A Delightful New Comedy Starring Sasson Gabai and Lior Ashkenazi

Karaoke, direction and screenplay by Moshe Rosenthal, is a great comedy with a serious twist, that offers an all-star cast: Sasson Gabai, Lior Ashkenazi, and Rita Shukrun, who are all well-known veteran Israeli actors. It is no surprise, therefore, that the acting was tremendous!  The film won a prize at the Jerusalem Film, Festival for debut film.

Karaoke, which is quite memorable, is about neighbors in one particular apartment building in Holon who all have major disappointments in life, harbor continual regrets, and are dreaming of social-climbing.

This is the story of a middle-aged, suburban couple, Meir (Sasson Gabai) and Tova (Rita Shukrun), living in a suburb that doesn’t have a lot of culture or nightlife.  Things become complicated for Meir and Tova when a charismatic and cosmopolitan neighbor, Yitzik (Lior Ashkenazi) moves into the penthouse in their building.  Yitzik is single and lives in the world of stylish, beautiful people.  He is someone who succeeded in business abroad, drives the fanciest car, and enjoys life. 

Meir and Tova want to be friends with their suave, new neighbor who has the loudest parties and important friends.  They yearn to be more than run-of-the-mill middle-class types.  They want to be part of the international scene, to reach a higher status and to be seen as classy. After meeting their larger-than-life neighbor, Meir, who has been very quiet and reticent all his life, begins styling his hair, Tova envisions herself as being better than her neighbors, and their sex life improves! 

Almost the entire film takes place in the apartment building, except for two wonderful scenes.  One scene is when Yitzik takes Meir out on his motorcycle at night.  Just picture the two of them riding together on the motorcycle, wearing helmets, wind blowing in their faces, Sasson Gabai clinging to Lior Ashkenazi.  The other wonderful scene is when Tova and Meir dress up (quite pathetically) to go out together for a drink in their neighborhood.

The musical karaoke numbers are very striking, helping the viewer see the characters in a new light.  At the screening at the Jerusalem Film Festival this week which I attended in the presence of the filmmaker, Moshe Rosenthal, he admitted that the film reflects his parents’ generation and has a personal background for him. There was a lot of music in his family and this motivated him to use karaoke as a tool to bring music into the film.  He said that he recalls from years ago that even his own parents looked with envy when they saw a really cool couple at a family wedding party! 

A social satire, Karaoke, a really enjoyable comedy, is available from Gaudeamus Productions.

  

Shoshana Damari

 Most people  who know anything about Israeli culture would agree that Shoshana Damari was one of the greatest Israeli singers of all time.  Her memorable songs are easily recognizable and her story of great popularity is envied by everyone in the Israeli music business. Her exotic and exuberant style and her incredible power and charisma on stage made her an international star, bringing a bit of Israel around the world.

A new, superb documentary, Queen Shoshana, directed by Kobi Farag and Morris Ben Mayor, uses wonderful old footage of media interviews, performances and concert tours, to introduce us to the wonderful story of the life of Shoshana Damari (1923-2006). She came to Palestine from Yemen in 1925 with her parents and siblings (she was the youngest of five children), and the family lived in Rishon Letzion, south of Tel Aviv.  In 1940, she married at the age of 16, to Shlomo Bosmi, who helped get her career launched.  Even before the establishment of the State of Israel, she went on tour to Cyprus to sing for the refugees who were being held there in DP camps after World War II, awaiting permission to immigrate to Israel. 

Her first big hit was the song Kalaniot, music by Moshe Wilensky, which is one of the most well-known songs in popular Israeli culture to this day.  People in Israel love going out to nature in February and March, singing the song, looking for the large swaths of wild red anemones (for which the song is written).  This was a remarkable collaboration – between a Yemenite singer and a Polish music writer – which brought people around the world to note the successful multiculturalism of Israeli society.  Check out this youtube video clip in memory of Shoshana Damari, featuring the song Kalaniot.

Just at the time that she was rising to stardom, her daughter, Nava, was born.  Shortly thereafter, in the 1950s, when Damari spent so much time traveling and working on developing her career, a controversy arose over the fact that she seemed to be choosing career over family life, something no one would have criticized a man for doing, and certainly would not question a woman about today.  

