Israeli cinema had two faces in 2005: A total failure at the box office in Israel, and, on the other hand, success and considerable attention abroad. Sixteen Israeli films, a few of them international coproductions with minimal local investment, came to the screen last year. All of these films together brought only about 300,000 viewers to the theaters, a figure that takes Israeli cinema back to the years before 2004, a year during which about 1.5 million people went to see Hebrew-speaking films.
The film drawing most viewers in 2005 was "The Syrian Bride," directed by Eran Riklis and written by him with Suha Arraf. About 100,000 people saw the film, quite a few in Israeli terms, but still only about one-fifth of the number who saw "Turn Left at the End of the World" in 2004.
Next on the list was Danny Verete's "Metallic Blues," with about 50,000 viewers and "What a Wonderful Place," directed by Eyal Halfon, which about 30,000 people have seen thus far.
However, Israeli films that were screened elsewhere earned unprecedented success. Three million viewers, 10 times the number in Israel, saw these films during the year (though it must be noted that this did not involve the same films; among them are also films that were shown in Israel in 2004 and were very successful at the box office). The total income from these screenings abroad is about $25 million. "Walk on Water," for example, was seen by about 1 million people in 20 countries, and it took in approximately $7 million. "The Syrian Bride," shown in France and Germany as well as in other countries, has thus far brought in more than $2 million. Other successes: "Ushpizin," which is still doing very well in the United States, "Or," "To Take a Wife," "Free Zone", "Nina's Disasters" and coproductions like "Stones," "Paradise Now" and "Go See and Become."
The failure of local films at home this past year mostly reflects the financial factor: The budget for the film industry has shrunk by about NIS 20 million in recent years. However, the decline in funding cannot serve as the sole explanation for the decline in quality. Of the 16 films that came to the screens in 2005, only two won praise from the critics: "Atash - Thirst," directed by Tawfik Abu Wael, which was first shown at the Cannes Festival in 2004 but came to the screen only in 2005, and "The Syrian Bride."
Two film foundations support feature production in Israel: The Israeli Film Fund, headed by Katri Shehori, which allocated NIS 22 million, and the Yehoshua Rabinowitz Foundation, headed by Giora Eini, which budgeted NIS 11 million. The two funds take responsibility for the failure, but stress that cinema is not an exact science.
"Cinema is not something that promises success in advance," says Nachman Ingber, chairman of the Yehoshua Rabinowitz Foundation artistic committee, "but it is possible to examine what we do only over time, not each year individually. I can only assess that the major creative people in local cinema made films in 2004, and therefore 2005 was such a bad year. In 2006 we are expecting a wonderful year with films that will bring back the feeling of 2004."
Shehori, whose fund supported 12 films that came out in 2005, talks about the freedom to fail. "There is no formula for success," he says. "The history of the cinema is full of people who made a series of bad films and then made a brilliant film. We are a training field, an experimental field and a field for failures. The artists and the funds are subjected to constant criticism. When we made films that did well at the box office, the press said that we were pandering to the audience, and when we invest in filmmakers and films that have a unique voice, they ask why the films fail at the box offices."
The first stage in support for an Israeli film, at both funds, starts with the screenplay. The two funds hire the services of readers, artistic advisers who receive a bundle of scripts, read them and send their opinions to the directors of the fund (for each opinion they are paid NIS 300). Filmmakers whose screenplays receive a positive opinion go on to the next stage, in which the fund people meet with the prospective producer, director and screenwriter. The two funds are the main financial supporters of the films that are produced here, but their directors do not see them as the producers of the films. Therefore, the moment a script is approved, the director can do whatever he wants. Moreover, even if one of the fund directors thinks that the casting or the music, for example, is wrong, he can try to persuade the director to change his or her mind but he cannot obligate the director to change anything.
"I am not a producer," says Ingber. "I fund most of the film that wins support and serve as a field for artists to kick a goal. I will always express my opinion, but I will not force it. I am an experienced person, who has seen a lot of movies. My taste is formed, but at most I can give advice. I am a big brother, no more than that. I can't allow films that are made in Israel to be films under supervision. I must give the director his creative space, because I always say to myself, `Maybe I'm wrong, and he's right.'"
