Jerusalem Film Festival: The Complete Guide

The outstanding films of the Cannes Film Festival, an exciting guest and an equally exciting guest, a variety of classics and pearls for which there are film festivals - a selection of recommendations for the film festival, for which tickets are in full swing

Avner Shavit

10/07/2022

Sunday, 10 July 2022, 23:07 Updated: 23:36

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In a week and a half, the Jerusalem Film Festival will be launched.

Ticket sales are already in full swing, so you should start preparing for it.

The event will screen over a hundred films - long and short, international and local, documentaries and feature films.

I have watched dozens of them, at various festivals around the world and on other occasions.

In previous years, we would publish grocery list-length recommendations ahead of the festival opening.

This year we decided to be more practical and focused, and settle for a dozen recommendations.

At the end we have attached a paragraph here with a few more names that you might want to pay attention to.

The festival will open on Thursday 21.7 and last for ten days.

For more details, hours and dates for screening and to purchase tickets - see the official website.

From "Accusation" (Photo: Jerome Parboa)

Charlotte Ginsburg and Ruben Ostland pop in to visit

By two years, the festival did not take place because of the corona.

A year ago, an outbreak of the plague prevented him from hosting visitors from abroad. This year, for the first time in three years, it has guests, and more!

First of all: Charlotte Ginsburg, who only one word is appropriate to define - an icon. With two recent films starring - "Night Birds" and "The Blame", directed by her partner Ivan Atal, she appears alongside their joint son Ben Atal. And the Jew Serge Ginsburg. All this is not just provincial trivia, because Judaism plays a central role in the film

. This rapist is never simple,

Ginzburg will talk to the audience after the screenings, and it will be possible to talk to her about it and the whole film.

It is well made, fascinating and sweeping, but also raises a lot of questions.

Michael Hers' "Night Birds" is a slightly less complex film.

Ginsburg plays a woman who enters the job market for the first time in her life after a painful breakup with her partner, begins working as a junior production assistant on a radio show of conversations with listeners, and retires under a lost girl she meets in this setting.

The film enjoys its acting display, beautiful photography and stunning soundtrack.

From "Night Birds" (Photo: Arta)

An equally exciting guest is Ruben Ostland, the Swedish filmmaker who joined the small club of directors who won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival twice this year.

Five years ago he did it thanks to "The Square" and this year thanks to "Triangle of Sadness", which will kick off the festival on its opening night.

His screening on the Riviera was one of the most amazing experiences I have had at the cinema, and the audience just raised the ceiling time and time again with roars of laughter.

Luckily in Jerusalem it will be screened in the open air, in the Sultan's Pool, so no ceiling can fly.

The festival will also screen "The Square," one of the great films of the previous decade, and the director's previous films, and he will talk to them about the audience.

A rare opportunity to chat here with one of the most important filmmakers of our generation, and even without the mediation of the Pick family.

Ruben Ostland wins the Palme d'Or at Cannes about two months ago (Photo: GettyImages, Gareth Carmol)

Ehh

Polish Jerzy Skolimowski, one of the oldest directors still working today, won the Jury Prize at the last Cannes Film Festival for this film.

On stage, he thanked his stars - six donkeys.

The six alternated between them during the filming and shared one role - the character of a donkey who goes through many hardships, and human evil is reflected through his kind-hearted eyes.

The filmmaker seems to use donkeys as an example of the suffering of other persecuted groups, and at one point also of the persecution of Jews in Eastern Europe.

The film is of course reminiscent of Robert Berson's Balthazar, who also placed a donkey at the center of the plot, but did so in an ascetic style.

Here, the style is ambitious and experimental, and the Polish director enjoys playing with the colors and the shooting angles.

At 84, Skolimowski is as passionate and curious as if he touched the camera for the first time in his life.

From "E-A" (Photo: Jerusalem Festival)

The night of the 12th

An unpretentious film, which was screened as part of the official selection of the last Cannes Film Festival, but out of competition.

