The first annual Israel Film Festival of College Hill kicked off on Saturday with a screening of Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz's "The Seven Days." The festival, which runs through next Thursday, is composed of films that focus on salient issues in Israeli society. They cover a range of topics including migration and sexuality, religion and the kibbutz experiment, and several attempts to reconcile centuries-old traditions with the progressive ideals of contemporary Israel.
The apparent absence of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict may seem like a giant elephant in the room. But the aim of the festival is to portray aspects of Israeli society that are disconnected from the political lens through which Israel is usually discussed, said Danya Chudacoff '11. She organized the event and selected the films in collaboration with Brown/RISD Hillel Israel Fellow Yossi Knafo.
"We are not ignoring Israel's political issues and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict," she said. "The festival was specifically organized to be a look into Israeli culture, society and art outside the context in which it is found so often abroad."
Chudacoff began organizing the festival in September, although the heaviest part of the planning took place over winter break, when she was in Israel.
"It was a very hard time," she said, referring to the war in Gaza. She considered postponing the festival, but decided not to. "Something like a film festival which celebrates culture doesn't have to fluctuate with political climate."
"Israel is more than just the (Israel Defense Force)," she said. "The country is not based on war and violence and definitely not based on politics."
Israel may not be all about conflict, but "The Seven Days" is brimming with bitterness and secrets from the start.
The film centers on a Moroccan family's tragic, agonizing and at times comic attempt to live under the same roof for seven days of shiva - the period of mourning for the death of a relative. The shiva house featured in the film at times threatens to erupt into a walled-in family battlefield.
One can feel the tensions simmering beneath the surface long before it becomes clear how the characters are related and exactly who died. While overwhelming at first, the way viewers are thrown into the chaos from the start allows them to experience the realistic intensity of an unexpected, involuntary and emotionally charged family reunion.
As one audience member said during a discussion following the film, there is a lot of talking going on, but very little communicating.
Perhaps that explains why the most powerful story line of the film, that of Vivianne - played by director Ronit Elkabetz - and her sister Simona, is also the quietest. As the characters' efforts to act civil towards one another out of respect for the deceased begin to fail, family members' claims to be observing the somber tradition of shiva border on ridiculous.
Squabbles over bankruptcy, business and male responsibility tear the brothers apart, while the women deal with issues of marriage, adultery and widowhood. Some audience members found the film powerful, but others argued that it tended to stereotype and exaggerate.
"The Seven Days" will play again on Wednesday. The screening will follow a showing of the film's 2006 prequel "To Take a Wife," which tells the story behind Vivianne and Eliyahu's strained marriage and depicts the tension between their old Moroccan traditions and their life in modern Israel.
Any subtlety that may have been lacking from "The Seven Days" can be easily found in Eran Kolirin's "The Band's Visit," which played Saturday at the Brown/RISD Hillel and will be screened again.
Elkabetz acts in this film too, stealing the show in a bittersweet comedy about an Egyptian band that gets stranded in a desolate Israeli desert town. The band members end up at a small restaurant owned by Dina -- Elkabetz's character -- a confident Israeli woman who offers them hospitality for the night. Avoiding the recycled and excessively politicized Middle East culture clash, Kolirin instead opts for a funny, curious and occassionally awkward depiction of cultural differences.
The atmosphere of isolation extends beyond the film's desert setting. The tremendous yet effectively understated sense of loneliness and relative insignificance that the characters seem to share transcends cultural differences, particularly in the interactions between Dina and the band's leader, Tewfiq, played by Sasson Gabai.
"If you're only going to see one of the films in the festival," Chudacoff said, it should be "The Band's Visit."
The festival will include a screening of Ari Folman's 2008 animated documentary "Waltz With Bashir," followed by a Q&A with the film's art director and illustrator David Polonsky, who is at Brown this semester as the Creative Art Council's artist-in-residence. In the Golden Globe-winning and Oscar-nominated film, Folman delves into his past experiences as a soldier in the first Lebanon War, trying to decipher a recurring nightmare in which he is being chased by 26 vicious dogs.
"Most people really want to see 'Waltz With Bashir,'" Chudacoff said. She worries, however, that it may divert attention from the rest of the films, she said.
"I'm personally most excited to see 'Homeland,'" Chudacoff said.
Homeland takes place during the 1948 Israeli War of Independence and explores the contrast between the Diaspora Jew and the new Zionist Jew, according to the film festival brochure. Chudacoff praised the film's cinematography, referring to the shots as "breathtaking."
The theme of global immigration seems to recur in the festival's lineup. "Paper Dolls," directed by Tomer Heymann, explores the world of a group of transsexual Phillippine immigrants and "Noodle," a film by Ayelet Menahemi, tells the story of the bond between an Israeli flight attendant and an abandoned Chinese boy.
