The 40th Haifa International Film Festival will take place from October 15 – 26, 2024. The festival will feature award-winning international films that have generated excitement and accolades at major festivals – Berlin, Sundance, Cannes, and Venice – several of them are competing in the Carmel – The International Cinema Competition. Perhaps even more enticing are those hidden gems that every film aficionado hopes to discover at the festival. There’s nothing quite like the thrill of watching a film by a director you have never heard of before and feeling that you are in the presence of a great artist. One place to look for those wonderful lesser-knowns is the Golden Anchor competition – The Debut Film Competition for first or second feature.
French-Jewish director Michel Hazanavicius will be the guest of the festival and will attend the Israeli premiere of his new film The Most Precious of Cargoes, which held its world premiere in the official competition at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Hazanavicius won the Academy Award for Best Director for his 2011 film The Artist. Starring Jean Dujardin and Bérénice Bejo, the black and white, mainly silent, film, set in the waning years of silent film in Hollywood, won the Academy Award for Best Picture at the 84th Academy Awards. The Most Precious of Cargoes is a hand-drawn animated film, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Jean-Claude Grumberg, who co-wrote the screenplay with Hazanavicius. The film follows a poor, Polish, woodcutter (Grégory Gadeois) and his wife (Dominique Blanc), who live in the forest. One day, the wife saves a baby who was thrown from one of the many trains that passed through the forest on their way to concentration camps. The couple are then confronted with a choice – whether they should protect and care for the Jewish baby, a choice that will change their lives.
Closing the festival will be Reading Lolita in Tehran, directed by Eran Riklis, starring acclaimed Iranian actors Golshifteh Farahani and Zar Amir Ebrahimi. The film is an Italian-Israeli co-production based on the bestseller by Azar Nafisi, with a screenplay by Marjorie David. Riklis is well-known for his films The Syrian Bride (the festival will host a special screening of a restored version, celebrating the film’s 20th anniversary), Lemon Tree (2008), Dancing Arabs (2014) and more. Nafisi’s memoir tells of her experiences in Iran as an extremist, oppressive regime took power. Golshifteh Farahani stars as Nafisi, a courageous and dedicated teacher, who gathered seven of her students to conduct secret meetings in her home, reading forbidden classics of Western Literature, such as Nabokov’s Lolita. Farahani made her screen debut at age 14, starring in Dariush Mehrjui’s The Pear Tree. Among her significant film roles are the lead in Asghar Farhadi’s About Elly, which won the Silver Bear at the Berlin International Film Festival and Best Picture at the 2009 Tribeca Film Festival, and her charismatic and whimsical performance as Laura in Jim Jarmusch’s Paterson (2016). Zar Amir Ebrahimi won Best Actress at the Cannes Film Festival for her outstanding performance as journalist Arezoo Rahimi in Holy Spider (2022), directed by Ali Abbasi. She began her career in cinema as a director, with the short film Khat (2000). Most recently, Ebrahimi starred and co-directed together with Guy Nattiv, the political thriller Tatami, which held its world premiere at the 80th Venice International Film Festival and marks the first directorial collaboration between and Iranian and an Israeli filmmaker.
Carmel – The International Cinema Competition
Several films that have already accrued accolades and awards at international festivals will be competing in the Carmel Competition. Anora, written and directed by Sean Baker, (The Florida Project, Red Rocket) won the Palm d’Or at the 77th Cannes Film Festival. Mikey Madison stars as Anora, a young exotic dancer and sex worker from Brooklyn who meets and marries Ivan (Mark Eydelshteyn), the son of a Russian oligarch. It’s a fantasy come true for Ani, as she is known, until Ivan’s parents find out, and no surprise, they are seriously against this match.
Emilia Pérez, directed by Jacques Audiard (A Prophet, Rust and Bones, The Sisters Brothers) won the Jury Prize at the 77th Cannes Film Festival, and its ensemble cast – Zoe Saldaña, Karla Sofía Gascón, Selena Gomez, and Adriana Paz, won Best Actress. The musical crime comedy is based on Audiard’s opera libretto of the same name, and it, in turn, is based on Boris Razon’s 2018 novel Écoute. Karla Sofía Gascón portrays cartel leader Manitas del Monte who wants to leave the profession to transition and live as Emilia. Zoe Saldaña is Rita, the defense attorney who helps Emilia, and Selena Gomez is Jessi, the mother of their children, who is not informed of the plan. Amid the different twists and turns of the plot, Adriana Paz appears later in the film as the intriguingly named Epifanía.
Vermiglio, written and directed by Maura Delpero, premiered at the 81st Venice International Film Festival, where it won the Grand Jury Prize. The film takes place in a remote village in the Italian Alps, towards the end of WWII, and is told in four chapters, each chapter set in a different season. Attilio (Santiago Fontevila), an injured soldier, is carried home by his Sicilian comrade-in-arms, Pietro (Guiseppe de Domenico). As an outsider, Pietro’s attraction to Lucia (Martina Scrinzi), the daughter of the strict schoolteacher, sets off a series of events.
Andrea Arnold’s Bird returns to the social realist landscape of Fish Tank (2009), with newcomer Nykiya Adams starring as 12-year-old Bailey who lives with her young, unemployed father Bug (Barry Keoghan) and her older half-brother Hunter (Jason Edward Buda). Bailey’s mother Peyton (Jasmine Jobson) lives across town with Bailey’s three younger half-siblings. A newcomer, Bird (Franz Rogowski) comes to town, and the film shifts its tone. In addition to film, Arnold has directed several episodes of Big Little Lies and Transparent.
A Real Pain, written, directed, and produced by Jesse Eisenberg, follows cousins follows David (Eisenberg) and Benji (Kieran Culkin) who despite not getting along, come together for a tour through Poland to honor their beloved grandmother. Eisenberg won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award for the film at the Sundance Film Festival.
The Outrun, directed by Nora Fingscheidt, premiered at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival, and stars Saoirse Ronan as Rona, a young woman struggling with alcoholism, who returns to her home in the Orkney Islands. Ronan won a Silver Medal at the Telluride Film Festival for her performance. Spanning three generations of a family in rural China, Xiaoshuai Wang’s Above the Dust focuses on ten-year-old Wo Tu, who longs to have a water pistol like the other boys in his village. Daniele Luchetti’s Confidenza, centers on an affair between Theresa, a student, and her teacher Pietro, that has far-reaching implications. The film is adaptation of Domenico Starnone’s bestselling novel of the same name. Sicilian Letters is a crime drama written and directed by Fabio Grassadonia and Antonio Piazza. Toni Servillo stars as Catello, a politician who helps the Secret Service track down a Cosa Nostra boss, Matteo Messina Denaro. Catello has a link to Matteo, for he has known him all his life.
Opening the Carmel Competition will be Longing, an American remake of Israeli filmmaker Shavi Gabizon’s 2017 film Ga’agua. Directed by Gabizon, the film stars Richard Gere as Daniel, a New York businessman who runs into a former girlfriend, Rachel (Suzanne Clément) who stuns him with the news that years ago she went back to Canada pregnant with their son, Allen, and breaks his heart, with the knowledge that Allen recently died in an accident. Daniel becomes obsessed with learning everything he can about Allen, and travels to Canada, contacting the different people in Allen’s life.
The full program of the Haifa International Film Festival will be available on the website: https://www.haifaff.co.il/eng
