Films: Preliminaries and Khirbet Hizeh

Preliminaries (Anat Even, 2005)

The voice of this film is that of the Israeli author S. Yizhar, who reads the first few chapters of his autobiography "Mikdamot" (“Preliminaries” in Hebrew). Director Anat Even accompanies Yizhar’s voice with her acute vision.

S. Yizhar describes a dramatic day in the life of infant Yizhar, 1919, a story that is a dialogue of love and reckoning with his father, with the founding generation, and the Zionist dream. Even, who sees Yizhar as a member of that founding generation, examines this score-settling up close through purely visual means. The film traverses Israel’s battered landscape, moving along its bypass roads that masquerade as the highway to Zionism, progressing and retreating in time when in fact it is stuck at the very point that Yizhar, the infant/80 year old, marked in “Mikdamot” – when the Zionist dream is simultaneously realized and shattered.

Prix SRG SSR idée Suisse, Vision Du Reel (Nyon), 2006

The Best Israeli Short Documentary, 2006

Khirbet Hizeh (Ram Loevy, 1978), made for TV, was judged so disturbing that its broadcast was banned by the Israeli government just hours before it was scheduled to be shown.

Both films -in Hebrew with English subtitles- will be introduced by translators Nicholas De Lange and Yaacob Dweck