New film festival aims high

Jerusalem Post | Breaking News from Israel, the Middle East and the Jewish World: "The city of Ashdod, trying to find its place on the cultural map of Israel, launches its first international film festival next week.

You might think that Israel's new film festival, the Ashdod International Film Festival, which will be held from April 24-28, would try mainly to give holiday beach-goers a couple of laughs. But its organizers have aimed high, creating an event very much in the mold of the country's prestigious and established festivals, such as those held in Jerusalem and Haifa.

While there will be concerts, street theater and other events that are now de rigueur for this kind of festival, the focus here will be on a program of high-quality films from around the world, as well as a surprisingly large contingent of international guests, a fair number of whom may not have even heard of Ashdod until deciding to attend this festival.

Ashdod Mayor Zvi Zilker and other city officials hope this festival will, in effect, put Ashdod on the cultural map of Israel, both for Israelis and tourists. In a statement, Zilker emphasized that all films would have Hebrew translations and that the festival would have broad appeal.

Organizers have also made sure to provide a showcase for local filmmakers so that the festival will have a distinctly Israeli flavor. Lifetime achievement awards will be given be to two pillars of the Israeli film industry - producer/director Yoram Globus and actress Gila Almagor.

There will be an Israeli competition, as well as an international one. Another special program will be "Postcards from Here," a series of 10 short films by film students from Ramle, a place rarely seen or heard from on screen, and there will be a look at films based on the short stories of Etgar Keret.

With some 40 feature films, the Ashdod festival is a more manageable size than the Jerusalem Film Festival, and a viewer could easily see all the films he or she wanted to.

The festival's opening film, Bamboo Shoot, directed by Xin Lee, was also the opening film of the Shanghai Film Festival. It is a bittersweet comedy set in a sleepy town in which a lovesick man decides to shoot a martial-arts epic starring the woman of his dreams.

Among the more intriguing films on the program is King of Bollywood, part of a trend of Bollywood films made with an international audience in mind. It stars Om Puri (East Is East, My Son the Fanatic) as a former Bollywood megastar no longer in demand, whose fortunes change when a young British filmmaker comes to make a documentary about him. The filmmaker is played by the model Sophie Dahl, granddaughter of the writer Roald Dahl.

The fake documentary (also known as a mockumentary), CSA - Confederate States of America, directed by Kevin Willmott, raised controversy at Sundance as it paints a portrait of what the US would be like today if the South had won the Civil War.

Max and Grace, another American indie, stars Natasha Lyonne, David Krumholtz, Rosanna Arquette and Lorraine Bracco in a story of two mentally ill teenagers who fall in love.

There are quite a few films by directors from countries that rarely have a presence in the international film scene. From Indonesia comes Arisan! directed by Nia diNata, a look at the lives of several 30-something upper-class Jakarta residents.

Icelandic director Ragnar Bragason's comedy Fiasco focuses on the ups and downs of three generations of a Reykjavik family.

International guests will include Ezel Akay, the Turkish director of Where's Firuze?, a bittersweet comedy about two down-on-their luck music producers from Istanbul.

Vycheslav Sorokin, the Russian director of the period drama, Totalitarian Love, will also attend the festival.

In addition to these directors, there will be producers on hand from India, Holland, the US and Russia who will participate in various workshops. "