Down Under
A Cinematic view of the South. Curators: Drorit Gur Arie, Maya Klein
22/07/2010 -
30/10/2010
The exhibition Down Under exposes life in Israel’s south, a “blind spot” for many of the country’s citizens and leaders. It turns a cinematic spotlight, the first of its kind on museum-scale, at an intricate reality in Israel’s periphery, a threatened space on the border between Gaza and Sderot.
It endeavors to prompt a discussion on Israeli society and its various shades, through a focused gaze at the fabric of life in the South, beyond that which is reflected in the news reports.
The exhibition features documentary films by established artists and by graduates of the Department of Cinema and Television at Sapir College.
The majority of these filmmakers live in the South and document the daily routine and human stories evolving in the shadow of the ongoing conflict and the various events over the years, from a personal, bittersweet perspective: from the story of Israeli and Palestinian fishermen who worked together before and after the Second Intifada in Avner Faingulernt and Macabit Abramson’s film Men on the Edge: A Fisherman’s Diary, through a view of the disengagement process from the point of view of a couple preparing for the evacuation of their home in Hadar Bashan’s In the Freimans’ Kitchen, to Robby Elmaliah’s film Hula & Nathan, unfolding the tragicomic story of two
brothers, auto-mechanics, who confront financial difficulties and an existential threat against the backdrop of the falling Qassam rockets.
The films are characterized by a cinematic language which blurs the boundary between fiction and documentary, combining crude realism with an air of poetry. The artists’ point of departure is underlain by observation of reality, unmediated contact with their surroundings and immediate human landscape, and an intimate, personal acquaintance with the featured characters throughout a prolonged filming process. The human dramas and the occurrences are revealed and clarified through the characters themselves, rather than through the artists’ structured narrative. It is a cinematic approach identified with the Department of Cinema and Television at Sapir College, which has, over the years, become an alternative cinematic center challenging the hegemonic narrative and representing a unique southern voice, one which had not been profoundly studied in Israeli cinema until the School’s founding.
The key work in the exhibition, Matador of War, a cinematic installation by Avner Faingulernt, Macabit Abramson, and Lev Goltser, presents a travel journal along the Gaza-Israel border during Operation Cast Lead edited in real time. It will premiere in the current exhibition. Based on a documentary film in progress, Matador of War will be shown in the Museum’s central space as a first-of-its-kind cinematic installation, a version created especially for the exhibition as part of a curatorial approach striving to introduce an experience which bridges the cinematic medium and art, creating an engaging dialogue between space, medium, and viewer.
The exhibition as a whole furnishes a unique viewing experience.
It offers a profound view and direct contact with the human landscape and the experience of life in the South, providing new insights into Israeli society.
Alongside the cinematic works, the exhibition will feature two video pieces about the South which introduce a different perspective on the documentary genre, and the documentary internet project Gaza-Sderot: Life in spite of it all which will be presented at interactive stations in the exhibition. The project included teams of Palestinians and Israelis which followed several figures from Sderot and Gaza for ten weeks. The short films have been broadcast on the Internet since the end of October 2008.
The exhibition is the result of a collaboration between the Petach Tikva Museum of Art, and the School of Cinema and Television at Sapir College,
a process that is intended to offer a museum platform to filmmakers living and working in the country’s southern area, and make for an internal view, from within the South itself, while presenting fresh perspectives and perceptions regarding the geopolitical space, center—periphery, and multiculturalism, as part of the agenda promoted by the Museum in the Israeli art field in recent years.
The Museum’s new cinema and media space “Spot” will be launched on opening night. The space is equipped with state-of-the-art technology.
It will serve as a platform for presentation of cinematic and digital media works in an attempt to expand the dialogue between various artistic mediums.
Julia, a Russian-born single mother, with a dry sense of humor, raises
her 5-year old daughter, Tom, in Kibbutz Nir-Am on the border between
Israel and the Gaza Strip, in a private world all their own. The camera
follows them against the backdrop of a menacing reality interrupted
by “Red Dawn” alerts, offering a close look into the way in which a
mother and daughter raise one another amidst the Qassam rockets.
In this illusive world, the protective public space of the bomb shelter
is replaced by the protective bodily space of mother and daughter.
