Does John Lasseter and company know how big they are in Israel? “Wall-E”, it was announced today, will be the opening night film at the Jerusalem Film Festival on July 10th, two weeks after the American release. It will be the second Pixar movie in a row to open the Jerusalem Fest, after last year’s “Ratatuoille”. I wonder if the fest’s name shouldn’t be changed already to The Jerusalem Pixar International Festival Festival. Organizers picked “Wall-E” over “Kung Fu Panda”, which was also offered to them as opening night fare.

wall in jerusalem
Wall in Jerusalem

wall-e in jerusalem
Wall-E in Jerusalem

Although the Jerusalem Film Festival, celebrating it’s 25th edition this year, is known for excellent high brow festival titles from Europe and Asia and home-made premieres, the opening film was always a lighter, commercial, mostly family friendly movie due to the location of the opening night ceremony. The opening night films are screened on a giant outdoor screen in front of an audience of 5,000, in a valley shadowed by the ancient walls of Jerusalem. It is truly a spectacular way to see a movie. It also gives “Wall-E” a new meaning for his name. Wall indeed.
Previous festival openers, “Ratatouille” and “Shrek” went on to become that year’s top ticket selling film locally. And indeed, in the last few years the festival favored computer animated movies as openers.

Now “Wall-E”, which was scheduled to open on July 3rd, will have to move back a week to accommodate to the festival’s opening night date. Meaning that it will go head-to-head with “Hancock”, both opening the same day in Israel.

Read my previous related post: Critics banned from reviewing “Hancock”, “Wall-E”, “Narnia”, “Sex and the City”