The 11th Israeli Film Festival of Paris will take place from March 23 – 29, 2011, featuring animation from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design Jerusalem. The animation track of the Screen-Based Arts department at the Bezalel Academy of Arts & Design Jerusalem has been invited to play a significant role in the film festival, which will include four programs: feature films, Russian related films, documentaries and animated films from Bezalel. This is the first time that a comprehensive program of graduate’s animation from one institution has been shown at the festival.
Bezalel Academy will be showing 20 of the finest animated “shorts” created by its graduates from the last ten years. They cover a range of topics and themes that demonstrate the rich and varied experience of contemporary lsraeli life and culture. During the film festival, the selection of shorts will be shown together back-to-back on two occasions, and they will also be screened as preview films prior to the screening of other feature films throughout the festival’s program.
Professor Hanan Kaminski, head of the animation program at Bezalel, will be giving a presentation about animation as an art form, which will also introduce Bezalel Academy and its animation program to the festival audience, and will discuss the wide variety of subjects that Bezalel’s graduates are addressing in their work.
Bezalel’s graduate animations will be screened at Le Cinéma des Cinéastes on Thursday 24 March at 16:10 and Sunday 27 March at 15:40 proposed by the Cercle des Amis de Bezalel France. Each screening will be introduced by Professor Hanan Kaminski’s presentation.
Professor Kaminski says, “In many respects animation is the most sophisticated medium in art today, exceeding the boundaries and capabilities of regular film in both technique and narrative. The graduate work that is being screened here in Paris is innovative, creative and fresh, and reflects this boundless potential that animation offers as an art form. It is also testament to the quality of the work that comes out of the animation track in Bezalel’s Screen-Based Arts department, and it reinforces the Academy’s status as one of the leading institutions of its kind in the world.”
He adds, “Bezalel Academy is honored and delighted to be invited to participate in this prestigious festival. It’s a great thing for animation to play such a prominent role in a festival of this kind and to showcase to European audiences the talent that Bezalel produces. In particular, it’s wonderful to stage these screenings in Paris, one of Europe’s most important cultural centre.”
The selected shorts will also be released as a DVD that showcases the animation track’s work at Bezalel.
11th Israeli Film Festival of Paris, March 23 – 29, 2011
Actor and director Pascal Elbé, Sponsor
Cinéma des Cinéastes, 7, Avenue de Clichy 75017, Paris
The films to be shown at the festival:
Name of film: Beton
Created by: Michael Faust, Ariel Belinco
Technique: 2D computer animation
Synopsis: A black kite disturbs the everyday life of a military unit. The army annoyed by the existence of this kite in its clear blue sky, decides to solve the problem.
Running time: 06:29 min
Year of production: 2006
Name of film: Cold war
Created by: Amit Rojtblat, Noor Tadger, Adam Yassour
Technique: Stop motion, animated objects
Synopsis: Amongst the banal and ordinary items on the refrigerator door, a child hangs his drawings.
This innocent action triggers the war and ultimate destruction of all that was hanging on the door.
Running time: 2:05 min
Year of production: 2009
Name of film: Between bears
Created by: Eran Hilleli
Technique: Classic and 3D computer animation
Synopsis: A group of people are following the tracks of a black bear.
Running time: 5:15 min
Year of production: 2010
Name of film: Half baked
Created by: Nadan Pines
Technique: 2D computer animation
Synopsis: A chef and a waiter join forces in order to change the bleak future of their baked ducks.
Running time: 1:34 min
Year of production: 2007
Name of film: Miracle lady
Created by: Michal Abulafia, Moran Somer
Technique: Stop motion, clay, puppets
Synopsis: Fortuna is an old lady who waits in her wedding gown for her late husband to return home. Her next door neighbor, Marcela- Merkada, is the servant of the mean Rabbi Toledano- and she waits for death to come and take her away. When their fates connect they are both miraculously freed, one from the chains of love, the other from the chains of life.
Running time: 10:07 min
Language of film: Hebrew
Language of subtitles: English
Year of production: 2009
Name of film: In Aporia
Created by: Michal Ronen
Technique: Mixed Technique: Pixilation, 2D and 3D computer animation, Stop motion
Synopsis: A relationship between the Skin – a structured border, and the content- A system of abstract red strings or lines with no defined shape, that aspire to break out.
