and the Indian province of Goa. This is the world of backpacking global wanderers, budget travel guides, raves and "smart" drugs. When one of the group, the precocious Renana (played by Tinkerbell), is arrested and thrown into an Indian prison, her friends, all ex-lovers, join forces to rescue her. This breakaway Israeli film is original, good-hearted and utterly charming. While many drug films focus on violence and betrayal, this one is an unabashedly earnest, far-reaching quest for true love. The trance scene began in the late 1980s in Goa and has since spread around the globe. No one has gobbled up the phenomenon more eagerly than Israeli youth.
Filmmaker Bio(s)
Gur Bentwich is a graduate of Tel Aviv Univeristy's film school. "Bugs", a short film he made as a student, was invited to Tokyo, Munich, Karlovy Vary, Firenze, Montpelier and many other festivals and was sold to five European TV stations. As his graduation film he made "Planet Blue", his first feature. The film started as an esoteric weekly midnight screening but quickly evolved into a successful cult event and has been shown regularly for five years in front of packed houses. While screening the film at the Calcutta Film Festival, he came up with the idea for "Total Love". Back home he enlisted the help of Etgar Keret, a close friend and popular Israeli author, to help him with the scrpit. Thus began this complex project, two years in the making.
