ITALY-VFF AMOS GITAI: Israeli director Amos Gitai discusses how the recent conflict shaped his film

Record ID: 644053

  • Title: ITALY-VFF AMOS GITAI: Israeli director Amos Gitai discusses how the recent conflict shaped his film
  • Date: 3rd September 2014
  • Summary: **** WARNING CONTAINS FLASH PHOTOGRAPHY **** GITAI WITH KOCHETKOV
  • Embargoed: 18th September 2014 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Italy
  • Country: Italy
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVAAMYH1ZS6419G7I41NS0K6IL79
  • Story Text: Acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai, who is almost a perennial visitor to the Venice film festival, was once again there to launch his latest movie 'Tsili'.
    The film is set during World War Two and follows the young titular girl, played by two actresses (Sarah Adler and Meshi Olinski) as she hides in the forests away from the Nazis who have captured her family.
    Loosely based on the book by Aharon Appelfeld, the film then shows Tsili at the end of the war with a group of other survivors as they try and establish where they go from there.
    During an interview with Reuters, Gitai talked about his own opinions on the recent conflict in Gaza and Israel.
    "You know I think that cinema will not change the world fortunately or unfortunately," he said. "We should not make politicians out of work, they should work harder. They've been doing quite a lousy job and the Middle East is suffering because of lack of courage of politicians to try to make the necessary steps to get people together to create an area of coexistence so I've tried in different films to make people closer and we are not going to change the world but we have to start somewhere."
    'Tsili' is comprised of very little dialogue and long stretched-out shots of the lead actresses playing the singular heroine. Gitai said the reasoning behind this was a reaction to coverage of the recent conflict.
    "The evening news of the entire Middle East - whether it's Israeli, Palestinian, British, American, French, whatever - is very dissected and in some way the media has created a lot of harm because it gives a very superficial way of pretending we understand something whereas this 'something' is full of contradictions so one of the first things that we as film makers can do is to install rhythm, we can install time, we can tell you 'Look at it. Don't just consume the images but try to interpret it.'," he said.
    The film's soundtrack played often in shot by violinist Alexey Kochetkov permeates a lot of the scenes, which Gitai said was vital to the production.
    "In a way, what 'Tsili' the film says is that when you are at war, no music, just noise of bombs and airplanes going down, dogs barking, trying to catch people who have escaped and only after the war is over - and normally wars are over in the same way they are started, one day it's over - then you can have a place for music," he said.
    'Tsili' was showing out of competition at the 71st Venice film festival.
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