Looking at the number of Israeli films in official sections - one feature in competition, a second one and two shorts in the Panorama, and two documentaries in the Forum - it is hard to believe that all this is coming from a country left without a single film laboratory, whose main fund for financing films is in constant danger and whose hopes of attracting co-productions on a large scale were shattered last year by a government decision to renege on previous investing commitments.
But Israeli filmmakers seem to thrive on adversity and insist on making films. In this respect, the Berlin selections offer a pretty fair portrait, not only of the country's image, but also of its filmmaking capacity. In competition, Under Western Eyes, a first film by Josef Pitchadze, a road movie thriller, uses the country's landscape, from Tel Aviv Bauhaus to the vast emptiness of the Negev deserts, to great effect; Nadav Levithan returns to the kibbutz themes dear to him in No Names on the Doors, screening in the Panorama; and the two Forum entries represent the new trend for non-fiction films developing recently in Israel. Emil Habibi - I stayed in Haifa, is a documentary about the great Arab poet, writer, thinker and communist who was always at odds with his fellow Arabs and the party for his independent positions; and How I learned to overcome my fear and love Arik Sharon, is a sardonic pseudo-documentary about the bizarre love-hate nurtured by a progressive filmmaker for the man who is the symbol of the Israeli conservative, militarist right wing.
Finally, the two Panorama shorts, Chester, Jones and I and Personal Goals display the imagination and energy which has already brought the Jerusalem Film and TV School numerous awards in international festivals. Edna Fainaru
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