Arts & Culture | Film

Three ‘Novel’ Israeli Works

04/27/2011 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

Israeli artists are as introspective as any in the world. I doubt if any filmmakers, writers, painters, musicians or composers anywhere spend as much time pondering the nature of their national identity at both the micro and macro levels.

Tribeca’s Israeli Offerings: Slash And Yearn

04/18/2011 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

It would be hard to imagine two more dissimilar films from Israeli directors than the pair that are playing in the opening week of the Tribeca Film Festival, which runs through May 1. “Rabies” by Navot Papushado and Aharon Keshales, claims to be Israel’s first slasher film. Alma Har’el’s “Bombay Beach” is a documentary with some staged dance sequences, set in one of the most desolate communities in North America. Each could be read as a comment on the current condition of the Jewish state and its inhabitants or just enjoyed for its own virtues.

Julian Schnabel On ‘Miral’ And The Conflict

04/07/2011 | Eric Herschthal | Staff Writer | Film

For Julian Schnabel, the storm that followed the release of his new film, “Miral,” about a Palestinian woman who joins the first intifada, has not quite passed.

A week before the film debuted in late March, prominent Jewish groups criticized Schnabel, whose film was screened at the United Nations main hall. The American Jewish Committee, for instance, said that the film has “a clear political message, which portrays Israel in a highly negative light.”

The Aftermath Of Adolescence

03/24/2011 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

No amount of thoughtful planning can trump the serendipity of chance. Consider this juxtaposition: Last week, two Jewish-related films opened in New York that dealt with children under pressure. This week, the 40th annual New Directors/New Films event opens and among the films programmed are two Jewish-related films about young adults dealing with the aftermath of adolescence.

Schnabel’s ‘Miral’ Falls Flat

03/22/2011 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

Let’s get the controversy out of the way immediately: Anyone who finds Julian Schnabel’s new film “Miral” to be any more pro-Palestinian or anti-Israeli than dozens of other recent films about Israel’s policies in the West Bank hasn’t been getting out much.

No Place For Children

03/15/2011 | George Robinson | Special To The Jewish Week | Film

In the 1960s there was a popular poster and bumper sticker that proclaimed, “War Is Not Healthy for Children and Other Living Things.” Political repression isn’t good for them either. Those are the messages carried by two new films opening on March 18, “The Gift to Stalin,” from Kazakhstan, and “Winter in Wartime,” from the Netherlands.