rts nte ta n t 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 .