The film provides a very intimate look at the life and achievements of a remarkable woman.  There is fabulous footage of so many performances – at Carnegie Hall, singing for the troops during the Yom Kippur War – and so many Israeli radio and TV interviews.  In 1987, she was awarded the Israel Prize for her contribution to Hebrew song.  The film also offers a glimpse at relationships in her personal life – with her husband and daughter -- and collaborations in her professional life – with Moshe Wilensky, Matti Caspi and Idan Raichel.

Queen Shoshana (114 minutes, documentary) was produced with funding from many Israeli film funds, including the Film and Media Collaborative of three funds – Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, Avi Chai, and Maimonides.  I am proud to say that I sit on the decision-making committee of this body.

A Memorable Holocaust Documentary

With Yom HaShoah coming up next week, you might be interested in this fascinating piece of Holocaust history.  

The Return of the Violin, directed by Chaim Hecht, a veteran Israeli journalist and documentary filmmaker, is a riveting and superb Holocaust documentary about a violin, a Polish American wealthy businessman, the history of the Jews of Czestochowa (a city in southern Poland which was made up of 40% Jews before World War II), the establishment of the Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s in what was then called Palestine, and the rebuilding of Jewish culture in contemporary Poland.  The film tells the story of an 18^th century Stradivarius violin which was once owned by Bronislaw Huberman, founder of the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra, and was later purchased by American virtuoso, Joshua Bell, one of the greatest Jewish violinists of our time.  Combining seemingly disparate elements, it includes intrigue, personal Holocaust stories, and wonderful music, which is interweaved beautifully throughout the film.

The hero of the film is a remarkable man named Sigmund Rolat who hid as a child in Czestochowa during the Holocaust, witnessed terrible tragedies and lost all of his family, and eventually escaped Poland and found his way as a refugee to America where he became a very successful businessman.  After the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent collapse of communism throughout Eastern Europe, he and others go back to visit and to help rebuild Poland, by establishing memorials to their beloved family members who did not survive, by supporting local Polish culture (such as the local university), and by re-establishing Jewish culture in many places in Poland, including the now famous Jewish Cultural Festival in Crakow.

In addition to Rolat, the film director, Chaim Hecht, also has a very special relationship to Czestochowa. His grandmother grew up there.   Along with Jewish descendants from this once thriving Jewish town who now live all over the world, Rolat and other Jewish philanthropists have established the Jewish Museum of Czestochowa in this city, to honor the memory of their ancestors and to be a permanent place of remembrance of Jewish culture in that city.

On the site where the magnificent grand synagogue of Czestochowa once stood (it was burnt down by the Nazis), the government of Poland built a concert hall.  In an act of daring and brilliance, Rolat came up with an idea to produce a concert in that hall, in memory of the Jews of Czestochowa and in honor of Bronislaw Huberman who single-handedly brought 800 Jews – the leading musicians of Europe and their families – to pre-state Israel to create a world-class philharmonic orchestra, which has become the internationally renowned Israel Philharmonic Orchestra. The concert featured Joshua Bell, playing Braham’s famous violin concerto, using Huberman’s Stradivarius.  Rolat was there, as were other Jewish philanthropists whom my husband and I know—Carol and Alan Silberstein—whom we saw sitting in the second row behind Rolat, reveling in this marvelous experience.

It is a stirring event, one which you will not forget for a long time!

This is one of the best Holocaust documentaries that I have seen in a long time!  You can watch The Return of the Violin (documentary, 2012) on the internet. 

 

 

Using Music to Communicate across the Palestinian-Israeli Divide

 Crescendo, directed by Dror Zahavi, is a new feature film about young adult classical musicians – Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs – who are brought together to form an orchestra which will play a peace concert.  There is a nice message – music can connect us across the divide.  But it is not necessarily a feel-good film.  There are difficult issues which are exposed. This is not an Israeli film per se.  It is a German production, directed by an Israeli filmmaker, shot partially in Israel and Palestine, and mostly in the beautiful Austrian Alps.