While keeping calm, the mother succeeds in generating an island of
sanity for her daughter comprising repetitive routine procedures.
Between violin lessons and ballroom dance classes she tries to
educate Tom according to the values of humanism.
Director: Alon Alsheich
Producers: Armadil Video, Boris Maftzir, Sapir College
Cinematographer: Eran Yehezkel
Editors: Eran Yehezkel, Alon Alsheich
Original music: Dekel Tuvia
Sound designers: Oren Alsheich, Sharon Fridman
On-line: Doron Silver, Lev Goltser
Aerial cinematography: Jimmi Kedoshim
(was killed by a mortar shell in the yard of his Kibbutz Kfar Aza home about a
month after conclusion of the film’s shooting)
On an abandoned beach, between Gaza and Ashkelon, a rare
coexistence takes place among four fishermen: two Palestinian
refugees from Gaza and two Israeli settlers. The harsh physical
conditions, the difficulties in earning a living, and the political
circumstances shake the fishermen, influencing their relationship.
For sixteen years they live and work together for better or for worse,
until the political reality sets them apart.
The film was shot over a period of four years (1999-2003) along a
shoreline which is no longer under Israeli control. It follows the story of
men struggling for survival, and may be read as an existential allegory.
The figure of the tough, independent man is cracked in favor of a
masculine image which requires the other for his survival, raising
thoughts about power relations, control, and dependence in the local
geopolitical sphere.
Directors and producers: Avner Faingulernt, Macabit Abramson
Script: Macabit Abramson
Cinematographer: Avner Faingulernt
Editor: Lev Goltser
Sound designer: Yuri Primannko
A cinematic installation unfolding a journey along the Gaza-Israel border
during Operation Cast Lead, the travelogue sketches an intimate portrait
of a vulnerable border area, striving to introduce a profile of Israel in a
time of crisis. It explores the phenomenon of “war tourism” which
flourished during the war on the Sderot-Gaza border, when people from
all over the country swarmed in to observe the shelled Gaza.
The filmmakers point to fissures in Israeli society, which ties military
strength with Messianic beliefs. War ecstasy and the euphoria of power
accompanying it are likened to the spectacle of the corrida—the arena of
a cruel struggle for life or death—and the gripping viewing experience it
offers.
This site-specific cinematic installation, created especially for the
exhibition space, is based on materials from a documentary feature in
process.
Poem reading: Alon Abutbul
Directors and producers: Avner Faingulernt, Macabit Abramson
Script: Macabit Abramson
Cinematographer: Avner Faingulernt
Editor: Lev Goltser
Sound designer: Yuri Primanko
Through monotonous motion on a deserted road, viewers are confronted
with an attempt to transport a mattress placed on the roof of a moving
car, without being tied. Oscillating between the possible and the
impossible, the situation contains equal chances of success and failure,
action and collapse. Failure in this case will also be considered a success,
as it will reaffirm a physical natural law.
Originating in a similar situation randomly encountered by the artist in
the urban space, the experience is reconstructed in a sequestered
peripheral southern space. The event’s displacement from its original
setting where it was experienced through multiplicity and excess of
motion and stimuli, into a quiet setting, does not necessarily reinforce
its presence. Its isolation emphasizes the gap between the belief in
the ability to act and the inability to realize that belief. The act of
reconstruction turns out to be a contradiction in terms since a true
reconstruction is not possible, and viewers are, in fact, confronted
with a new event.
Camera: Aviv Sheyn
The imminent disengagement from the Gaza Strip threatens the daily
routine of Yaakov and Miriam Freiman, who will be forced to leave their
home against their will. For three weeks, until the moment they are forced
to evacuate, the camera follows them in their kitchen, which becomes
their fortress against the evacuation…
The film follows the disengagement process and the resulting rupture
from a personal perspective. The glimpse into their private sphere
brings the couple’s relationship and the moral strength of each
partner into focus in a time of crisis.
Director and scriptwriter: Hadar Bashan
Producer: Nachum Landau, Ayin Tova Productions
Co-Produced by: Sapir College
Cinematographer: Lior Cohen
Editor: Kobi Plomnick
Original music: Amit Cohen
A mere 3 km separate between Gaza City and Sderot. At first sight, these
are ostensibly two separate worlds, but in fact, they share a lot in common:
people living on either side of the “border” have been suffering for years,
on a daily basis, from the inability to control their lives. Despite the
geographical proximity between the cities, the private lives of the
citizens on either side remain a mystery.
