eINEntet

In the second year, she started map-
ping out the film, using only a video
camera. Not until the third year did
she begin filming in earnest, focusing
on the lives, sorrows and triumphs of
.six teen-agers.
The centerpiece of the film is the
group's production of the musical
Watts Side Story, based on Romeo and
Juliet by way of West Side Story —
with the Crips and Bloods replacing
the Montagues and Capulets and the
Sharks and Jets.
The camera films the bloody rival-
ries on stage, and with the same fideli-
ty records the real life that takes place
off it. The lead actor, a Latino youth,
is briefly arrested and jailed, a girl's
mother tells of her street life as a crack
addict, and a family grieves over a son
killed in a gang shooting.
The result is a 93-minute docu-
mentary of unblinking, and at times
almost unbearable, honesty, in which
the camera is somehow in the face of

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photography is the work of the Dutch
cinematographer Theo - Van de Sande,
who filmed Assault, Crossing Delancey
and Wayne's World. He also is Ohayon's
husband.
There's no guarantee that she'll be
clutching an Oscar at the March 23
ceremonies. Among her tough com-
petitors in the documentary feature
category are Spike Lee's 4 Little Girls,
about the bloody days of the civil
rights struggle; the Simon Wiesenthal
Center's The Long Way Home, chroni-
cling the desperate attempts of
Europe's Holocaust survivors to reach
the Jewish homeland; Ayn Rand: A
Sense of Life and Waco: The Rules of
Engagement.
But the nomination itself has
already raised her stock in Hollywood.
"When I first came here in 1987, I
didn't realize how hard it would be to
break into the industry," she says. "As
both a woman and a foreigner, it was
even harder to be accepted as a direc-
tor.
"Now, however, with
the nomination as a
stamp of approval, it's
getting easier. You have
easier access. Where I
might have been 10th on
a list of possible directors
for a project, now I'm
close to the top."
Currently, Ohayon has
lined up two possible fea-
ture film deals with Para-
mount and MGM. Clos-
er to her heart, though, is
a script she has carried
Israeli Michele Ohayon's "Colors Straight Up" explores
around for more than 10
the lives of African American and Latino teen-agers
years,
titled Homeland.
who find a refuge from the mean streets of drugs and
"It's
the story of the
gang shootings while rehearsing their production of the
illegal Jewish immigra-
musical "Watts Side Story."
tion from North Africa
to Palestine, before Israel
the actors and unobtrusive at the same
became a state, and which paralleled
time.
the Aliyah Bet effort from Europe,"
Colors Straight Up has already gar-
she says.
nered eight awards at various film fes-
"It was just as dramatic as Exodus,
tivals, but its creation was difficult.
but nobody knows about it. I've
Financing and fund raising were a
pitched the story to Jewish executives
constant worry and for six months,
here, and they had no idea that so
Ohayon recalls, "we couldn't view the
many people from North Africa are
daily rushes because we didn't have the
living in Israel."
money to develop the film."
Ohayon recalls that her own father
Salvation came mainly through
was deeply involved in bringing Jews
two grants from the Corporation for
from Morocco to Palestine, so "in a
Public Broadcasting, totaling
sense, Homeland will be a fictionalized
$175,000. PBS will air the film
family story, a tribute to my parents."
nationwide on May 19. Total project
cost came to $300,000 in cash and
another $150,000 in donated equip-
PBS is scheduled to air Colors
ment and services.
Straight Up nationwide on May
The documentary's sensitive
19. Check your local listings.

❑