Award winning British director Mike Leigh will arrive in Israel on November 20, 2010 as a guest of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School – Jerusalem in the context of the school’s Great Masters program. Leigh’s visit is co-sponsored by the Sam Spiegel School and the Caesarea Foundation. Previous guests of this program have included Wim Wenders and David Lynch.
Leigh will conduct a three day master class for Sam Spiegel students and graduates of the school, and will receive an Honorary Fellowship Award from the school. Leigh’s visit to Israel is coordinated with the Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Haifa cinematheques. A retrospective of Leigh’s films will be shown at all three cinematheques during the month of November.
Discussion sessions with an audience are planned for the Jerusalem and Haifa cinematheques, and Leigh will give a lecture at Cinema Jenin in Jenin. A closed meeting with Israeli industry members will take place at the Tel Aviv cinematheque. Moderated by actor Doron Tavory, 350 Israeli producers, directors, screenwriters, actors and film students will participate.
The Cameri Theatre will host Mike Leigh in a meeting with theatre directors, playwrights, actors and friends of the Cameri Theatre with performances of selected scenes from Leigh’s plays.
Mike Leigh’s latest film, Another Year, which won critical acclaim at the Cannes Festival, will have its commercial release in Israel in December 2010 in Lev Cinemas. The 67 year old Leigh has been nominated six times for an Academy Award: screenwriting and directing of Lies and Secrets, screenwriting and directing of Vera Drake, and for the screenplays of Topsy Turvy and Happy Go Lucky. At the Cannes Festival he has won the Palme D’Or for Lies and Secrets, and Best Director for Naked. Vera Drake won the Golden Lion at the Venice Film Festival.
In recent years Leigh has served as Head of the Board of Directors of the London International Film School. Renen Schorr, Director of the Sam Spiegel School, says, “Mike Leigh is a phenomenon. As a screenwriter and playwright he possesses a rare talent for creating characters, enhanced by his unique methods of working with actors. I heard him in a master class at the Sarajevo Film Festival two years ago – in just a short time he succeeded in inspiring all those present. He has not been in Israel since 1991 and he is full of curiosity and interest in Israeli features and short films. He has come to give of himself.”
Leigh’s visit to Israel is made possible through the support of: The Caesarea Foundation, The British Council bi-arts, The Ministry of Foreign Affairs, The Culture Authority, The Cameri Theatre, Lev Films, The Jerusalem Foundation, The Ostrovsky Foundation, The Israeli Film Fund, The Israel Film and Television Directors Guild, Shaham (the Israeli Screen Actors Guild) and the Beit Zvi School of the Performing Arts.
