(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
It begins with an almost too emblematic symbolism already at Ben Gurion airport outside Tel Aviv. In the branches of the Arrivals Hall you will find two escalators, each separated by a huge masonry. A staircase for those who are about to leave. A staircase for those arriving. A wall to separate people.
The impression is followed up on the taxi ride along the West Bank towards Jerusalem. We pass a prison to Palestinian terrorists, as the driver puts it. And we are not least passing the eye-catching wall, or "security fence" as the Israelis have christened the construction, which upon completion must extend more than 700 kilometers through the country like a concrete duck dictating the anatomy of the landscape. A wall financed by US dollars. A wall that, on the Palestinian side, is filled with slogans and graffiti, while Israelis, on the other hand, have drawn landscapes and sunsets that can easily be interpreted as an ignoring reality; an attempt to create an illusion that no other site exists. Landscape and sunset only.
Maybe we just see what we think we should see. That lives up to our expectations and prejudices about Israel and the conflict. There is hardly any area in the world that is so unique in the first thoughts that emerge when one hears the country named, and so complex by a closer acquaintance. The mindset is with you. It's so hard to let go. So also at the Jerusalem Film Festival, which is why I'm here this time. Invited by Jerusalem Press Club. Paid with Israeli money. Who am I then? So do I support anyone? As a journalist and film critic, I have a strong desire not to choose sides. To relate critically to everything I encounter on my way. It is an ideal, but a difficult one of its kind. Can you meet an Israeli person without thinking of the conflict in the meeting? And can one decode an Israeli movie without using the conflict as a basis for decoding?
Censorship and new tones. Already during the festival's opening ceremony, reality blends in with art. Quite as expected maybe. In recent years there has been a gradual right turn in Israeli politics. This is because, among other things, Jewish settler parties have gained more power in the Knesset. One of the results of this right turn is a change in cultural policy, which of course also leaves its mark in the film landscape. Clearly, this has manifested itself when newly elected Minister of Culture Miri Regev expressed a clear desire that the state has no intention of supporting films that criticize Israel. And shortly before the start of the festival, Regev warned the film festival that it would withdraw financial support for the festival if the documentary Beyond the Fear, which deals with Yitzhak Rabin's killer Yigal Amir, was shown. It ended in a compromise where the film was removed from the official program and showcased in a smaller, private cinema. As Regev steps on stage during tonight's opening ceremony, there is also a gentle stream of buzz and shouts from the Israeli film community. I talk to several instructors along the way at the festival. Several of them expect to face tougher times and fear that film art must yield in favor of propagandistic tributes. Funding for critical films will be more difficult, some say, while others are more optimistic and do not believe the state can succeed in dampening the critical voices of filmmaking.
AKA Nadia is a woefully sad affair, and at the same time a subtle criticism of Israeli society and the racism that permeates it.
It is the 32nd anniversary of the Jerusalem Film Festival, which must be said to be one of the more established cultural events in the region, but it is not always straightforward to have the festival. Last year, the film festival coincided with a violent escalation of the conflict with countless Gaza rocket attacks and the Israeli counter-attack, dubbed "Operation Protective Edge." Several foreign filmmakers boycotted the festival to support the Palestinians, and several of the invited moviegoers did not dare to attend the war-torn city. "Otherwise, I had personally guaranteed that we would probably hit all Palestinian rockets," jokes our host Uri Dromi of the Jerusalem Press Club, finding a photo on his iPhone showing the shooting of a Palestinian rocket during the festival last year – in the exact same place we stand a year later. Uri Dromi has a history of defense and has been a spokesman for both the Rabin and Peres governments. Today, he probably lives most of the time to draw foreign press people to Jerusalem.
Subtle criticism. The 32nd vintage is less dramatic. With the Minister of Culture's announcements, this year's festival will more closely reflect a look inward. This also happens in several of the festival's films, probably most evident in Tova Ascher's AKA Nadia. Ascher has a background as one of Israeli film's most prominent film cutters, behind internationally renowned works such as The lemon tree (2008) AKA Nadia is her debut as an instructor, and it is an extremely strong debut: a tale of the young Arab woman Maya who is in love with Palestinian activist Nimer, whom she travels from Israel to London to be with. Something goes wrong in London, and the only way Maya can return to Israel is by acquiring a forged passport and a new identity. As a Jew, to be sure! Then follows a twenty-year marriage to a Jewish man with whom she has two children. The love between them is sincere and her life seems good despite the great sacrifices she has had to make along the way. But one day, the past knocks on the door and her false identity is revealed. The Jewish man is shocked to have been married to an Arab woman, and immediately leaves her. She must also give up watching the two children. Most of all to spare them the discomfort they will face in Israeli society if they are to have an Arab mother. AKA Nadia is a woefully sad affair, and at the same time a subtle criticism of Israeli society and the racism that permeates it.
