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Film Festivals
Road Pictures
As their country's film industry slumps, Israeli moviemakers
screen their work at U.S. venues.
TOM TUGEND
Special to the Jewish News
T
lineup of 31 feature films, documen-
taries and television specials at the fes-
tival.
One reason for the paucity of pic-
tures reflecting the current situation is
the time lag between the conception
of a movie and its completion. In
Israel, this can take one to two years.
In addition, the enormity of the cur-
rent troubles gives pause to even the
most headstrong of filmmakers. To
translate a powerful historic event into
cinematic veracity may require the per-
spective of a decade, at the very least.
And more telling_ than the time con-
straints are the psychological barriers,
Wolman believes.
"When such a traumatic thing" as
suicide bombings happen, "it is hard
to relate to them right away. It's like
survivors of the Holocaust, who
couldn't speak about their experiences
for decades," he said.
Some of the festival films do focus
on underlying Arab-Jewish tensions
and perceptions, however.
This approach is more noticeable
among the documentaries, such as
Ramleh, which explores the religious, cul-
tural and national barriers separating
Arab and Jewish women.
Another documentary, Whose
Land Is It?, centers on an Arab
policeman and artist who tries
to organize an exhibit by both
Arab and Jewish painters.
Currently, documentary
filmmaker Ronit Kertsner is
facing one unusual problem.
"I can't line up any film
crews and cameras, because
they've all been hired by for-
eign news producers covering
the intifada," she said.
he past four months, ticket
sales at Israeli movie the-
aters have plummeted 35
percent, and the reason is
brutally simple.
Given the number of deadly
Palestinian suicide bombings, there is
a pervasive fear among Israelis of gath-
ering in public places such as theaters,
restaurants and nightclubs.
"In the cities, most cinemas are in
malls, and they are practically empty.
Parents are afraid to send
out their kids," said
Israeli director Dan
vvX
Wolman.
Wolman is among 19
Israeli producers, direc-
tors and actors partici-
pating in the 18th Israel
Film Festival, which
comes to New York June
13-27. The festival
played Los Angeles in
April, Chicago and
Miami in May.
The latest intifada
[Palestinian uprising] has
dominated the reality of
the Middle East for the
past 20 months, yet it is
hardly reflected in the
A scene from Israeli film director Dan Wolmans "Foreign Sister"
San Francisco Story
Transplanted Michigan native's appealing debut
film will be screened June 7-9 in Saugatuck.
DIANA LIEBERMAN
Entertainment Writer
I
IN
6/7
2002
82
n most American cities, a may-
oral .campaign featuring a black
incumbent and an openly gay
city supervisor duking it out
for the city's top spot would warrant
national attention.
But it's just business as usual in San
Francisco, adopted home of 31-year-
old filmmaker Emily Morse.
In her first film, the documentary
See How They Ruiz, screening this
weekend at the Waterfront Film
Festival in Saugatuck, the Farmington
Hills native follows San Francisco
Mayor Willie Brown in his 1999 fight
for re-election.
With 12 opponents in the race,
Brown's biggest challenge came from
Supervisor Tom Ammiano a stand-
up comic whose write-in campaign
began two weeks before the election.
Morse, a member of Brown's staff
when he first ran for mayor in 1995,
gave him a call as the 1999 campaign
was heating up. She asked if she could
A Question Of Attitude
Wolman's entry into the film
festival, Foreign Sister, exam-
ines the relationship between
a foreign worker in Israel — an
Ethiopian Christian woman — and
her employer.
The theme is indirectly linked to the
Palestinian-Israeli tensions, Wolman
said, because it was Israelis' growing
distrust of Palestinian workers over the
past 15 years that contributed to the
large-scale importation of foreign men
from the Far East and Romania.
"My film has to do with racialism
and our attitude toward the Arabs," he
said. "I think it is my job to break
stereotypes and to show Arabs as
human beings."
One groundbreaking documentary,
well received by Israelis, was apparently
deemed too hot for festival audiences.
The Inner Tour, an Israeli-Palestinian
co-production actually finished after the
outbreak of the intifada, presents a
none-too-flattering picture of Israeli life,
as seen through the eyes of a group of
Palestinian tourists. Although the film
was a hit at the Sundance and Berlin
festivals, Meir Fenigstein, Israel Film .
Festival founder and executive director,
pulled it from the festival roster.
Said Fenigstein, who has presented
provocative subjects and artists in the
past, "Under present circumstances, I
decided to take a step away from too
much controversy."
Like most of their Hollywood
brethren, Israeli filmmakers are per-
ceived to be on the liberal side of the
political spectrum, and some of their
ideas for future films dealing with the
intifada may raise the hackles of more
conservative Israelis.
Eli Cohen, a leading Israeli director
being honored with a retrospective of his
works at the festival, is writing the screen-
follow him around with a camera.
"You have to be careful what
you ask for," she says. "[The proj-
ect] turned into every day of my
life for the past three years."
A graduate of Harrison High
School, Morse studied and became
bat mitzvah at the Birmingham
Temple, where she was great
friends with Tammy Feldstein,
now the temple's Rabbi Tamara
Kelly Duane, Michigan native Emily Morse
Kolton. After graduating from the
and Tony Saxe, the triumvirate who created
University of Michigan, she left
"See How They Run."
for San Francisco, where she now
lives near Fisherman's Wharf.
footage, which film editor Tony Saxe
Although she'd always been fascinat-
cut to a fast-paced 57 minutes.
ed by movies, Morse had never even
At times, Morse felt she had bitten
taken a filmmaking course until she
off more than she could chew, but she
enrolled in San Francisco's Film Arts
was game for anything.
Foundation, where she met her co-
"I'm much more of a 'throw myself
producer, Kelly Duane.
into the thing' type of person," she
Eventually, they had 107 hours of
.