Israel
Karate Kid Takes on Global Voices
Shadya airs on Global Voices Sunday, July 25
A young Muslim Israeli is trapped between her passion for karate and religious tradition in Shadya, airing this Sunday on Global Voices on PBS World (check local listings).
Directed by Roy Westler, the film takes place in Northern Israel and profiles a 17-year-old charismatic karate champion. Shadya is a rare breed, a feminist in a male-dominated culture and a Muslim Arab living in Israel.
As she grapples with the looming tension of an early marriage and her Palestinian identity, Shadya refuses to play by the rules of her traditional Muslim community.
Check out the trailer for Shadya ahead of the broadcast this Sunday.
Jerusalem Gay Bar as Metaphor for Peace and Unity
Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh
Filmmaker Yun Jong Suh discusses how she came to make a film about the only gay bar in Jerusalem. Her film, City of Borders, airs on public television this month. Check listings in your area here.
As a Buddhist Korean American, I am frequently asked why I am interested in the Middle East and how I discovered Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar. I’m not the most obvious candidate to tell this story. But I believe my outsider status proved to be instrumental in making City of Borders.
I’m drawn to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because I intimately relate to both sides of the war. Like the Israelis, I grew up in constant fear of my neighboring country, North Korea, attacking my small village in South Korea. I did not see North Koreans as humans but as demons determined to kill us if they had the chance. My childhood playtime often involved devising escape routes and places to hide in my home if North Koreans ever invaded.
Celebrate Gay Pride Month with ITVS
They’re here, they’re queer, they’re ITVS films that document and celebrate the LGBT community. Get used to it!
At the core of ITVS’s mission is to amplify the voices of the underrepresented in traditional media. In June, we get to celebrate the films airing this month across the nation, as well as those in our catalog that tell the rarely heard stories from the gay, lesbian, and transgendered communities.
This month, a remarkable film – City of Borders – airs on various PBS stations (check listings here). The film documents an astounding array of regulars at Jerusalem’s only gay bar. Palestinians (some who must sneak over Israel’s “security fence” to get there) mingle with Israelis, Muslims with Jews, men with women, gay people with straight people. It’s a stunning microcosm of peace and shared humanity amidst a landscape rent with conflict.
But also take a moment to browse through our film catalog’s sortable search engine for all of our films on LGBT topics.
Among them, notably, given recent news, is Ask Not, a film about the United States military’s Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell (DADT) policy that systematically bars gays and lesbians from serving openly in the armed forces. Now that repeal of DADT has been passed in both houses of Congress, there’s hope that this film is about to become an archival document of a sad time gone by.
Watch CHILDREN OF THE SUN Tonight on the Sundance Channel
“CHILDREN OF THE SUN explores the era’s ideals, failures and legacy as it interweaves archival home movies, children’s songs, other rare recordings of kibbutz life from 1930-1980, as well as poignant interviews with the now-grown ‘Children of the Sun,’ some of his family members and their friends.”
- Jewish Tribune
In the 1920s and 30s, tens of thousands of children were born on an Israeli kibbutz and raised as part of a social experiment to create a new and improved human. The film traces the “Children of the Sun” from their birth through their growth as members of the Zionist elite and to the crisis that weakened the kibbutz movement.
Watch a preview below:
CHILDREN OF THE SUN airs tonight, July 20, at 9:00 PM on the Sundance Channel (check local listings).
Director Ran Tal recently discussed how he became interested in the topic on Beyond the Box Blog.
Read his Q&A >>
Director Ran Tal Discusses CHILDREN OF THE SUN, Airing Monday on the Sundance Channel
Ran Tal, director of CHILDREN OF THE SUN.
Director Ran Tal was born in Israel to a farmer’s family and grew up on Kibbutz Beit Hashita. In his latest film CHILDREN OF THE SUN, airing Monday, July 20 at 9:00 PM on the Sundance Channel, Tal traces Israel’s kibbutz movement and follows members of the Zionist elite from their birth in the 1920s and ‘30s to the crisis that weakened the movement. Appearing at film festivals across the country, Tal discussed his personal connection to the subject. Check out his Q&A from the San Francisco International Film Festival and learn more about how the audience reacted in Israel, the research process and why he made the film.
Why did you decide to focus your film on a family in the kibbutz?
