Amos Gitai Movies
A former architecture student who turned to filmmaking following a harrowing near-death experience, Amos Gitai entered the world of film as a documentarian and gradually gravitated toward more fictional celluloid subjects. Gitai's sometimes controversial works often strive to make sense of the endless cycle of violence in the Middle East, and his acute sense of social conscience often bleeds through even into his fictional works.Gitai was born just two years after the state of Israel was established; his father was a classically trained architect and his mother the daughter of Zionist pioneers. After mandatory military service, the future director attempted to follow in his father's footsteps by studying architecture at Haifa's Technion Institute. It wasn't long before he ventured stateside to study at the University of California-Berkley. Gitai's education was interrupted with the breakout of the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and it was while embarking on a search and rescue mission over Syria that his life would change forever. When the helicopter he was riding in was shot down by enemy gunfire, the cockpit exploded and the ensuing crash killed nearly everyone onboard except for Gitai. Though he would escape the tragedy with only minor physical injuries, the event shook the student to his very core -- sparking a move toward filmmaking by means of a Super-8 camera given to him by his mother as a birthday present.
Gitai's early abstract short films were comprised of obscure images of landscapes and political rallies, and revealed his rare gift for capturing powerful images; his ability to form a compelling narrative structure developed soon thereafter. In the years that followed, Gitai gained a worldwide reputation as a filmmaker unafraid to tackle difficult subjects who was unflinching in his dedication to exploring conflict and resolve to its fullest. Gitai focused his lens on everything from such intensely personal subjects as his home and family life to the intricate layers of life in the Middle East. Early efforts such as House (1978) and Field Diary (1982) explored the tragedy of Palestinian history so deeply that they were, not surprisingly, censored. After returning stateside to earn his Ph.D. in architecture from the University of California-Berkeley, Gitai even turned his lens on the United States for such works as In Search of Identity (1980) and American Mythologies (1981). A move to Paris found Gitai exploring the life of an exile in such fictional works as Berlin Jerusalem (1989, winner of the critic's prize at the Venice Film Festival). Frequent collaborations with acclaimed cinematographer Henri Alékan ensured that his films would be as visually compelling as their subject matter was mentally stimulating. After moving back to his hometown of Haifa in the mid-'90s, Gitai was as busy as ever behind the camera. Following his exploration of the events that changed his life in the 2000 war drama Kippur, Gitai contributed the segment "Israel" to the episodic drama 11'09''01 -- September 11, which probed the devastating effects of the terrorist attack on the United States on the eponymous date. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 2009
While Israel is a nation that has been in the center of the public eye ever since its birth, its national cinema has received relatively little attention, and only a handful of Israeli films have received extensive distribution outside the country. Raphael Nadjari at once addresses the story of filmmaking in Israel, the politics and aesthetics behind Israeli cinema, and how the nation's film industry has grown outside the interference of the west in this documentary. A History of Israeli Cinema is divided into two parts; the first half covers the years 1932 to 1978, beginning with Zionist films shot in Palestine by Jewish directors from Europe, and the second part is devoted to 1978-2005, when filmmakers embraced what locals critics called "The New Sensibility" and features with brave and defiant Sephardic heroes gave way to more nuanced fare dealing with the spiritual, political and ethical grey areas of a nation of immigrants. Along with extensive clips from a broad variety of key films, the documentary also includes interviews with noted film critic, actors and directors who talk about cinema and its role in a nation whose story is still being written. A History Of The Israeli Cinema received its world premiere at the 2009 Berlin Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
Directed by Amos Gitai, Alila is based on Yehoshua Kenaz's novel Returning Lost Love and chronicles the trials and tribulations of every day life in Tel Aviv. Most of the film revolves around an apartment block on the working-class borders of Tel Aviv, where the trysts of residents Hezi (Amos Lavie) and Gabi (Yael Abecassis) attract their neighbors' attention, as does the unauthorized construction of an additional wing to the building. A neighboring family patriarch, meanwhile, is dealing with legal troubles (he hired illegal Chinese construction workers), the AWOL status of his son, and his wife's affair with a younger man. A Holocaust survivor (Yosef Carmon) and his Filipino housekeeper (Lyn Shiao Zamir) further illustrate the conflict between Jews, Jews of different extractions, and Arabs in the community. ~ Tracie Cooper, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yaël Abecassis, Uri Ran Klauzner, (more)
- 1984
