ITALY: Israeli director Amos Gitai brings 'Lullaby To My Father' to Venice.

Record ID: 644006

  • Title: ITALY: Israeli director Amos Gitai brings 'Lullaby To My Father' to Venice.
  • Date: 3rd September 2012
  • Summary: VENICE LIDO, ITALY (SEPTEMBER 02, 2012) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) AMOS GITAI, FILMMAKER, SAYING: "I think that today when this kind of what is called cinema de auteur is very menaced by excessive pressures of the market, everything has to do well just in the first weekend and then the destiny of the film, and we are working hard to make Andy Warhol phrase about everyone will be famous 50 seconds, I think that this kind of cinema that is more reflective is having a tough time. But we should combat this battle with proudness and do it well and not just submit to the over growing pressures."
  • Embargoed: 18th September 2012 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVAF2KDSSFBJNJXW8OYXX1Q05HNP
  • Story Text: Acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai decided on a change of style for his new work screening at the 69th Venice Film Festival.
    Known for hard hitting documentaries and feature films surrounding the Middle East and Jewish-Arab conflict, his latest project is still connected to the same themes, but focuses on his own family's experiences.
    He told Reuters Television on Sunday (September 02) that he feels he has said a lot of things in the past and felt he "should go to more intimate areas" with the piece in Venice.
    Screening out of competition 'Lullaby To My Father' pays homage to Gitai's father Munio Weinraub, while 'Carmel' is a collection of letters written by Gitai's mother, Efratia.
    The two films were screened back to back at the festival.
    "It's kind of a saga of a family, and I think through this saga you can see this very troubled area of the Middle East and the human destinies, in this case it's my family and so I think it's good to show them together," explained Gitai.
    Born in 1909, Munio Weinraub was an Israeli architect. He studied at the Bauhaus school in Germany, until he fled the Nazis. He then went on to become the father of Israeli architecture.
    Ever since his father died in 1970, Gitai revealed he has been thinking about bringing his story to life: "I mean, in one hand it took me 41 years, because he died 41 years ago, my father, and I cannot tell you I was thinking about it for this long period, but I kind of had a dance with it and I approached it and took distance and then finally to actually do it took two or three years."
    Gitai has been nominated for Venice's Golden Lion award three times in the past, and in 2004 he won the festival's 'CinemAvvenire' Award for 'Promised Land'.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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