"State-Less" Comes to Local Cinematheques

If you do film programming, you know that documentaries about musicians and artists can be very attractive to your audience.  State-Less, directed by Sharon Hoter-Ishay, is a new and award-winning art-film about an artist-musician named Adi Khavous.  The film is currently playing at Cinematheques around Israel.

Adi Khavous has been living in Montreal for years.  He sings and plays with a talented hard rock group – the SpoonLickers -- but admits that it barely pays to support him.  When he comes home to Israel for a visit, he stays with friends, since his father is living in France and his mother lives in a spiritual center.  

Adi is a compelling and unique human being, with a tendency towards personal introspection and a mischievous upcurl in his hair.  He is quite off-beat, living a life of unease and loneliness, searching for meaning and belonging.  He says he doesn’t feel comfortable abroad, and he doesn’t feel comfortable back in Israel.  He does wall art – a sophisticated and meaningful form of art for public consumption, much more provocative than graffiti – and large-scale installations.  And he dreams of becoming a success in the music world – and at the end of the film, he does find a new kind of success, but not the one he has envisioned!

State-Less offers a special look at a special figure -- a documentary (48 minutes) available directly from the filmmaker – state.less.is.wow@gmail.com or check out the website.www.State-Less.com

Jewish Art: Mixing the Sacred and the Mundane

At the age of 60, Jo Milgrom became an assemblage artist, collecting junk from Jerusalem trash pails ("the discards of everyday life") and recycling her finds into new works of art. In a short documentary, Torah Treasures and Curious Trash, directors Paula Weiman-Kelman and Ricki Rosen offer a portrait of this learned and artistic woman and her unique vision of Jewish art.  

 

Today, Milgrom is 87-years-old and her Jerusalem home is decorated with dozens of pieces of her art. Years ago, she received a collection of abandoned ritual objects from a funeral parlor in San Francisco.  Instead of letting them bury these objects in a geniza, she recycled them into works of art which are meaningful and extraordinary.  Using tefillin boxes and torah mantles, and mixing them with ordinary junk, she creates art which is provocative, both religiously and politically, a type of visual midrash.   

For example, a few of her pieces deal with the sacrifice of Isaac, and one piece in particular is a political statement about our sons in uniform and how they are being sacrificed on the political altar.  In another piece, she uses phone wires and attaches them to a tefillin box to show "voices" coming out of the box. 

Jo Milgrom is a mother, grandmother and great-grandmother.  She is also an articulate and provocative artist who recycles everyday materials into new "works of creation." 

Torah Treasures and Curious Trash offers an extraordinary portrait of an iconoclastic woman who challenges the traditional uses of religious objects by imbuing them with new life.  The film (24 minutes) is being screened this summer at the upcoming San Francisco Jewish Film Festival and is available from 7th Art Releasing.

Tel Aviv -- the city that never sleeps

Tel Aviv is an amazing and vibrant city that is almost impossible to define or describe.  But filmmaker Nellu Cohn does an amazing job of capturing what is unique and special about the city in Tel Aviv Live (documentary, 50 minutes).  This is a stupendous film about art and artists and about the culture of a city.

Tel Aviv is a city of festivals, dance, music, theater, opera, cinema, beach parties, night life, literature, concerts and parades.  This film provides some historical context for all of these art forms, and at the same time, permits us to hear from some of the greatest artists themselves.  Menashe Kadishman, painter and sculptor, talks about some of the early influences on his work.  Author Etgar Keret says that you can find in the local art a search for what it means to live in Tel Aviv.  Singer Noa (Achinoam Nini) talks about how you can see, in Tel Aviv, the roots in people's art, but also their need to break free. She says that Tel Aviv "offers progress, release, joy!"

There is also a discussion of the role or place of politics in cultural expression.  Graphic artist and designer Tartakover focuses on the fact that the Occupation influences absolutely all cultural expression in this country. Obviously fringe theater deals head-on with political complexity, but repertory theater quite blatantly ignores political expression.  Etgar Keret admits that his writings offer a reflection of human complexity and less so deal with political issues.  Noa, on the other hand, talks about her collaboration with Palestinian singer, Mira Awad, as a form of political expression. She knows that most popular singers do not express political opinions but she feels obligated to do so.

This is a superior film dealing with artists and cultural expression, which captures the essence and vitality of a city.  Tel Aviv Live  is available from Ruth Diskin Films.