The film begins as predictable and sentimental, with the young musicians having trouble communicating, since they are all suffering from preconceived notions about the “other.” After they undergo group dynamics exercises to get them to function together as a group, things begin to improve. At the same time, things become more complicated.

The story focuses on a few of the musicians and their issues.  And there is the do-gooder from an international non-profit organization who is running the whole program.  As the musicians share their stories, the German world-renowned conductor feels compelled to share something from his own dark past – his growing up knowing that his parents had both been doctors during the Nazi period who assisted in the mass murder of thousands of Jews at Buchenwald. We meet Ron, a promising Tel Aviv violinist, who is shockingly angry at the Palestinians whom he sees as terrorists.  And we meet Leyla, a violinist, whose mother is against her participating in the international concert because the family will be considered collaborators since she is playing music with Israelis. In addition, we get to know Omar, a clarinetist from Qalqilya, who is offered a scholarship to study music in Frankfurt. He is also involved in a “forbidden love” affair with Shira, Jewish Israeli French horn player.   

The story of the film is reminiscent of the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra, conducted by Maestro Daniel Barenboim, that was comprised of musicians from Israel and from Arab countries. I heard this orchestra play at Carnegie Hall in New York City two years ago, and it was an uplifting experience. The audience applauded over and over again for the orchestra, both for their excellent renditions of classical music and for the very idea that they could play together.

 Although the film purports to be evenhanded in expressing the “narrative” of both the Palestinians and the Israelis, it is heavily critical of Israel and the occupation of the West Bank. We see the difficulties and humiliations that the Palestinian musicians have to face at the checkpoints in order to arrive at the auditions which are being held in Tel Aviv. And we witness racial and nationalistic profiling against Palestinians who are seen as terrorists by the young Jews in the orchestra.

Without offering a spoiler, I will permit myself to say that the filmmaker is commenting on the fact that Jews and Germans have succeeded in building a bridge and living together in this post-Holocaust era.  Does this imply that Israelis and Palestinians could also reach some sort of understanding, even after all the terrible atrocities which have been perpetrated by both sides against each other?

 

New Film about Obsession and Musical Prodigies

God of the Piano, screenplay and directed by Itay Tal, premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this week.  This is an effective and compelling film about music and obsession! 

Based on his graduation film at Tel Aviv University, this feature-length film is Itay Tal’s first feature. 

The basic story of the film is quite unsettling. According to the filmmaker, the entire screenplay was based on a particular germ of an idea -- he wanted to make a film about a woman who gives birth to a child with a birth defect, and since she cannot accept it, she exchanges the infant in the hospital nursery for another child.  He explained that only later did he decide to take this idea and make it about hearing loss and music

The film stars Naama Preis, a remarkable actress, who carries the entire film, appearing in every scene.  Her character, Anat, grew up in a family of classical musicians and is herself a concert pianist. The film opens with her performing, and her waters break while she is sitting at the piano and playing. 

Following the screening, the lead actress talked about her own background –that she was a dancer and also played some piano when she was young.  She explained that she was pulled into the role by the obsessiveness of the main character, her disappointment in herself, and the tragedy for her when her deaf child is born.  

This is a film about obsession, about the power of music, about talent and competition, about the pressures of being a child prodigy, about mother-son relations, and about fulfilling your dreams by pushing your child to the extreme. There are also difficult issues being raised here.  Not only has the mother stolen someone else’s baby, but her actions have caused us to think about the nature of musical talent and whether it is inherited or acquired.  

I liked God of the Piano, especially the complex character of Anat.  I also liked the use of classical music as a unique character in the film. Not only is music heard constantly on the soundtrack, but the viewer is brought to consider the nature of musical talent and genius, especially in the area of original composition.  In fact, there are three composers within the film's story – the child pianist, Anat’s father, and a renowned musician who appears a few times in the film as the ultimate talent in the musical world.  Itay Tal did a wonderful job of recruiting musical talent – original music by Roie Shpigler and Hillel Teplitzki, piano playing and recording by Eran Zvirin. 

For distribution information, contact the filmmaker at itaytal@gmail.com.

"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

Shellshock

Everything is Broken Up and Dances, starring and directed by Nony Geffen, is a difficult film about a young man suffering from PTSD.  It is also about the strength and importance of friendship. 