Despite this, in my opinion it is one of the best films shown on the Riviera this year, and hence it is also one of the big hits of the festival in Jerusalem.

Behind the film are French director Dominique Mol and his regular partner, screenwriter Jill Marshan.

Their first films, "Harry the True Friend" and "Lemming" were distributed in Israel in the days when there was a much larger market for such films.

Their latest film, the great "Only the Beasts", was screened with us at yes.

As usual with them, "The Night of the 12th" is a thriller, which deals with a policeman who investigates the brutal murder of a young woman, and develops an obsession with what becomes an unsolved case.

Bastian Boyne plays the researcher, whose expressionless face has a hard time hiding the storm that is raging inside him.

His show does not have a single fake character, and so does the entire film.

Mol and Mershan manage to captivate and sweep, and engage in a deep, sensitive and poignant subject that almost all films claim to touch today - toxic masculinity.

From "The Night of the 12th" (Photo: Cannes Film Festival)

Roman: Free Woman + Course

Rumi Schneider was born in 1938, a year before the outbreak of World War II, and died prematurely - in May 1982, at the age of 43. "Rumi: A Free Woman" by Lucy Carys, a documentary that premiered on the occasion of the recent Cannes Film Festival, deals with the life and death of The legendary actress.

He avoids sensationalism and yellow specifications and also does not dwell on the tragic circumstances in which she passed away exactly forty years ago.

Instead, as the name implies, he focuses on her independence, which was groundbreaking relative to the period in which she lived.

She decided where to live, who to love and which characters to play.

She also chose to get closer to the Jewish heritage, even though her parents were Christians with an affinity for Nazi officials.

The role that Schneider advertised was her appearance as Empress Elizabeth, known as "Sissy" and was also a liberated and independent woman, with a tumultuous life, probably relative to the 19th century.

Her character is at the center of Marie Kreutzer's "Course", which also arrives in Jerusalem from Cannes.

In this case it is a feature film, and this time the Empress is played by the wonderful Vicky Creeps, who since her appearance in "Hidden Threads" has become one of the busiest actresses in the industry.

"Corsage" is reminiscent of two previous masterpieces that dealt with royal women.

Similar to Sophia Coppola's Mary Antoinette, he also breaks the rules of period drama and plants anachronistic elements in it - for example a modern soundtrack that includes songs by the Rolling Stones;

And like "Spencer" about Princess Diana, it deals with a woman who rebels against the oppressive laws of the royal family, and in this case is freed from the burdensome corsets by which the film is named.

In the coming months, a new series about Sisi's about Netflix is ​​scheduled to air,

Whose character is more relevant than ever.

Until then, do not miss this movie.

From "Course" (Photo: Cannes Film Festival)

The pit

For such films there are film festivals.

You will not see it anywhere else, because it will not be distributed commercially in the country, and there is no point in waiting and seeing it in a home format - because this is the kind of work that must be seen on a big screen.

Italian director Michelangelo Premertino recreates here the mission of cave explorers, who some sixty years ago dived seven hundred underground and discovered what is hidden in the deepest cave in Italy.

The result is also one of those movies you watch, yelling "wow" and wondering "how did they film it at all?".

"The Pit" has no dialogues, and is a pure and abstract cinematic experience.

Impatient will feel like they have fallen into a pit, well-wishers will be in ecstasy, this is also the kind of movie where whoever takes the phone out of his pocket - is a hopeless barbarian.

From "The Pit" (Photo: Venice Film Festival)

metronome

Alexandro Black began his professional career a decade and a half ago as a cast member in Christian Monjio's "Four Months, Three Weeks and Two Days," one of the greatest films of our generation and certainly the best film made about life under Ceausescu's reign of terror.

Now, he has stepped up and directed for the first time a full-length feature film, which also takes place during this period.

This time, the plot follows several boys and girls, whose whole sin is to listen to an underground radio station and make contact with it, which costs them in persecution by the secret police, who have no pity on anyone - not even the school children.

"Metronome" made its world premiere about two months ago as part of "A Particular Look" at the Cannes Film Festival, and won Black the Best Director award.