Wandering from scene to scene instead of focusing on the issue at hand, this story is meant to be about Thai workers finding jobs in Arab countries like Bahrain while leaving their country and their wives behind them. Instead of staying with this theme, interludes like a prince in Bahrain giving a tour of his mansion, and a film censor discussing film detract from the ostensible purpose of director Amos Gitai. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
This difficult-to-follow arthouse film explores the parallel stories of two very idealistic Zionist women who never met in real life. The story concerns the German poet Elsa Lasker-Schuller and the Russian Mania Schochat. Elsa (Lisa Krezer) lives in 1920's Berlin as Germany is degenerating into the chaos from which Hitler will emerge. Mania (Rivka Neumann) is living in Palestine, amid some of the first and most rigorous experiments in genuinely Marxist living, at a radical kibbutz. Each survives to be present at the beginning of the Jewish state, and each is sorely disillusioned. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Lisa Kreuzer, Markus Stockhausen, (more)
- 1987
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart were at the height of their popularity in the group The Eurythmics, when this film of their concert tour of Japan was made. Despite the fact that the performers have little of interest to offer in their offstage moments, the concert footage shows that they know how to entertain onstage. Further, reviewers fell all over themselves in their praise for the director's skill in filming the event. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- 2009
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai offers an impressionistic look at his nation's long history of armed conflict in this experimental feature. Carmel begins with a recreation of a battle from the first century, with Hebrews fighting off an invading Roman army, and the cascade of images that follows explores the theme of war and violence in Israeli history. The film also touches on the war of 1973 Yom Kippur War (which Gitai himself fought in) and current waves of terrorism and violence, as well as the less aggressive but equally telling conflicts that are a part of everyday life and the role of the media in feeding a culture of brutality and reprisal. Carmel features narration from the legendary French actress Jeanne Moreau and an eclectic musical score than runs the gamut from Gustav Mahler to the Israeli punk rock band the Jews. Carmel was an official selection at the 2009 Toronto International Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- 1993
In this documentary, director Amos Gitai turns the spotlight on an incident which took place between two skinheads and a man who asserted that he had Jewish blood. While Gitai makes every effort to develop a pattern of anti-Semitism from the incident, through interviewing townspeople, witnesses and prosecutors, reviewers found that the aggregate impression they received after viewing the film was that some not-too-intelligent and overly aggressive men had simply engaged in a drinking contest which turned nasty. Despite that, the film provides a clear sense of the social barriers and frustrations which many young Germans experience today. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
This Israeli drama is based on Yaakov Shabtai's novel Past Continuous and tells the story of three men living in Tel Aviv. Caesar loves his wife and son; he is devastated that they have separated. Now he leads a miserable life in a run-down apartment shared with the sluggardly Israel, a dead-beat musician. Together the two set off to attend the funeral of their friend Goldman's father. Unfortunately, they cannot find the right cemetery. Later the story shifts to their complex love lives. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
- 2007
Forced Israeli evictions from the Gaza Strip yield tremendous personal strife for a pair of cross-cultural lovers in Disengagement, director Amos Gitai's meditation on the complex relationship between interpersonal and national politics in the Middle East. Juliette Binoche stars as Ana, a woman of mixed Dutch and Palestinian origin residing in Avignon, where her biological father has just died. Newly arrived in town is her adoptive brother, the Franco-Israeli Uli (Liron Levo), with whom Ana shares a relationship so passionate that it consistently transgresses sibling boundaries. While Uli comes to terms with his foster father's passing and prepares for an upcoming work assignment that involves aggressively shuttling Israeli settlers out of Gaza, Ana visits her father's attorney (French screen legend Jeanne Moreau), takes the steps to end her unfulfilling marriage, and hopes to make contact with her long-abandoned daughter, currently residing in the Israeli settlement of Gaza. To achieve this goal, Ana insists on accompanying Uli during his trip -- but doesn't count on numerous complications that arise, including a forced separation from Uli and lengthy travels with the settlers themselves, who have grown doggedly certain that God would never allow their geographic displacement to occur. ~ Nathan Southern, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Juliette Binoche, Liron Levo, (more)
- 2001