The project sets out to present pieces of daily life, from a personal, human
perspective. It unfolds the media invisible stories of citizens on either
side of the divide, who wish to continue with their daily routine.
The project included teams of Palestinians and Israelis who followed
seven people from Sderot and seven from Gaza for ten weeks. Short
films were uploaded on the Internet daily, from the end of October to 23
December 2008, only a few days before the outbreak of the war in
Gaza (Operation Cast Lead). New films were later added, filmed in
Sderot during the war and in Gaza after it ended.
Directors of short videos: Robby Elmaliah, Khalil al Muzayyen
Producers: Trabelsi Productions – Osnat Trabelsi; Alma Productions –
Arik Bernstein; Ramattan – Yousef Atwa and Abed Elsalam Shehada; Bo
Travail – Serge Gordey; Upian – Alexandre Brachet; Arte – Alex Szalat
In collaboration with: Sapir College; B’Tselem—The Israeli Information
Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories
Student Films from Photographer and Director
Nurith Aviv’s Master Class for Documentary
Directors and Cinematographers
The static one-shot short films in this program were created during
a week-long master class with cinematographer and film director
Nurith Aviv held at the Sapir College and in the city of Netivot. The films
unfold momentary scenes from the citizens’ everyday lives. The camera
focuses on places, people, and social encounters, lingering on quotidian
scraps, mirroring diverse strata of the local public space. Bringing the
individual scenes together into a single cluster of films unites the
discrete moments into a comprehensive spatial mass which attests to
the local state of mind in a place where everyday life goes on concurrent
with the political events.
Produced by: Sapir College
Directed by:
Dan Sachar
Adi Mozes
Orit Ovadia
Yuval Yefet
Itay Yaacov
Lior Netzer
Hadas Neuman
Heedye Koren
Alon Hershkovitz
Itay Zur
Vered Argaman
The comic-tragic story of brothers Hula and Natan, two auto mechanics
who run a garage on the outskirts of the Qassam-ridden town of Sderot
in southern Israel. While the situation between Gaza and Israel is
deteriorating and rockets are falling all around, Hula and Natan’s
garage—their only source of income—is about to be closed down by
the authorities. With biting humor, under the continuing threat to
their lives and work, and the struggle with personal crises, they await
their fate. The two try to survive, but sinking into frustration is
inevitable.
Scriptwriter and director: Robby Elmaliah
Producers: Robby Elmaliah, Sapir College;
Arik Bernstein – Alma Films
Cinematographers: Ronen Kruk, Robby Elmaliah
Editors: Tal Yaari, Ofir Raul Graizer
Original music: Avi Vaknin
Sound designers: Ami Arad, Nin Hazan – DB Studios
Maxim, a pizza wizard addicted to sleep, asks his parents to help him buy
a pizza parlor he co-owns. As soon as he becomes the sole owner, his
parents realize they will have to invest in it a whole lot more than just the
money. Soon enough the father becomes a delivery boy and the
mother—an oven cleaner, concurrent with their desperate attempts to
wake Maxim up… Between taking care of the family, work, and regular
maintenance of the pizzeria, the parents wonder—is their role as parents
a job for life?
Scriptwriter, director, cinematographer, and editor: Ronen Amar
Producers: Ronen Amar, Lior Dustri – Sapir College
Original music: Avi Vaknin
Sound designer: Tomer Biran
A promotional film on behalf of the Rabin Visitor Center in Gaza Canal.
The Gaza Canal was created over the course of eight years, during
which 61 kilometers were dug by 15,000 Jewish and Arab workers. It
began as an American initiative and saw many crises along the way. Over
the years, however, it became a symbol of political, economic, and
ecological change, creating a reality of prosperity, commerce, and
tourism in the “island of Gaza.” The Visitor Center offers a virtual tour of
the Canal, historical documentation of the excavation work, and
interviews with the project initiators.
Souvenirs, courtesy of the Gaza Canal Visitor Center, are on sale at the
Museum’s entrance counter.
