Prestigious Berlin film festival award to go to Israeli Film Fund director

Two Israeli works - 'Red Cow' and 'Sleeping Bears' - are set to premiere at the Berlin International Film Festival.

By AMY SPIRO
Updated: FEBRUARY 7, 2018 04:43
A scene from "Red Cow" (photo credit: COURTESY OF ISRAEL FILM FUND)
A scene from "Red Cow"
(photo credit: COURTESY OF ISRAEL FILM FUND)
Katriel Schory, the executive director of the Israeli Film Fund, will receive the prestigious “Camera” award at the Berlinale, the Berlin International Film Festival this month.
The festival announced Tuesday that Schory would be one of the three figures honored at this year’s event, for his impact on the world of Israeli film.
Schory “has enabled the funding and the production of 240 Israeli feature films, many of them international co-productions,” the Berlinale said in a statement. “In addition, he has made a considerable contribution to cultural exchange through his commitment to advancing co-operations between Israel and Europe.” Schory, who has been director of the Israeli Film Fund since 1999, will receive his award on February 20 at a special event.
But Schory isn’t the only Israeli with a prominent role at the festival.
Not one but two Israeli works will be launched during the 10-day event, which runs from February 15 to 25.
Keren Margalit’s Sleeping Bears will premiere as part of the festival’s expanded TV series section.
The program, produced by Keshet, centers on a teacher who is “forced to face up to her past,” according to the festival. After her therapist dies in an accident, transcripts of their sessions are sent to her as part of an anonymous threat, and she races to hide her deepest secrets from her family. Margalit is best known as the creator of Yellow Peppers, which became known internationally as The A Word.
In addition, filmmaker Tsivia Barkai Yacov’s film Para Aduma (Red Cow) will have its world premiere as part of the festival’s “Generation” program, which shines a spotlight on the stories of young people. The film focuses on Benny, the only daughter of ultra right-wing settler Joshua, who lives in the Arab neighborhood of Silwan in Jerusalem.
Set in the days leading up to the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin, the film explores Benny’s development as a young woman without a mother in her life. When she meets Yael, a youth counselor, and feels a strong sexual attraction, her world begins to upend. The festival said the film is “a story told in pictures as powerful as the stormy yearnings of its heroine.”
Another film that will have its premiere at the festival isn’t Israeli, but tells is one that tells an Israeli story. That is 7 Days in Entebbe, the UK-produced thriller about the Israeli hostage rescue operation in 1976. The film, starring Daniel Bruhl and Rosamud Pike, is directed by Jose Padiha.
It dramatizes the IDF and Mossad operation to rescue the hostages taken in Entebbe, Uganda, during a hijacking of an Air France flight from Tel Aviv to Paris. Prime minister Yitzhak Rabin is played by beloved Israeli actor Lior Ashkenazi, and Lt.-Col. Yoni Netanyahu, the brother of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, is portrayed by Uruguayan- Israeli Angel Bonanni. The film is set to hit theaters worldwide in March.


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