Shehori, for his part, offers the example of China, where all the people in the film industry are employees of the government film fund. "Would you want me to be a dictator like in China?" he asks. "And if they don't do what I want, will the artists get no money? So what if someone makes a bad film?"
Ingber's and Shehori's worldview is praiseworthy, but the question still remains of whether the freedom that is given is not excessive. Is a fund that invests in flops like "Riki, Riki" directed by Eitan Aner, "Joy" directed by Julie Schlez and "The Schwartz Dynasty" directed by Shmuel and Amir Haspari - each received about half a million dollars - unable to influence directors' decisions?
Stirring the screenplay
The readers' opinions carry a great deal of weight in the decision about who will ultimately receive support from the funds. Among the readers who approved the 2005 crop of films were Irit Linur, Jacky Levy, Eyal Halfon, Adi Arbel, Yitzhak Shauli, Shlomo Mashiah and Salwa Naqara Haddad. Conversations with some of them indicate that in many cases a screenplay that is approved for production is not necessarily a good screenplay in their opinion, but simply the least bad.
"In Israel there are two main problems," says Yair Raveh, the film critic for the weekly Pnai Plus and formerly a reader for the Israel Film Fund."Most of the filmmakers don't know how to write a screenplay, and most of the filmmakers don't know how to read a screenplay." Raveh is one of the group of readers who approved "What A Wonderful Place," a film about which he now says: "This was truly an awful film. I hated the screenplay and I hated the film." He says similar things about "Metallic Blues," which he also saw as a reader.
Raveh also talks about the gap between the screenplay and the final result. "Amos Gitai's `Alila,' for example," says Raveh, "was among the best screenplays I have ever read: precise, with excellent lines. But we all know that for Gitai the screenplay is of no importance. However, even if the screenplay of `Walk on Water' wasn't perfect, we still knew that Eytan Fox has the ability to create strong cinematic moments. `The Schwartz Dynasty' was also a wonderful, witty, funny, satirical and sharp screenplay. But there is no connection between what we read and approved and the final result."
Unlike Raveh, Irit Linur says of herself that she has not seen in the cinema any of the films she approved for production. "It is no great joy when you, as a reader, go through a miserable vintage of scripts," she says. "If you are assuming that I liked all of the films that I approved, that's mistaken. I can say that the screenplays that were approved were the best among those that we read, but they weren't necessarily good. However, I was very happy when it was my luck to read the script for `Ushpizin,' because you immediately understood that this was something else entirely."
Linur stresses that even in years when the screenplays are terrible, it is still necessary to produce films. "You don't leave money in the coffers," stresses Linur, "because otherwise, by law, the money has to go back to the Finance Ministry. Apart from that, people also learn from mistakes and earn from mistakes, because artists are given an opportunity."
All of the readers stress that their comments are appended to every approved screenplay. "Not every filmmaker agrees to accept the comments," says Linur, "and I, as someone who writes, understand this. The number of hands that stir every screenplay is endless. Personally, I believe that my comments are worth their weight in gold, but I am aware that they will not always be accepted."
Jacky Levy emphasizes that from last year's work, he is especially proud of the approval that was given to "What a Wonderful Place" and "The Syrian Bride." `Being an artistic adviser," he says, "is a fluid business that involves artistic taste that differs from person to person. There were films that I saw and thought were terrible whereas the person sitting next to me thought they were a gift from heaven, and vice-versa. Therefore they appoint four people who know how to read a screenplay, and they gamble. There is no better way."
All of the readers say that they are aware of the weight of the public budget that is placed on their shoulders. However, Levy also stresses that he thinks a lot about the filmmakers. "The public coffers make me lose sleep," he says, "but I also think about those whose films I don't approve, thereby keeping work from a lot of families."
Despite Israeli cinema's failure in 2005, there is consolation: The extent of the productions and the continuous work of recent years have produced a real film industry, where talents are being discovered. It is enough to peek at the international response to the local cinema to realize that apparently something good is happening here. Otherwise, how would it be possible to explain that even before Etgar Keret's and Shira Gefen's film "Jellyfish" was produced, it won an international investment of $650,000 and Dror Shaul's "Sweet Mud" won an investment of $500,000?