You can understand why: this is an excellent film, which manages to give a sense of time and place, create an emotional connection between us and the characters and make the best use of the camera and soundtrack.

Monjio can be proud: see that his former apprentice learned from the best.

From "Metronome" (Photo: Cannes Film Festival)

Unbelievable but real + whoever smokes coughs

Quentin Dupua works at a dizzying pace, and the Jerusalem Festival manages to keep up.

A year ago, he screened "Two Men and a Fly" by him in the capital, and this summer they will screen two more of his new films - "Unbelievable but Real" and "Who Smokes Coughs".

As usual with Dupua, these are completely insane films, which present us with stories of a thousand and one nights.

It is not clear how the screenwriter-director manages to be so productive, and it is not clear how he manages to produce such a constant stream of original, playful, creative and imaginative ideas.

A hole in the ground that makes anyone who enters it a few minutes younger, a man who installs an electronically adjustable genital organ, a rat-like creature that leads the fight to save humanity and more - all these are just some of the bizarre stories he presents with some of France's best actors.

On the face of it, it's tempting to define "unbelievable but real" and "whoever smokes coughs" as wild comedies, but they also have a lot of sadness - about the end of friendships, the end of relationships, the end of the world.

From "Unbelievable but Real" (Photo: Berlin Festival)

Lynch / Oz

A few years ago, Italian researchers examined 47,000 films of all time and examined what was the most influential film ever, which garnered the largest amount of quotes, gestures, mentions and influences.

The winner, of course, is "The Wizard of Oz."

Among other things, the ritual classics from 1939 also influenced the works of David Lynch.

Whether it is in a direct and extroverted way, such as the characters of the witches in "Wild Heart", or more indirectly and deeply in his other works, in film and television.

This documentary uses hundreds of archive footage and conversations with other cinematic anchors to depict the fascinating dialogue between "The Wizard of Oz" and the enigmatic director, whose influence of the musical fantasy of the 1930s is one of the only things he is willing to admit.

The result is a must-watch for his fans, but will captivate anyone interested in the history of popular culture and the question of whether it is possible to create without being inspired by what was before you.

One thing is for sure: one image from "The Wizard of Oz" or some Lynch movie is enough to not sleep at night from too many nightmares.

From "Lynch / Oz" (Photo: Tribeca Festival)

A song sung in the rain

In the best tradition and in keeping with its status, this year the festival presents a host of truly huge classics, which have recently received renewed copies and look better than ever.

From a local angle, the main attraction will be the premiere of the renewed copy of "Hole in the Brick", a film by Uri Zohar who passed away about two months ago.

In the international perspective, "Mother and the Whore" stands out, the French cult film from 1973, which has almost never been screened in Israel.

It lasts 215 minutes, so you can watch "Hole in the Moon" three times during this time.

And there are others, for example Vera Hitilova's "Chrysanthemums", Pasolini's "Mama Roma";

But if we have to choose one film, we will still go for the most trivial choice of them all - "A Song Singing in the Rain", which is now celebrating seventy years since its release.

Years come and go, and this musical was and remains one of the best films ever made, if not the best of them all.

Personally, this is the movie I have watched the most times in my life, and each time as exciting as the first rain of the year.

From "A song sung in the rain" (Photo: imdb)

Also note:

some of the highlights of the recent Cannes Film Festival - "Kat", its opening film;

Korean "Decision to Leave", winner of the director's award;

Japanese-Korean "broker", winner of the lead actor award;

"Holy Spider," winner of the Lead Actress Award;

"Tori and Lokita" by the Darden brothers, regular guests on the red carpet at the festival, who this time also left with a prize.

And also: "Three Thousand Years of Longing," George Miller's first film since "Mad Max: Road to Rage," which premiered on the Riviera this year, but not in a competitive setting.

Musical docu-lovers will probably dance all the way to "David Bowie" and "Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, Journey, Song."

The festival will host the filmmakers, Daniel Geller and Dana Goldfein, and Robert Curry, Cohen's artistic estate manager.

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