VARIOUS: NEW ISRAELI FILM "A TIME OF FAVOUR" TAKES A HARD LOOK AT TENSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.

Record ID: 390570

  • Title: VARIOUS: NEW ISRAELI FILM "A TIME OF FAVOUR" TAKES A HARD LOOK AT TENSIONS IN THE MIDDLE EAST.
  • Date: 2nd January 2001
  • Summary: TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL (NOVEMBER 27, 2000)(REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) CEDAR "Living in a settlement gave me a perspective which I didn't have before I got there. It helped me understand the depth of the reality in the settlements in that the price that the people pay for a piece of land is absurdly too high and I feel people are blind to that price."
  • Embargoed: 17th January 2001 12:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: TEL-AVIV, ISRAEL/ JERUSALEM/ HEBRON
  • City:
  • Country: Palestinian Territories
  • Topics: Conflict,General,Politics
  • Reuters ID: LVADVNFVJ6CTH3K8QM8N1O4RKBCZ
  • Story Text: In the midst of the Middle East conflict, Israeli filmmakers have released a new movie taking a hard look at the tensions between Israelis and Palestinians. "A Time Of Favour"
    focuses on Israeli society and its military services but claims to be fictional and not a documentary.
    The movie is competing for Best Foreign Film at the upcoming Academy Awards.
    "A Time of Favour" takes a hard look at Israeli society during the current Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
    The movie's protagonist - Menachem - is a highly religious army officer who, towards the end of the film, is detained by his own countrymen - the Israeli General Secret Service (the GSS) - to get information from him about explosives that were placed under the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem's Old City - Islam's third-holiest site.
    It is a curious ending that runs parallel to Menachem's identity crisis about which side he actually belongs to during the struggle. His mentor in the movie is a charismatic settler rabbi, who encourages him to set up a type of "religious platoon".
    But the rabbi's preaching had already caused concern with authorities and the "platoon's" movements are monitored.
    When Menachem falls in love with the rabbi's rebellious daughter, Michal, Pini, a student to whom she'd been promised in marriage decides to kill himself and blow up Al-Aqsa.
    Says Aki Avni who plays Mechanem: "One day he finds himself in a big question mark in his life, of which side he belongs to: the side of the fanatic guy, that none of us wants to know that there is some people like that, or he is in the side of the people who should save us from this unbelievable situation that we live in Israel, not only in (the movie) Time of Favor."
    To some extent, the movie mirrors real events, when in September 1996 the opening of an ancient tunnel near the Al-Aqsa lead to Palestinian fears that Israel was building a tunnel underneath the mosque to lay down explosives.
    At least 60 Palestinians and 15 Israelis were killed at the time.
    The movie's director Joseph Cedar says "It touches things that are in the political agenda in Israel, maybe throughout the world. It deals with the importance of the Temple Mount as a symbol but also as a mountain that is in the center of a conflict and it is political in that it touches the conflicts that Jewish settlers have in the settlements.
    "Although I don't think that is something on the official agenda, it is something that people do talk about , and I think that it is likely that as we speak there is someone who is thinking realistically how this can be done. This is a fiction film. I took that assumption that there are people who see the mosque on Temple Mount as a viable target, I took that assumption and went a few steps forward with it with my imagination, but it is realistic."
    Israeli legislator Rabbi Benny Elon who's persona is similar to the rabbi in the movie is keen to point out that the film is a fictional account and not a documentary. "It is a feature, it is not a documentary movie, I don't take it as a documentary movie, I will not sign on it as something that reflects me, but we can be a little bit open and not so paranoid and afraid, and we can have a movie that can see things in the eye of the producer, it is ok, it is nice."
    "A Time of Favour" has already won a number of prestigious awards in Israel and is now competing for Best Foreign Film at the upcoming Academy Awards.
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