The France-Israel Season of Culture is in full swing, with many events still to come in both countries through November 2018. Since its initiation in 1985, France has held cultural seasons with over 50 countries world-wide, focusing on cross-cultural dialogue in the arts and sciences. The France-Israel Season of Culture includes several hundred events taking place in 50 towns in France and about 20 Israeli locations, with the intent to encourage dialogue over a broad spectrum of disciplines throughout both countries. French events in Israel are curated by Cécile Caillou-Robert, while Israeli events in France are curated by Emmanuel Halperin.
The season has already made its cultural mark in Israel with events at the Israel Festival, Jerusalem Film Festival, the Puppet Festival, and a symposium on the influence of Baroque music as part of the Meet In Galilee Music Festival. Launching the season in June was the exhibition Lifetime by French artist Christian Boltanski at the Israel Museum, jointly curated by Laurence Sigal and Mira Lapidot. Born in 1944, the exhibition covers a span of 30 years in Boltanski’s art, yet the artist regards the exhibition as one artwork. Much of Christian Boltanski’s work refers to the murder of Jews by Nazis in WWII, as in Altar to the Chases High School which employs relatively simple means – light, photographs and old tin boxes. Evoking the memory of those students whose eventual fate is unknown, such works are also a touchpoint to connect to broader considerations of individual and collective memory. The exhibit will be open until November 3, 2018.
Among the events still to come is the French booth at the DLD Tel Aviv Innovation Festival, September 3 – 6, 2018. A good time to visit might be the Happy Hour, sponsored by French Tech and Business France on September 5th at 15:00. Earlier that day, there will be a VIP lunch with the participation of Mr Mounir Mahjoubi, Minister of State for the Digital Sector and Her Excellency Hélène Le Gal, French Ambassador in Israel. Check the DLD website to find out more! No need to make reservations, everyone is invited – admission free – to the celebration of Tropisme at TEDER (9 Jaffa Road). The Montpellier based music festival has been making waves for the past 4 years and will bring its cool scene to Tel Aviv for one night only, featuring Chloé and Kazy Lambist. French composer and DJ Chloé Thévenin (known as Chloé) is a central figure on the electronic music scene in France. She’ll be performing tracks from her latest album Endless Revisions. Doors open at 20:00 with a DJ set, followed by Chloé at 22:00, and Kazy Lambist, a hot new producer on the scene at midnight.
As you go about your daily routine, don’t forget that VENµS might be watching you… VENµS is Israel’s first environmental satellite, a joint project of the Israel Space Agency and the French space agency CNES. Launched on August 2, 2017, the micro-satellite is equipped with a camera that can visualize details on Earth that are not discernable by the unaided eye. VENµS will observe nature, monitoring about 110 different areas around the world for land conditions, forestry, agriculture, the quality of water sources and other aspects of environmental research. In Israel, the satellite will photograph areas in the Galilee, the coastal area and the Negev Desert, sending the images to the research center at the Sde Boker campus of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, headed by Prof. Arnon Karnieli. During the month of October there will be several exhibitions featuring photographs taken by VENµS, accompanied by additional information on its function and technology. The exhibitions will be shown at the Haifa Madatech Museum, The Bloomfield Science Museum Jerusalem, the Clore Garden of Science in Rehovot, the Carasso Science Park in Beer Sheva, and the Museum of Human Sciences and the Environment in Petah Tikvah. World Space Week (October 4 – 10) events will also include a lecture on the VENµS satellite.
October and November will herald Cine-reel, an exciting cross-cultural event in which the curators of eight cinematheques in Israel and France will change places! Four French program directors will ‘take over’ from October 9 – 16, 2018, screening 12 French films at the Tel Aviv, Holon, Jerusalem, and Haifa cinematheques. Then, from November 22 – 29, 2018, Israeli program directors – Michal Lavie (Holon), Navot Barnea (Jerusalem), Pini Shatz (Tel Aviv), and Dr. Nogit Altschuler (Haifa) – will bring 12 Israeli films to France.
In another friendly takeover, TEDER will take command at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on November 15, 2018 for French Touch – a night of multidisciplinary art from Israel and France. The event will feature films, concerts, lectures, dance, and performance, from 20:00 and on into the night. Among the guests from France will be Dany Cohn-Bendit and Romain Goupil with their film On the Road in France, a journey through the republic, 50 years after the events of May ’68.
The full program and additional information may be found on the France-Israel Season of Culture website.