Running time: 03:35 min
Year of production: 2008
Name of film: True love hotel
Created by: Alon Gaash
Technique: 2D computer animation
Synopsis: A story in three parts, of the experiences throughout one day of a small, lonely, anonymous resident of a large, alienating city. He has lived all his life in his parents house and continues to do so after their deaths (his father was killed in a war, and the mother faded to her death in the following years).
Running time: 6:50 min
Year of production: 2008
Name of film: Way of the land
Created by: Dotan Goldwaser
Technique: 2D computer animation
Synopsis: Sleep child, sleep. So sings a mother to her child in the early days of the settlement in Israel. The song, a well-known lullaby by Natan Alterman, tells of three horsemen who ride out into the night; two get killed and one returns. He who lived does not remember your name, so sleep child, sleep.
Running time: 02:43 min
Year of production: 2009
Name of film: Matan
Created by: Ofeer Hassan (Director), Tomer Gilron (Producer)
Technique: 3D computer animation
Synopsis: A story about a boy on his way to his friend’s birthday party, afraid that everyone will laugh at the present he bought.
Running time: 05:15 min
Year of production: 2007
Name of film: Ishihara
Created by: Yoav Brill
Technique: 2D computer animation
Synopsis: A portrait of the color blind artist.
Running time: 06:04 min
Language of film: English
Year of production: 2010
Name of film: Voyage
Created by: Olga Komosko
Technique: Stop motion, animated objects
Synopsis: An experimental animation that visualizes a train voyage inside an apartment.
Running time: 3:04 min
Year of production: 2009
Name of film: Ducks
Created by: Uri Kranot
Technique: Classic animation
Synopsis: A tale of hunters and the hunted, who will never be
free of the endlessly spinning carrousel.
Running time: 4:09 min
Year of production: 2002
Name of film: Circles
Created by: Jonathan Shohet
Technique: Pixilation
Synopsis: Structured around an insomniac’s journey through the deserted Jerusalem night, this film is an abstract exploration of the love-hate relationship between man, community and urban technology.
Running time: 07:57 min
Year of production: 2006
Name of film: Bor sood
Created by: Anna Shevchenko
Technique: Classic and 2D computer animation
Synopsis: A female buries herself under the earth where she reforms as a raven-like monster. She tries to run away and enters a thick forest, where the monster with a woman’s body and a raven’s head awaits her.
Running time: 6:58 min
Year of production: 2010
Name of film: Hardcover & Paperback
Created by: Uri Alonim, Moshe Servatka
Technique: 3D computer animation
Synopsis: Hardcover meets Paperback, an origami figure just like himself. Their relationship unfolds from their first date to the discovery that will change Hardcover’s point of view.
Running time: 3:00 min
Year of production: 2008
Name of film: Celestina
Created by: Ricardo Werdesheim
Technique: Stop motion, Clay on glass
Synopsis: In a desert wasteland, the scorched ground suddenly cracks. A boy finds himself a witness to events he cannot explain, learning about sin, sorrow, ignorance, redemption and hope.
Running time: 4:22 min
Year of production: 2006
Name of film: wild nature
Created by: Avichai Yeyni, Arik Ben-Ari, Oren Rubin
Technique: 3D computer animation
Synopsis: A National Geographic film crew is shooting a series about Lionesses. Since those are hard to find, they hire a Cow. During the shoot the cow realizes her part is not exactly the one she wanted to play.
Running time: 01:58 min
Language of film: English
Language of subtitles: Hebrew
Year of production: 2008
Name of film: Illuminations
Created by: Itai Froumin
Technique: Oil colors on glass
Synopsis: A choreography based on an original musical score. The movements are a dialogue between the figurative and the abstract, attempting to find a mutual meaning and an affinity between them while emphasizing the polarity.
Running time: 4:20 min
Year of production: 2007
Name of film: Moon Seek
Created by: Dafna Cohen, Elad Dabush
Technique: 3D computer animation
Synopsis: In 1969, Cosmonaut Yuri is left stranded on the moon after a meteorite destroyed his ship. Luckily Apollo 11 arrives, and Yuri seizes the opportunity.
Running time: 3:19 min
Language of film: English
Year of production: 2007
Name of film: Pickles Season
Created by: Ronen Zhurat
Technique: 2D computer Animation
Synopsis: When Ronen and his friends go to the beach, each one is responsible of bringing something. But no one understands, why in addition to the fruit Ronen also brings a jar of pickles. A funny autobiographical film about friends, family and pickles.
Running time: 6:09 min
Language of film: English
Language of Subtitles: English
Year of production: 2006
