Cinemascope

A reader who saw The Golden Compass at a Tel Aviv sneak yesterday has sent this in:

Oy Vey! The Golden Compass is a complete misfire. I know this movie is aimed at kids but even as such it is shallow, insipid and quite boring. The adverts try to make it look as though it’s this year’s The Lord of the Rings when in truth it’s much worse than Narnia. I was hugely disappointed.

The Golden Compass is released in Israel December 6th, a day before the North American release. As with all New Line films in Israel, critics are banned from preview screenings by decree of local distributor.

1. Press conference (special guest star: Jeffrey Katzenberg)

2. Meeting the president (special guest star: Shimon Peres)

Seinfeld: It’s a movie about a bee who doesn’t want to go into honey.
Peres: Well, here you’re in the land of milk and honey so you’d have no choice.
Seinfeld: That’s what they tell him.

2007 has been an exceptionally good year for the Israeli movie industry, with prizes handed to several local films in international festivals and one film - The Band’s Visit - getting much attention and praise (and getting nominated in The Independent Spirit Awards and The European Academy Awards).

Israeli actors broke out this year with Yigal Naor playing opposite Jake Gyllenhaal in Rendition, Ayelet Zurer co-starring in Sony’s upcoming Vantage Point and Ido Mosseri (voice of Spongebob Squarepants in Hebrew) playing opposite Adam Sandler in the still-shooting Don’t Mess With the Zohan.

Surprisingly, Israeli television has also met with similar success this year with an American version of “In Treatment” in production for HBO and two other local drama series picked up for development by CBS and Fox. The documentary series “The Ten Commandments” is being developed into an American series for TNT by Oscar winner Davis Guggenheim.

And to top it all off, this week Israeli movies crossed the 1 million mark at the local box office, only the second time in just over twenty years.

Top sellers among Israeli movies at home this year were:

Beaufort (Joseph Cedar): 300,000 admissions
The Secrets (Avi Nesher): 208,000 admissions
The Band’s Visit (Eran Kolirin): 193,000 admissions
Noodle (Ayelet Menahemi): 190,000 admissions
Jellyfish (Etgar Keret & Shira Gefen): 70,000 admissions

With The Band’s Visit still playing, and with two new releases - Lost & Found and The Debt - 2007’s numbers could come close to 2004’s record holding number of 1.5 mil admissions.

First published here.

After nearly 18 months of rumors, denials, speculation, negotiations and power struggles it looks like the Jerusalem Intl. Film Festival, Jerusalem Cinematheque and Israel Film Archive will get a new CEO on Jan. 1.

Ilan de Vries is in the final stages of contract negotiations that should be resolved by the end of November to take over from Lia Van Leer, the grande-dame of Israeli cinema.

The 83-year-old will remain chairperson of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, which oversees the festival, so Van Leer will still have a hand in the fest she created with her late husband Wim Van Leer in 1984.
(more…)

First published here.

In the months Katriel Schory, head of the Israeli Film Fund, spent negotiating with the Jerusalem Cinematheque about possibly taking over as the CEO of the institute, a succession battle ensued at the film fund, with names of several producers mentioned as possible replacements.

But now, after Schory decided not to leave for Jerusalem, he tells me he’s staying at the Israeli Film Fund. “There’s still a lot of work to be done,” said Schory. “Many in the industry implored me to stay, and I’ve agreed to do so.”
(more…)

Yesterday one studio head, one former studio head, two producers, two agents and two filmmakers sat on a panel on a stage at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque taking questions from local actors, writers and directors trying to figure out “how to break into Hollywood”. The answers varied from “do something original in your own country and we’ll find you” and “why would you want to come to Hollywood in the first place where you will be abused and robbed of personal style and identity” but quickly enough the discussion turned topical, as the writers’ strike came up, and panel member Brad Silberling (WGA and DGA member argued the case in favor of the writers. Sony chairperson Amy Pascal was not thrilled to hear this, or to absorb the positive vibe his pro-WGA impromptu rally sparked in the room, but gave quite an interesting response - on stage, on the record:
Here’s a transcript of what happened on stage, 41 minutes into the event,
where an AMPTP member and a WGA member sat side by side and thinking Israel
will be a guild-free zone. wrong:

Amy Pascal: We always need fresh talent in Hollywood. By the way, we need writers right now so if there are writers in this room please give me you card.
Arik Kneller, top Israeli agent representing mostly writers and directors,
asks from the audience: Are you serious, or was this a joke?
Amy: Oh, dear. That was a joke. If you write during the strike you’d be
scabs and then you won’t be admitted into the WGA after the strike is over.
Kneller (from the audience): Could you tell us more about the strike.
Amy: Basicaly, the writers want more money, and we don’t want to give it to
them. Must we go into this?
Then in a surprise twist a member of the panel on the other side of the
table takes the mike. This is Brad Silberling (”City of Angels”, “Moonlight
Mile”), WGA and DGA member.
Brad: Actually we do. I don’t want only the studios side to be represented
here. (Here Brad give a quick rundown of the writers’ demands regarding internet residuals. He calls the strike “the perfect storm”, meaning that it’s not only the writers, but also the actors and the directors whose contracts will be up for renewal soon, and the writers were just the first to go, but that come June, SAG and DGA will join them if this is not settled by then).
Amy: Brad is right, this is all about new technologies, it’s all about a new world that none of us understand ,so no one wants to start divvying it up before we know what it means. However it is also true that the writers have been treated like second class citizens in Hollywood forever so their paranoia is justified. And they did make a deal in the past where they didn’t get what they wanted in their cut of the DVD revenue and this is their chance to make up for it. It’s just unfortunate, because even being on the side I’m on I’m also on the other side and it’s a really terrible situation because it’s too soon for this and yet we also know that once we know what this is all about no-one will want to give it up.

The writers are striking, WGA and AMPTP leaders are horn-locked. Wouldn’t it be great if a studio head took the reins into his or her hands? Well, don’t count on Sony’s Amy Pascal to rally the negotiation teams. This time next week Pascal, and husband Bernie Weinraub, will travel half way across the world and spend the weekend in Tel Aviv, where they will meet local filmmakers for a master-class entitled “How to break into Hollywood”. Alongside Pascal on the stage of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque will be ex-Disney chief Nina Jacobson, writer-producer Mark Platt, writer-director Brad Silberling and Oscar winner (but not-Nobel winner) documentarist Davis Guggenheim. Hey, maybe an impromptu negotiations session will ensue. Who knows. (or: hey, they’ll realize their town is ablaze, cancel their pep-talk and stay home, each one on his side of the picket line).
And indeed, foreign filmmakers, how do you break into Hollywood? a) don’t be a writer, or don’t expect to make money out of it; or b) call up Lati Grobman. Scabs are wanted.

Israeli news site YNET rang up some Israelis working in Hollywood to find out how the writers strike affects them. One of those interviewed was Israeli born producer Lati Grobman (”Prozac Nation”, “Mozart and the Whale”) who said this: “Let’s not forget that there are hundreds or thousands of non-WGA writers out there, and I’m sure some of them are very talented. They will now get the chance of their life”. In Grobman’s world the concept of Solidarity is apparently nonexistent.

26 years after starring in Francois Truffaut’s The Woman Next Door Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant will reteam for the fourth time (after Le Colonel Chabert and Nathalie) in “Hello Goodbye”, a French movie that commenced shooting in the Israeli desert this week.

Ardant and Depardieu on Sunday, the first day of shooting on “Hello Goodbye”. Photo credit: Eyal Landesman

The movie, directed by Graham Guit, tells of a Jewish couple from France who rush over to Israel to stop their son from marrying a Catholic girl. Israeli co-stars include Lior Ashkenazi (”Late Marriage”, “Walk on Water”) and Sasson Gabai (who was nominated on Saturday for best actor at the European Academy Awards for his Keatonesque role in Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit).

The hardships of working with Israeli auteur Amos Gitai (”Free Zone”) have not deterred Natalie Portman from coming back to her native Israel and taking an even more daunting task with another formidable Amos. This time it’s best selling novelist Amos Oz whose novel “A Tale of Love and Darkness” Portman will make into her directorial debut.
The film will shoot in Israel and in Hebrew in Summer 2008. JCS Studios in Israel will handle local production duties.