The clip is jarring, disturbing, and powerful; the reality it describes is no less unsettling. Documenting an absorption center where Russian youths who immigrated to Israel alone spend 9 months in preparation for a new life in Israel, “Step by Step” by Vitali Krivich is a film in progress. A short clip presented at the recent CoPro pitching session in May 2011, elicited the following comment from Rudy Buttignol President and CEO of Knowledge Network, “[I] thought this would piss off a lot of people so I immediately loved it.”
The images are grim and lurid, depicting young people (ages roughly 16 – 20) far away from family and home, cooped up in a building in the north of Israel with strict discipline – they are not allowed to go out, work, have television or internet in their rooms, they have barely any contact with the outside world, and every incentive to cut loose and break all the rules. At 24, Vitali Krivich is not much older than these students. “Step by Step” his first feature, has been commissioned by Yes Docu, edited by Doron Suliman, the film is produced by Haim Meckelberg, Estee Yaakov-Meckelberg and 2TEAM Productions.
Krivich came to Israel as an immigrant from Russia, arriving in 1999 with his family and residing in the north. The frame story is a familiar one: his father spent a year in Israel working then returned and “it was decided somehow to immigrate…it all happened very quickly.” Krivich was then twelve and a half. He majored in film and communications in high school, graduating with honors while finding time to spend two years as a broadcaster on a pirate radio station. He struck out on his own at age 16, and eventually found his way to Tel Aviv. “I was afraid to come here alone,” recalled Krivich, “I didn’t know anybody. Tel Aviv seemed like a foreign country, moving to Tel Aviv was a kind of immigration, aliya. I thought, if I find a study program, then I have enough of a reason to come.” Krivich studied film at Minshar, and it was there that the current project began: an assignment to make a short documentary, up to 15 minutes in length.
“When I received the assignment I contacted the Jewish Agency and they sent me to a few different places because they didn’t really understand what I wanted and I didn’t really know what I was looking for,” said Krivich. He looked at absorption centers in the south and center of the country but didn’t find that elusive quality he was searching for until he received a phone call telling him about yet another place, an absorption center in Karmiel. “It was winter, raining, really cold and I hate winter,” said Krivich, “and I thought: fuck, I’ll have to go all the way over there.” Once there, he was astonished by what he found.
“I didn’t imagine that places like this exist, an isolated, closed off building where there are only young people, they’re just kids. The funny thing is that this is the first time in my life that I felt that there was some difference between me and young people at that time I could have said of myself – I’m young, but I met people who were 17, 18 years old and I was 22 or 23. That difference of only a few years was really noticeable. It was a little strange.”
Seeing the clip for “Step by Step” it is obvious that Krivich had incredible access to the place and the people, perhaps enhanced by an affinity to the students at the center: the Russian language, background as an immigrant and his youth. On his part, the connection and dedication to the project was intense. He recalls, “After a few weeks I started shooting there with a small camera and I was up there every spare minute – if I wasn’t in school or working, whenever I had a few hours to spare. I spent lots of money on transportation, going by sherut cab, train or bus. It would take two or three hours. I was there every weekend Thursday through Saturday from January to June, until they finished the program.”
“Because it is my first movie and I talked to lots of people and the best advice I got from documentary filmmakers was that if you want to make a film about a place you need to live there. Now, I couldn’t actually move in there, that was impossible, although I would have done it. I was there as much as I could, and it helped.”
The group of immigrants depicted in the film completed their program in June 2010 and have each gone their separate ways; a small minority returned to Russia, the others are either students in a mehina (a pre-academic program administered by the universities in Israel) or are serving in the IDF. Krivich remains in touch with them and has continued filming their experiences in Israel, although not with the same intensity. The core of the film is the experience of these youths at the absorption center. “Step by Step” is entering its final stages as Krivich reflects and structures the material, towards the film’s final editing and completion.
The essential questions generated by these youth’s experiences continue to puzzle and fascinate. “How do you leave everything at age 16 and come here?” said Krivich, “They give them a free ticket and promise them a bright future, put them in this absorption center in Karmiel, and they are stuck there for 9 months… When my father told me, I thought: Wow, to move to Israel! I didn’t know anything about Israel except for the little that I’d heard from people. I imagined tall buildings like Las Vegas, something like a big city in America… that I’d have great games.”
When asked what he thinks his life would have been like had he remained in Russia, in a place Krivich describes as a “hole”, his answer is unequivocal: “Everything would be completely different.”
Would he be making films?
“No,” said Krivich, “Chances are I’d study something that my parents chose and managed to get me into some university through connections, someone who knows someone… I’d probably be a dentist.”
Although the film is not yet finished, Krivich is very clear about his intentions, “I’m not dealing with politics. It’s a movie about people. I don’t have an opinion about politics, I don’t vote, it doesn’t interest me. I came and filmed and my aim is to convey the atmosphere of the place and the people.”
Step by Step, directed by Vitali Krivich
Editor: Doron Suliman
Producers: Haim Meckelberg, Estee Yaakov Meckelberg, 2TEAM Productions
Cinematography: Vitali Krivich, Additional cinematography: Arie Shusterovich, Daniella Nowitz
The photograph of Vitali Krivich is by Laurent Burst.
[…] The director quickly becomes one of them, and they reveal to him and his camera, what is really going on, both within the absorption center and within their young hearts. This allows us to witness the deep rift that is gradually emerging between their idealistic dream and the questions that are starting to surface. “Can Israel really become our home?” “Do they even want us here?” And then there is the most important question of all: “Did we put the natural process of maturing on hold and waste almost a year in an effort to achieve the impossible?” Read more about the process of making House of Fun here, in Midnight East’s interview with Vitali Krivich. […]
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