In Germany this week, Udi Aloni wanted to kvell. He had just won the Panorama Audience Award for best feature film at the Berlin Film Festival. Instead, he was dealing with mail from Israeli Jews who had seen Junction 48 - about an Arab Israeli rapper - and hated it.
"You mother------, how dare you call us Jews fascists!" And "Die like your mother" were among the messages Aloni cited. It damped his joy a little: But "the audience award is amazing," he crowed at the recent screening. "You felt it, and gave it back to us."
The high emotions reflect the liveliness of Israeli films presented at the 66th annual Berlinale. Aloni's was one of two to win prizes. The top Panorama Audience Award for documentaries went to Who's Gonna Love Me Now? by brothers Barak and Tomer Heymann, which tells the story of Saar Maoz, a gay man who leaves his parents' religious kibbutz and moves to London, only to contract AIDS and return to his family.
Reportedly, 30,000 votes were cast by the public, arguably making the audience award more meaningful than those decided by the seven-member international jury.
"Israeli directors still are not shy about presenting the reality of life, and it is sometimes dark," commented Katriel Schory, executive director of the Israel Film Fund, after returning home. Interest is high in Israeli-German co-productions, he added: "I don't know the outcome of the deals but, altogether, one thing is clear: that the curiosity and the attention that the Israeli cinema is getting is still there."
These films showed true insight into Israeli society
Both winning films "showed an insight into Israeli society, showed what I love about Israel," said German Jewish film-maker Esther Schapira, who heads the documentary department at the Frankfurt-based broadcaster Hessische Rundfunk. "They were not the traditional left-wing, self-hating, biased films - they broadened the scope.''
Over the years, observers have criticised the Berlinale's Israeli film selection as too political and critical of the Israeli government. In fact - after Aloni lambasted Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu last week - Israel's Culture Minister Miri Regev said Israel should stop funding films that slander the state.
Though this year's selection could by no means be put in one basket, one had to come away sad after seeing director Danae Elon's PS Jerusalem, which documents her family's failed attempt to resettle in the city of her birth - Jerusalem. They try it out despite the fact that her late father - the esteemed writer Amos Elon - had warned her not to. Ultimately, the tensions in the city and the difficulty in integrating send them packing to Canada. It felt like a defeat.
Avi Mograbi's film Bein gderot, or Between Fences, focuses on another Israeli sore spot: the conditions facing asylum-seekers from Eritrea and Sudan in an Israeli desert detention centre. Chen Alon joins Mograbi in starting a theatre workshop with the refugees, as a form of protest.
Conflict of another kind was the subject of Sufat Chol – Sandstorm - the first feature by Elite Zexer. She provided a glimpse of life for a young woman in a Bedouin village, where patriarchy rules. In a key opening scene, Layla's father teaches her to drive, but takes the wheel when they near their village. To allow one's daughter freedom is to threaten the entire structure of society.
A treat for Berliners was Israeli director Mor Kaplansky's Café Nagler, in which Kaplansky visits Berlin to uncover the story of her ancestors' renowned café, which they sold when they emigrated to Palestine. Her discoveries, and humour, took the audience by surprise. Other Israeli contributions include the short films Mushkie, directed by Aleeza Chanowitz, about a teenage girl with a secret boyfriend; and Tsomet Haruhot (Winds Junction) directed by Rotem Murat, about a Stephen King-style horror trip to the Sinai desert.
Aloni had been to the Berlinale several times before. Junction 48, his sixth feature film, tells the story of a young Arab couple from the Jewish-Arab village of Lod, Israel, who use their songs to fight back against Israeli authorities and to challenge the Arab patriarchal culture. The lead male role is played by singer-songwriter Tamer Nafar of DAM, which calls itself the first Arab rap band.
The film also depicts rough, tattooed Israeli rappers who spew hate speech at their Arab rivals, while at the same time sharing a hot-tub and illicit drugs with them. It was the racist characters who apparently riled some of Aloni's Facebook "friends." But it did not rile Esther Schapira, who found neither the Arabs nor the Jews in the film clichéd. "These tattooed idiots were rather like Russians or Mafia guys that you can find everywhere," she said, noting that the Jews invited the Arabs to join them in the club. "It's not exactly racist."
"What they are looking for is exactly what people all over the world are looking for: freedom, women's rights. It gave a subtle intro to Israeli society, where there is much more freedom for Palestinians than you find in the Palestinian territories.
"And this is what I liked very much."
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