I understood that the story of the kibbutz might be very big. But I really thought that to focus on these small intimate things, on this radical alternative family of the kibbutz, would be a good chance to tell a story that is very intimate, on the one hand, but, on the other hand, would be a big one. I really believe in intimate cinema, instead of the cinema that tries to put everything together and ends up not catching anything.
The Latest ITVS International Films on iTunes
Selected ITVS International films are now available on iTunes for download to rent ($2.99) or to own ($9.99). Check out the latest films now available:
SEEDS OF SUMMER: At an army base in the heart of Israel’s southern desert, two young female military recruits make the transformation from fragile, vulnerable young girls to confident soldiers and fierce fighters.
IRANIAN KIDNEY BARGAIN SALE: An inside look at the growing organ industry in Iran where every 10 minutes, a young person wishing to sell his or her kidney appears at the entrance of a kidney referral agency.
At the Israel Market for International Co-Productions with ITVS Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar
The 11th Israel Market for International Co-Productions recently concluded. Held in Tel Aviv, the event aims to foster dialogue between Israeli filmmakers and foreign counterparts, offer international audiences new and interesting insight, promote and nurture young talented Israeli Arab and Jewish filmmakers and raise funds for Israeli-foreign co-productions. Read about ITVS Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar’s experience at this year’s Co-Pro.
The 11th Israel Market for International Co-Productions.
I just participated in the 11th Israel Co-Production Forum in Tel Aviv. It was my fourth time at the Co-Pro and in Israel, and as always it was an inspiring and invigorating experience.
This was a special year for ITVS, where we were honored with a special tribute for films that we produced with Israeli producers as well as films presented by ITVS International through co-productions or acquisition. The tribute to ITVS opened with the film BE LIKE OTHERS, by Tanaz Eshaghian and Peter Wintonick, which explores transsexual counterculture in Iran. This unprecedented film explores the re-assignment of gender in a Muslim country, where sex-sex operations offer a cure for “diagnosed transsexuals.” In Israel, there obviously is interest in Iran on all levels, and this film offered insight into an intimate part of the culture. Nine other films were featured in the ITVS tribute including ON THE BORDERS OF DESPERATION, STORM OF EMOTIONS, YOUNG YAKUZA, PICKLES, INC. and UNMISTAKEN CHILD. These films will tour in cinematheques across Israel.
Filmmaker Profile: Edna and Elinor Kowarsky, SEEDS OF SUMMER
Israeli filmmakers Edna and Elinor Kowarsky once thought that they would never be able to reach U.S. audiences with their films.
In 1989, they formed their production company, Eden Productions, to make films about social issues in the Middle East. While their company grew to become a leading source of documentary content in Israel, working with the top directors in the region to get their films broadcast in Israeli and in European markets, the U.S. audience remained elusive.
“Americans are only interested to see films about themselves,” was one of the warnings Edna heard much too often from broadcasters and funders in other parts of the world. “They won’t watch a film in a foreign language” was another. But then they discovered ITVS International.
The mother-daughter team learned of International Call, ITVS’s fund for international documentary filmmakers, at a co-production forum in Tel Aviv where they met Vice President of Programming Claire Aguilar. At first, the Kowarskys were skeptical that their projects would be competitive, especially because they were mostly in Hebrew and Arabic. Nonetheless, in 2007, they submitted a project proposal to International Call requesting completion funds for the film SEEDS OF SUMMER.
A production with first-time director Hen Lasker, this verité film follows a group of young women during one of the most rigorous combat courses in the Israeli army over the course of 66 days and nights. It was the first time that the Israeli military allowed any filmmaker such intimate access to female soldiers. The peer review panel for ITVS International chose this project in part because the story speaks in a very personal way to universal themes of coming of age and living under constant threat of war.
“Although we tell a local story, the girl’s difficulties, their conflicts and their personal dilemmas are easy to identify with,” says Edna.
Not only did the Kowarskys receive the money they needed to finish the film, but they also formed a creative relationship with the ITVS International team, which helped them navigate the U.S. marketplace to find a home for the program on cablecaster The Documentary Channel. (SEEDS OF SUMMER aired nationally on January 12.)
“ITVS made it possible for us to produce our film and made it possible for U.S. viewers to widen their perspective and be exposed to a reality so distant from them, yet so very close,” remarked Edna.
Interested in watching this film? It is now available to watch online through our digital partners Caachi and Jaman.
Check out the video preview below:
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