Last update - 00:00 30/08/2007
Haifa Film Festival to go from Binoche to Jolie
"Disengagement," Amos Gitai's new film starring Juliette Binoche, will open the Haifa International Film Festival on September 27. The final film in the festival will be Michael Winterbottom's much talked-about "A Mighty Heart," based on Mariane Pearl's memoir of the life and death of her journalist husband Daniel Pearl, who was murdered in Pakistan.
"Disengagement," by Gitai, director of "Kadosh" and "Kippur," will follow films from Venice and Toronto in the festival lineup. Liron Levo, Jeanne Moreau, Dana Ivgi, and Hiam Abbass will appear beside Binoche.
In "Disengagement," the main character, a French woman (Binoche), meets her Israeli brother (Levo) for the first time in many years at their father's funeral. She then decides to return to Israel to search for the daughter she abandoned 20 years ago, and is caught in the turmoil of the disengagement from Gaza.
"A Mighty Heart," starring Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman, premiered, outside the competition, at the recent Cannes Film Festival. Winterbottom ("Butterfly Kiss," "Wonderland") adapted Mariane Pearl's book for film, and Jolie's husband, Brad Pitt, produced the film.
Daniel Pearl, a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, was working on a story in Pakistan when he was kidnapped by a local terror group that accused him of involvement with espionage.
The brutal execution, in which his throat was cut, was videotaped and broadcast worldwide. At the time of his death, his wife Mariane was pregnant with their first child. (Nirit Anderman)