Devarim

First part of the trilogy on cities, after the novel “Past Continuous” by Yaakov Shabtai. The film depicts the spiritual disarray of three men in their thirties and forties, in the agitation and turmoil of Tel Aviv, the city created by Jewish pioneers in 1909. None of them has the life he had imagined.

 

“Disenchantment … is the main theme of the film. Gitai’s characters no longer believe in anything. They are not angry, but they no longer understand anything about their own family history. They reject their own legacy. They are disenchanted. They hardly live at all, they merely survive. They meet, wait and hope their lives will pick up, that desire will once again foster desire. Devarim is also the film of a generation that no longer respects the dead. And this disrespect, this derision, this nonchalance is also the political expression of disenchantment. It is as if the sons no longer believe in what passes for the essential values of the state of Israel, of its foundation: the respect for the pioneers, the feeling of affiliation with those who believed in the Zionist utopia.”

Serge Toubiana, Cahiers du cinéma, 1995

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Cast Assi Dayan, Amos Schub, Amos Gitai, Michal Zoharetz, Samuel Calderon, Riki Gal, Menahem Golan, David Cohen, Veronica Gotlieb, Sharon Hacohen, Dan Harden, Lea König, Azaria Rapaport, Galia Spring, Zvi Stolper, Shmuel Wolf

Screenplay Amos Gitai with Gilad Evron, Madi Levy Cinematography Renato Berta Sound Yohai Moshe Music Uri Ofir Editing Zohar M. Sela Production design Thierry François Costumes Laura Dinulescu Casting Ilan Moscovitch

Production Agav Films (France), Mikado Films (Italy), TV1, The Israeli Quality Film Fund (Israel) Producers Laurent Truchot, Roberto Cicutto Line producer Shuki Friedman

 

FESTIVALS

• Venice: Biennale di Venezia/Mostra d’arte cinematografica 1995 – In competition

• London: London Film Festival 1995

• Edimbourg: Edinburgh International Film Festival 1996

• Nantes: Festival des 3 continents 1994 – Best director award

• Jerusalem: Jerusalem Film Festival 1995