"The Winners" movie trailer/courtesy of United King Films
"The Winners" is an unusual film in the contemporary landscape of the local industry, yet it is easy to try to describe it: imagine "La La Land" in Israel just after the Six Day War, and you will get this musical, which will have its festive premiere tomorrow (Wednesday) as part of Israeli Cinema Day, and will remain in theaters after that as well.
The film was written and directed by Eliran Peled, who broke through thanks to the acclaimed series "The Unimportant" (here 11).
His heroine is a young woman named Neta, who wins the lead role in a new musical that reflects the Israeli euphoria after the end of the war, but also deals with the post-trauma of her partner, and with the grief of her best friend, whose partner was killed in battle.
All this, of course, against the background of lots of dancing and singing.
Many of the numbers are original, but a highlight includes an unforgettable rendition of "You, Me and the Next War" by Hanoch Levin.
Peled is 31 years old and was of course not born during the events of "The Winners", yet the inspiration for the film came from his personal experiences.
He is willing to say that a person close to him experienced post-trauma following Operation Tzuk Eitan about a decade ago, but asks not to go into more detail than that for the sake of personal modesty.
He can expand on the second story - "After the army, I was accepted into an incubator for young filmmakers on behalf of the Jerusalem Municipality", says the director in an interview with Walla!
culture.
"I did a documentary on Ammunition Hill, and I met a man named Michael Lanir who fought in the Six Days. I talked to him, and also to his friends, and they told me a different narrative than what I knew - not a story of euphoria and victories, but of post-trauma. One of them told me that in Israel of After the war, he felt like a mute figure in a musical world. This sentence captured me, and symbolized in my mind the contrast between the trauma and the bereavement and the lively and joyful reality. The oldest person I have met so far at a screening of the film was 93 years old, and he told me a sentence that I will never forget - that this film is The cinematic version of the time of transition between Memorial Day and Independence Day."
"This film is the cinematic version of the time of transition between Memorial Day and Independence Day."
Eliran Peled/Reuven Castro
We all grew up on the myth in Israel that after the six days there was absolute euphoria.
Now you're telling me it's a legend?
"Look, let's start with the math - hundreds of people died in this war, and thousands were injured. Even in a great victory, there are losers. The Six Day War is one of the last wars that had a consensus in Israeli society, but even in what is apparently an indisputable victory, there were elements of A loss. Even the Six Day War is ultimately an anti-war story."
The work on the film began and ended before the seventh of October, but it is impossible not to see topical connections in it.
"I started working on the film at the age of 24, and the advantage of that is that I grew up with him. All the talk today is about an image of victory and how to win, even though we should already understand that there is no such thing. What is victory anyway? From the stories about the six days, I realized that sometimes we all Such compulsions regarding the image of victory, until we don't stop to think about the detail within the big picture. We need to know how to deal with sadness, and not be in pursuit of the image of victory. The arc of the film is a story of disillusionment. I used to think about the film in the context of my parents, but today I think of him as a parent myself. The tragedy of life here is that we live in a kind of loop. The parents here promise their children to do everything so that this loop stops, but it repeats itself at such an extreme level that it's hard to digest."
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"Singing song in the rain", the Israeli version.
From "The Conductors"/Saar Mizrahi
"The Winners" takes place in 1967, but is released in the shadow of the contemporary tragedy.
The film is dedicated to the years that were murdered on the seventh of October: the soundman Lior Weizman, an old partner of Peled;
And Liam Shrem, son of the producer Simona Shrem, who was partly responsible for the pre-debut success of this hit.
In addition to this, one of the heroes is played by Yadin Gelman, who also starred in Avi Nesher's "Victory Picture" and in addition to being an actor is a fighter in a patrol of the Defense Forces, and was seriously injured in the war.
"Yadin charmed me at our first meeting, and I cast him on the spot.
Like every member of the staff, Yedin became a close friend.
He would sit in my office for hours," says Peled. "His injury caused us to panic.
We visited him in Ichilov and it was a very difficult experience.
All the walls of the hospital were full of posters of 'Together we will win' and I told him that I felt like a character in our film."
Amit Parkash, who plays Gelman's partner in the film, is a bereaved sister - her brother fell in the Second Lebanon War. "I sent her the script and asked her "If she's sure you'd like to touch on these issues," he says. "She told me - 'This script is all I wanted to say.'"
The leading quartet is completed by Daniel Litman and Yael Stulman, who plays the lead role in a breakout performance. "Daniel joined the nonprofit after the film 'Fighters for Life' and will be an active part of it.
And as for Yael, why did I cast an actress who is not yet a star for the role of the heroine?
Yael and I have known each other for more than a decade.
The script was written with and around her and her extraordinary talent.
This is no ordinary film - rehearsals for the singing and choreography parts required almost a year of work.
I needed someone who would give herself completely, as Yael did."
"All the walls of the hospital were full of 'Together we will win' posters and I told Din that I felt like a character in a movie."
Eliran Peled/Saar Mizrahi
Due to the circumstances, "The Winners" went down in history as one of the only Israeli films ever to have a new opening shot.
"In the first version, the opening of the film was in pink neon colors, and then slowly the result went to darker areas," says the director.
