Haifa’s 27th International Film Festival event, held during the Jewish holiday of Succot, Thursday, October 13 to Saturday, October 22 , will show 170 film premieres from Israel and around the world.
Haifa International Film Festival Variety of Films Showing
The festival screens a wide selection of competing and non-competing films. Along with the presentation of international awards, Israeli film competitions take place with local films competing in drama, documentary, short films, features and young cinema categories. Nine Israeli productions are contenders for the Best Israeli Feature Film Award and ten for Best Documentary and the international competitions.
Best Israeli Feature Film Award Contenders:
- Alternation - Director: Eran Kolirin
- Never too late - Director: Ido Fluke
- Fifth Heaven - Director: Dina Zvi
- Tanathor (Breakdown) - Director: Tawfik Abu Wael
- Great fantasy of the little Simico - Director: Eric Lubetzky
- You do not show - Director: Michal Aviad
- We are not alone - Staging: Lior Har
- By summer's end - Director: Noa Aharoni
- Testimony - Director: Shlomi Elkabetz
Best Documentary
Some of the entries for this category are:
- Epilogue - Director and Producer: Michal Capra
- Letter has been marked - Director and Producer: Hadar Kleinman – Zadok
- Cut the pain - Director: Jonathan Nir, Tsafrir Gelman
- Whirlpools - Director and Producer: Kobe Doidian, Ronnie Birch
- Up in the Air - Director and Producer: Jeremy A. Katz
- Six million and One - Director: David Fisher
Haifa International Film Festival – Films Showing
The festival opens in the Haifa Auditorium with George Clooney’s drama “The Ides of March”, in which Ryan Gosling portrays the loss of innocence of a young politico hotshot on a governor’s campaign trail. The film festival concludes with Steven Soderbergh’s sci-fi film “Contagion” a killer virus thriller starring Kate Winslet, Jude law, Matt Damon and Gwyneth Paltrow.
A selection of first day films screening include:
- “The Greatest Film Ever Sold”, a documentary by Morgan Spurlock, director of “Super Size Me”, investigates marketing, product placement and advertising. The film itself is financed solely by marketing, product placement and advertising.
- Director Julie Gavras brings the audience “Late Bloomers”, a drama focussing on a successful couple battling through a midlife crisis, starring Isabella Rossellini and William Hurt.
- The comedy, “Yakuza's Daughter Never Cries”, by directors Sergei Bodrov and Guka Omarova is a humorous account of the antics of the granddaughter of an influential Japanese Yakuza who finds herself in an unfamiliar Russian town amongst fugitive gangsters. Sergey Bodrov will be present at Haifa’s Tikotin Museum of Japanese Art for the screening.
Guests Appearing and More Films Screening
Among this year’s guests at Haifa’s film festival are British director, John Madden, known for “Prime Suspect 4” and episodes of “Inspector Morse” and for directing the Oscar winning “Shakespeare in Love”. Madden’s film, “The Debt”, will be screened along with a selection of other British films, new and classic:
- The Servant directed by Joseph Losey;
- John Michael McDonagh’s “The Guard”
- “Six Million and One” directed by David Fisher
- Jes Benstock’s “The British Guide to Showing Off"
Benstock and Fisher will be present at the festival. The well received documentary of a chimpanzee “Project Nim” by director James Marsh will be screened twice.
Other Films Showing
- “Dark Horse” by director Todd Solondz; a melancholy comedy about a grown son living at home who enjoys collecting action figures; starring Christopher Walken and Mia Farrow.
- Emanuele Crialese's immigration-themed, "Terraferma", which will represent Italy in the foreign-language category at the Oscars.
- Zhang Yimou's drama, "Under the Hawthorn Tree", a romance set in China's Cultural Revolution.
- Director Victor Ginzburg adaptation of Pelevin's "Generation P", a drama providing an out of the ordinary view of drugs and power hungry world of advertising in Russia in the 90s.
- Swedish director, Lisa Aschan's acclaimed, "She Monkeys", exploring the complex friendship and rivalry of two teenage girls.
Film Competitions and Awards
The Haifa Festival will present 'The Golden Anchor' award in the international film section to the best film made in a Mediterranean country.
Besides "Terraferma", other contenders are:
- From Turkey, Nuri Bilge Ceylan's "Once Upon a Time in Anatolia".
- Cristina Comencini's "Quando la notte", a story of twisted passion in the Italian Alps.
- The French production, by Eva Ionesco, "My Little Princess".
The Haifa International Film Festival also holds for the second year running, 'The Filmmakers of Tomorrow - FEDEORA' Competition.
Besides Mark Romanek's British film, "Never Let Me Go", other candidates include:
- "Michael", an Austrian entry from Markus Schleinze.
- Shinji Aoyama's simplistic, "Tokyo Park".
- The Estonian film, "The Temptation of St Tony", directed by Veiko Ounpuu.
- Justin Chadwick's British film, "The First Grader".
The Haifa International Film Festival, the Cinematic Event of the Year in Israel
The Haifa International Film Festival, the most important cinematic event in Israel, began in 1983. Since then, the Haifa Film Festival has earned a world-wide reputation for both the excellence of its screening programme and its pleasant and vibrant atmosphere. Each year, during Succot, the film festival attracts an audience of around 70,000, along with hundreds of Israeli and foreign professionals from the film and television industries.
The Haifa International Film Festival Offers More Than Cinema
Besides hundreds of screenings, panel discussions, encounters with filmmakers, scriptwriters, directors and actors combine with art and craft sales, workshops and food tasting in venues around Haifa. Each evening closes with free live music performances by local groups and artists such as Monika Sex, Ehud Banai, Eran Tzur and Tal Friedman.
Scores of local and international journalists from Israel and abroad cover this annual cinematic festival premiering 170 new films, showing close to 300 screenings and drawing the attention of 300,000 participants.
- All the foreign language films have English subtitles.
- Tickets and details: Haifa International Film Festival
Sources:
Lesley Lanir - Freelance writer, lecturer and teacher trainer Lesley Lanir, writes on foreign language learning disorders, linguistics, and literature.
