- Title: VARIOUS: Israeli Film 'Lipstikka' screens in Berlinale competition
- Date: 19th February 2011
- Summary: BERLIN, GERMANY (FEBRUARY 17, 2011) (REUTERS) INTERIOR ARRIVAL CAST AND DIRECTOR OF 'LIPSTIKKA' AT NEWS CONFERENCE ACTRESS NATALI ATTIYA SMILING DIRECTOR JONATHAN SAGALL AND ACTRESS CLARA KHOURY PHOTOGRAPHERS TAKING PICTURES PANEL AT NEWS CONFERENCE (SOUNDBITE) (English) 'LIPSTIKKA' DIRECTOR JONATHAN SAGALL, SAYING: "First and foremost, this is a story about people
- Embargoed: 5th March 2011 20:33
- Keywords:
- Location: Germany
- Country: Germany
- Topics: Arts / Culture / Entertainment
- Reuters ID: LVA5ZJXYHS125B6RS0LABMY74EZF
- Aspect Ratio: 4:3
- Story Text: 'Lipstikka' ('Odem'), a film by Israeli director Jonathan Sagall went into the race for the coveted Golden Berlin at the Berlin Film Festival on Thursday (February 17).
The movie, starring Israeli-Palestinian Clara Khoury as Lara and Israeli Natali Attiya as Inam is a thriller that looks at a complicated relationship between two Palestinian women who share a secret that lies in their past. "First and foremost, this is a story about people" Sagall told reporters at a news conference. "It's a story about people. First of all it's a story about a relationship between two women. The have baggage, a package of memories behind them. It's ambiguous."
Lara is Palestinian. She left Ramallah thirteen years ago to begin a new life in London where she married Michael and had a child. She, her husband and her seven-year-old son James lead a pleasant, albeit somewhat dispassionate life in one of the city's better districts. But there's nothing that a good slug of vodka won't help her to cope with.
But then, one day, Inam turns up at Lara's front door. She is a childhood friend from Ramallah.
No sooner does Inam surge into the apartment, asks Lara about her husband (currently out at work) and shower attention on Lara's little boy than it becomes apparent that there is a certain tension between the two women.
It's not long before Lara realises that everything she has created for herself is endangered by Inam's brusque intrusion.
The two women share a secret.
Back then, in the West Bank, the girlfriends shared a closeness borne out of their adolescent sexual experiences.
One evening in 1994 during the Intifada, they ignored the curfew and headed out to the Jewish part of Jerusalem to see a film at a cinema.
Two young Israeli soldiers who noticed them mistook them for Italian tourists.
After the film they went out for a drink together. But something that began as a youthful prank took an unexpected turn.
"We can see can see there are two scenes of the same situation. And in one there is rape and in the other one, it wasn't a rape, she was kind of going with him and playing with him a bit. So what I am trying to say is that the film is about that there isn't one truth, not one absolute truth -- it depends on the way you see it. And I think it's the same in life. Actually the story is an intimate account of two friends that live through different eyes," said Attiya.
The story has been evolving over many years, said Sagall:"It started off as a story that I wrote when I was 14 years old. It was a very short, tiny story about this neighbour, this woman we knew in my neighbourhood and then evolved into another story about a friend of my mom's. Then it turned into a story about two men, actually. Then I decided to leave the two men and add the child element, in short it went through so many changes and re-writes that I am not absolutely certain that I could tell you exactly where the origin of it is. If you are a writer you know it yourself, it's a process and somehow we just all of a sudden made this stupid movie with this version 52 and that's it."
'Lipstikka' sparked some controversy in Israel. According to Haaretz newspaper it was reported that the film's promotional material used for fund-raising included a comparison between the Israeli occupation in the Palestinian territories and the Holocaust. Sagall denied the film make such comparisons. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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