"After the oath in October, we realized that there was no way to open the film like that, so two months ago we set up a special shooting day to shoot another opening. We also made a few other small changes throughout the film - there is one number that we shortened, because the satire in it felt too contemporary."
How is the audience responding to the film at the moment?
"Obviously, since October 7th, the audience's encounter with the film has changed. I also notice that the audience is getting younger and younger, sometimes much younger. Someone came to one of the screenings with an eight-year-old girl. I stopped her at the entrance and told her, 'Although there is no official age limit, but I wanted Let me make it clear to you what the film is about.' She told me, 'Everything is good. I read it, I checked it, and we are here.'
"Personally and emotionally, I didn't think I would cry so much as a result of this film. People come and hug me after the screenings and I am grateful for the privilege I have to be in such a situation, even though it is difficult."
Let's go back to the starting point.
I guess along the way, a lot of people have said to you, "What about a musical?".
"I started this project at the age of 24. It's my first film, and it's certainly not a classic debut film. Really, a lot of people raised their eyebrows at the beginning. I knew I had to justify the idea of the musical and make it clear that it's not a gimmick. We did an in-depth investigation that proved that during the euphoria of '67, the production There are many stage musicals here, and that was one of the justifications. I filmed trailers and teasers that spoke in favor of the project. At one point, the phrase 'It's like the Hollywood classic 'A Star Is Born', but in Israel after the six days it started to catch on and convince people, but it was a long journey."
His film went down in history as one of the only Israeli films ever to have a new opening shot.
From "The Winners"/Reuven Castro
Can you talk about the choreography in the film?
We haven't seen much like her in Israeli cinema.
"Inspired by Ephraim Kishon in his first film, 'Saleh Shabbati', I knew that I also had to work with the top of the top. I recruited Avihai Hacham for the dances, who, among other things, worked with Noa Kirel, and is one of the best in his field. I chased him quite a bit."
Apart from "A song in the rain" and all the immediate suspects, what were your sources of inspiration?
"I come from the world of animation, and perhaps inspired by it, I like to have reference points for everything. Besides, the musical is a genre that is based on references from the beginning. I think I've seen every musical I could lay my hands on, and then Avichay came and gave his twist so that it wasn't It will look like an imitation. The number 'Banets Israel' is based on 'Beautiful Girl' from 'Shir Ashir in the Rain.' ! As far as the choreography is concerned, it's something extraordinary. Of course, Jacques Demy's 'Umbrellas de Charbour' and 'Misses from Rochefort' were a big influence, and the list goes on. I worked a lot to understand the mix, and so that the film wouldn't turn into 'Festival 67' ".
Hollywood genre, studio in Kiev, Israeli story.
From "The Conductors"/Moshe Nachomovich
Quite a few of the characters in the film are cultural figures - for example Giora Godik, Hanoch Levin and Edna Shavit.
In most cases, the actors who play them do not resemble them physically.
So, for example, the high mountain generation plays Mike Burstein.
"Look, the musical is a genre that clashes with Israeli reality and for it to work, we had to create an imagined reality," says Peled.
"He wouldn't have worked if we had shot him in Bialik Square, and we actually shot in a studio in Kiev. This is also true for the historical characters. I didn't want to have an effect here like in 'Dark Hour', where you see Gary Oldman and say 'Wow, how much he looks like Cricket.' Dor Harari is a versatile and unusually talented actor and that was more important than imagination or non-imagination to Mike Burstein."
"However, as far as the accuracy of the details is concerned - the film is faithful to reality. The heroes are watching 'Who's Afraid of Virgina Wolf' in the cinema because this is the film that Ophir Cinema screened in July 1967."
And surely the most difficult part of the process was to obtain rights to this segment.
"Very true. It ended with me going all the way to Los Angeles to knock on someone's office door and get the approval."
We are a little beyond this discourse, and yet - almost all the actors and characters in the film are Ashkenazim.
Were you afraid they would say it was an Ashkenazi film?
"The director is Mizrahi, so you can put a V on that. In a classic Hollywood musical, the heroine comes from the village to the big city, so here is the kibbutz, but it's really not a story about the Ashkenazi woman who leaves the kibbutz. What's beautiful about the musical is that it puts the social tensions aside and talks about stories That's right for everyone. It's the same here. It was important for me to deal with feelings, and not with what separates us."
"It seems to me that I'm being worked on and I'm fifty, not 31."
Eliran Peled/Reuven Castro
In addition to the new season of 'The Unimportant' and the distribution of "The Conductors", Peled is also busy with preparations for a new feature film, about Marlene Dietrich's visit to Israel.
"According to my levels of fatigue, it seems to me that I'm being worked on and I'm not thirty-something years old, but fifty," he says.
"My hair has turned white from stress. So much has happened in the last four years. We shot the film in Ukraine, then what happened there happened, then what happened here happened here, and in the meantime I also got married and had children. 'The Conductors' was a complex project that came out in an unusually complex time precedent".
Despite everything, are you optimistic?
"As part of the pre-premieres of the film, I plowed the country from north to south, and we really are a great people. There is everything here to be good here and to rise from this tragedy. In the end, I live and raise children here, so I have to believe that in order to move on ".
More on the same topic:
Six Day War
Mike Borstein
Hanoch Levin
A mountain generation
Amit Farkash
Yadin Gelman
Daniel Litman