Following up on his masterful, heart-wrenching war-drama Kippur, veteran Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitaï directs his first English language work based on a novel by Arthur Miller. Set in 1939, the film centers on Kalman, a young ambitious Jewish businessman who leaves his aged father in Europe to be with his sister, Sam (Samantha Morton), in Palestine. There he finds that Sam is living with Dov, an idealistic architect obsessed with the work of the Bauhaus school. Sam, in turn, is helping professor Oscar Kalkofsky, whose visionary ideas about the future Israeli state is one of collaboration with the Arabs already living in Palestine. Another member in this intellectual group is Silvia, who passionately argues for a separate state apart from the Arabs. When the war breaks out, illegal Jewish immigrants flood into Britain from Europe resulting in the formation of the Jewish Brigade by the British Army. This film was screened at the 2001 Toronto Film Festival. ~ Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Samantha Morton, Thomas Jane, (more)
In this experimental film that deals metaphorically with Arab-Jewish relations in the Middle East, left-leaning director Amos Gitai uses Biblical history to comment on the current situation in Israel and its vicinity. This story deals in part with the Jewess Esther and how she managed to save her people from extermination after she became the wife of the king of Persia. But the setting is a slum near Haifa and the ancient city of Acre. As the mummers walk through their parts with lines taken from the scriptures, the camera moves slowly through scenes or stops entirely. Sounds of the modern world start to intrude on the ancient setting, and in the final sequences of the film, the actors now wear modern clothes as they walk through the streets of Acre, each telling their own personal history -- and a parallel emerges between the ancient story of Esther saving the Jews and the modern Middle East. The cast is comprised of both Arab and Jewish actors. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Simona Binyamini, Shmuel Wolf, (more)
A Jewish-American woman still reeling from her breakup with her Spanish-Israeli fiancée hits the road with a middle-aged Israeli woman, who is looking to collect the 30,000-dollar debt owed to her by her husband's former business partner, and a Palestinian woman, who claims to know the elusive moneyman's whereabouts, in this road-trip drama from Kippur director Amos Gitai. In her efforts to escape the painful memory of her breakup with former fiancée Julio (Aki Avni), Rebecca (Natalie Portman) agrees to accompany Hanna (Hanna Laslo) on her arduous journey through Israel to the Free Zone -- a tax- and customs-free region where those from countries at war with one another amiably buy and sell cars -- in hopes of collecting a large debt owed to her by her ailing husband's business partner known only as "The American." When Hanna and Rebecca finally arrive in the Free Zone only to discover that Hanna's contact and money have mysteriously gone missing, a Palestinian woman named Leila (Hiam Abbass) agrees to lead the skeptical Hanna to both "The American" and Hanna's rightly due cash. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Natalie Portman, Hanna Laslo, (more)
In modern-day Paris, a cabalist known as the Maharal has created a golem, an artificial being constructed of earth and clay, infused with spirit through the recitation of a special formula. The legendary being he brings to life is known in this instance as "The Spirit of Exile," and the magician's goal in creating her was to create a protector for Jews in need of one. In this movie, the golem is motivated to assist numerous people whose lives are marked by tragedy. In the main story, she must try to help Shemesh, a woman whose many troubles cause her to resemble the Biblical character of Job. She has been evicted from her home after her husband and sons die, and she and her daughter-in-law must find some means for surviving their difficult situation. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Hanna Schygulla, Vittorio Mezzogiorno, (more)
In this exploration of the mythical Golem, former Eurythmics fromtwoman Annie Lennox and director Amos Gitai use the tale of the vengeful clay statue come to life as a parable for the creative process. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
Instead of simply traveling to eastern Siberia to collect a modern art collection willed to him by a forgotten uncle, Daniel (Jerome Koenig), who runs an art gallery in Paris, decides (for reasons which are never explained) to bring a ten-foot long hand along with him. It is perhaps a portion of a huge sculpture of a golem (an artifical being dicussed in Jewish legends). Thus, instead of flying to Vladivostok, he rents a truck in St. Petersburg and drives across Russia. Along the way, he drops hints about a short-lived experiment in social engineering: Birobidjian, an autonomous region created in Siberia in 1928 especially for Jews. Hanna Schygulla, who starred in the first film of this trilogy, also makes a brief appearance in this, the second. Sam Fuller, a pet of the European filmmaking community, also makes a brief appearance. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Jerome Koening, Hanna Schygulla, (more)
- 1998
Two decades after highlighting the growing pains of Israel in his 1978 documentary The House, director Amos Gitai reveals how each successive resident of the longstanding residence serves as a metaphor for the conditions in the young nation. By exploring the surrounding neighborhood, Gitai underscores the volatile conditions experienced by the Israelis who chose to settle in this part of Jerusalem while casting a light on the suffering experienced by the expropriated Palestinian family that contends with the pain of seeing something that was once theirs, and knowing that they'll never have it again. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide
- 1983
In spite of difficulties posed by soldiers, officials, and other authorities who tried to stop him from filming, director Amos Gitai stubbornly forged ahead with this documentary on the Israeli occupied areas of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Life in these regions is shown in all its variety, from the Israeli soldiers who mainly support the occupation (one does suggest the land should be returned to the Palestinians), to the markets and towns bustling with activity, to the farmers at work. There is also an interview with a mayor who was permanently disabled in a bomb blast, and overall, an attempt was made to present a complete picture of both Palestinian and Israeli life in these disputed territories. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide
A dark drama of women living in a society where they are second-class citizens, Kadosh/Sacred begins with Meir, an Orthodox Jew living in the Mea Shearim district of Jerusalem, greeting the day with his morning prayers, which includes the phrase, "Thank you, oh Lord, for not having made me a woman." Meir begins to understand just how poorly regarded women can be in the Orthodox faith when his rabbi suggests he should leave his wife. Meir and Rivka (Yael Abecassis) have been married for ten years and have a solid relationship based on affection and mutual respect. However, they have been unable to have children, and as Meir is reminded, the Talmud says a woman without children may as well be dead. Consequently, the rabbi advises Meir to divorce Rivka and take up with a younger woman who can give him a family. Meanwhile, Rivka's younger sister, Malka (Meital Barda), is soon to wed Yossef (Uri Ran Klauzner) in a match arranged by their parents, even though Malka loves another man, Yaakov (Sami Hori), who has dared to question the teachings of the Orthodox faith. Yossef soon proves to be blind to Malka's emotional and physical needs, and she begins to wonder how long she can continue to live within this circle, even though it is the only world she knows. Destined to be controversial in its native Israel, Kadosh/Sacred was shown in competition at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Yaël Abecassis, Yoram Hattab, (more)
Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai directed this historical drama based on a true story of the conflict between Jewish refugees and Palestinians on the eve of the formation of the nation of Israel. On May 7, 1948, a freight ship, the Kedma, arrived on the coast of Palestine, carrying a load of Jewish refugees from Europe who had survived concentration camps in several nations. A few days later, the state of Israel would be created, but at the time, the passengers of the Kedma found themselves in the midst of a war, as they were greeted by British gunfire on one side, while on the other the Jewish underground army known as the Palmach stood by to defend them. The Palmach took many of the Kedma's refugees into hiding, while the rest were given weapons and asked to fight alongside the Palmach against the British and Palestinians. Over the next several days, the Palestinians and their British allies find themselves fighting with the Palmach soldiers and the Jewish refugees while interacting with one another as both sides realize how close and how far away they truly are. The cast includes Roman Hazanowski, Menachem Lang, Juliano Mer, Yussef Abu Warda, and Andrei Kashkar. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Andrei Kashker, Helena Yaralova, (more)
Filmmaker Amos Gitai was a first-hand witness to the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which troops from Egypt and Syria chose one of the holiest days of the Jewish calendar to launch a surprise attack on Israel. This film examines the short but bloody conflict through the eyes of a student, Weinraub (Liron Levo). Weinraub and his friend Russo (Tomer Russo) have been instructed to join a special military unit on the Golan Heights shortly after the fighting begins, but in the confusion they are instead thrown in with an emergency medical team led by Dr. Klauzner (Uri Ran Klauzner). Weinraub and Ruso help Klauzner and his men rescue the wounded, and they find themselves in as much danger as the soldiers on the front line, as the fighting rages on around them and their helicopter is hit by enemy fire. Meanwhile, on the ground another doctor (Pini Mittleman) tries to preserve an oasis of calm and medical discipline in the midst of war. Kippur was shown in competition at the 2000 Cannes Film Festival. ~ Mark Deming, All Movie Guide
- Starring:
- Uri Ran Klauzner
- 1997
Amos Gitai wrote and directed this Israeli documentary diary in which the filmmaker reflects on his role as a 23-year-old soldier in the 1973 Yom Kippur War, incorporating super-8mm footage he shot at that time. Gitai interviews survivors of a mission when a helicopter was shot down over Syria. Shown at the 1997 Venice Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
- 1994
This controversial Italian documentary, which is part of a trilogy by Israeli filmmaker Amos Gitai, profiles the political career of mayoral candidate and leader of the neo-fascist Alleanza Nazionale party, Alessandra Mussolini (granddaughter of fascist dictator Benito Mussolini). The film does not paint a flattering portrait of the politician, and she launched an unsuccessful campaign to have the film banned. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