"I didn't want to show the conflict with rockets and violence, but the everyday life that comes from living in this inflamed situation," Tova Ascher tells me after the movie. She explains the jump from movie clips to director as follows:
“My country has become a place where one hates the other. We have lost more and more humanity. This hatred of the other I had to respond to. And the second one must be understood here on many levels. It's both the black Ethiopian, it's the woman, it's the poor, it's the Asian immigrant, but the ultimate second in our society is the Arab. "
AKA Nadia is an exception. Most feature films at the festival are otherwise relatively weak works. Probably because the best feature films will premiere at major festivals abroad. Completely hopeless is the horror movie Jerusalem, where two American backpackers experience a near biblical splatter nightmare in Jerusalem. Most of all, the film is reminiscent of a failed attempt to make an Israeli counterpart Blair Witch Project and at the same time formally mimes First Person Shooter-computer games and virtual glasses in the unsuccessful way. As I leave the movie and go home, I encounter a macabre sight on the sidewalk in front of the King David Hotel. A white shirt smeared in blood is thrown in front of me. My first thought is whether it's a tasteless PR stunt for the bloody horror movie. The next day I find out that the bloody shirt is not a prop but the result of a knife attack in front of the hotel. Reality once again.
A search for alternatives. Reality is also plenty in the Israeli documentaries at the festival, which are often more interesting than their fiction pendants. One of the better documentaries is Jerusalem Boxing Clubthat has been four years along the way. Instructor Helen Yanofsky succeeds in portraying not only four to five widely differing characters, but also the place itself, a remarkable sanctuary where Jews, Armenians, and Israeli Arabs can meet in an almost apolitical space. But what exactly is it like to be a documentary in such a politically stressed place as Jerusalem? I asked Yanofsky about that, and she replied:
"We are surrounded by controversies and conflicts, but here is also a daily life. Life that goes on. As a filmmaker in this region, one always looks for opportunities, solutions and alternatives, and here I also mean alternatives to the reality that the media relays, "says Helen Yanofsky, who fears that the new political line will affect Israeli documentary: Absolutely hopeless is the horror movie Jerusalem, where two American backpackers experience a near biblical splatter nightmare in Jerusalem.
"We are already finding it difficult to find Israeli funds to make films. We can certainly find international capital, but with foreign funding, the perspective also becomes foreign, making a critical documentary less impactful than if it were made for Israeli money. ”
Disregard the conflict? Several times along the way, we hear that there are golden times for Israeli films. The national works have a large home audience, and international attention has become Israeli film in part with works such as The Kindergarten Teacher (2014) and Zero Motivation (2014).
During a panel debate with foreign and Israeli film critics, the perception of Israeli film is discussed. Many people point out that Israeli films suffer from the particular optics that are viewed by an international audience. There is another geographical awareness present when we watch an Israeli film that is not present if we watch a film from the Philippines or Peru – and that is wrong, several believe:
“We should see Israeli film as a film. The films are not necessarily a decoding of reality. That should be the role of journalism. If we are to take Israeli film seriously, we, as an international audience, must fail to read the conflict and our prejudice into everything that comes from Israel, ”says German critic Frédéric Jaeger.
The question is whether this neutral approach is a utopia. Whether we can actually wipe the board clean when we take in the art. If you ask Tova Ascher, the special decoding can also be an advantage:
“It gives the films from the area a special layer. Art is to question reality and make people reflect on life and our society. If you are happy with our society, you are not a sensitive person. And if you are not sensitive, you cannot be a film artist. ”
Sensitive and subtle criticism. Horror and hate. A film festival with an almost schizophrenically diverse content from a nation characterized by at once narrative excess and fragile uncertainty over the film future.
In the departure hall the taxi driver sticks my business card. He knows I'll be back.
? Moestrup is a journalist and film critic.
?moestrup@gmail.co