During the 2014 war in Gaza, Nony is called up to miluim (military reserve duty).  Riding into Gaza in a troop carrier, when asked why he still does miluim, the fellow sitting next to him says it’s for the “hevreh” – for his buddies.  And this is what the film is all about.

Nony’s troop carrier takes a direct hit and some of the soldiers in it are killed, but Nony survives, only to return home in the throes of a psychotic breakdown.  Although they have tried very hard, his parents despair of getting through to him and they agree when his friends offer to care for him.  It is Nony’s best friend, Rotem –- played by Dudu Tassa who is both a superb actor and singer – whose friendship helps to coax Nony out of his psychotic state.

Originally named for his uncle Amnon, a musician, who died fighting in the Yom Kippur War, Nony begins to take on the persona of Amnon.  Although it is not without controversy, his psychiatrist approves of this personality change as a form of shellshock therapy.  With Rotem’s help, Nony begins to live the life of this gregarious character and becomes a rock phenomenon appearing in a Tel Aviv pub to cheering crowds and groupies (including a young woman who becomes his hanger-on girlfriend). Meanwhile, the flashbacks of the terrible attack on the troop carrier persist in Amnon/Nony’s consciousness and in his dreams. 

Athough not at all realistic (in fact, the premise is quite over-the-top), the film is well-scripted (the script was edited by Assi Dayan before he passed away), with great music and compelling characters. It provides us with some important insights into the lives of Jewish Tel Avivians who must cope with war and yet go on with life.  The songs, on the one hand, are about issues of life and death (“Don’t light a candle for me”) and, on the other hand, are about Israeli youth and their values.

Everything is Broken Up and Dances is distributed by United King.  Watch the trailer !

Nony Geffen’s feature debut film was Not in Tel Aviv, 2014. 

If you are interested in the subject of shellshock -- two important Israeli films about shellshock were made back in the late 1980s – Shellshock by Yoel Sharon and Burning Memory (Resisim) by Yossi Somer.  More recently, the film Beneath the Silence also deals with shellshock.

Religious Fanaticism and Animosity towards Christianity

A Quiet Heart,לב שקט מאד  , directed by Eitan Anner, is a new feature film about life in Jerusalem.  In this film, there is a clear criticism of religious fanaticism and the haredi animosity towards Christians and Christianity. 

Naomi is a pianist who leaves her parent’s home in Tel Aviv to come to Jerusalem – to get away from the pressures of being a highly talented pianist and her fear of imperfection, and in search of solitude.  She gets a job at the radio station archives and rents a run-down apartment in the haredi part of Kiryat Yovel, where she is surprised to find a child prodigy who sneaks into her apartment every morning to play the piano that has been left there by the previous tenant. 

Not so far away is the community of Ein Kerem, where she stumbles upon an organ being played in a monastery, and feels the solitude and quiet of the church atmosphere.  As a result, she begins to take lessons on the pipe organ from one of the Italian monks. 

The best part of the film is the main character herself (played by Ania Bukstein).  The rest of the film is slow-paced and disappointing.  The secondary characters are stiff and stereotyped, especially the woman leading the struggle against the haredim in Kiryat Yovel and also Naomi’s father who comes from Tel Aviv to rescue her from the perils of life in Jerusalem.

Take a look at the trailer.

Past Life by Avi Nesher

Last night, I had the honor of seeing one more Israeli film which just opened here in Jerusalem – Past Life by Avi Nesher – and it is the most compelling and serious Israeli film that I have seen in a long time.

Avi Nesher makes great films.  He is known for his earlier films – Dizengoff ’99 and Sing Your Heart Out – and for his later films – Turn Left at the End of the World, Secrets, and Wonders. 

His newest film, Past Life (Hebrew title: החטאים ), tells the story of two sisters in 1977 Israel who learn about their father’s complicated and problematic past during the Holocaust.  It is also about the blurring of moral choices in time of war.  The script is based on the true story of Ella Sheriff, wife of Noam Sheriff (the Israeli world-renowned conductor/musician/composter).

 

According to a radio interview with Avi Nesher last Friday, he chose to have the film take place in 1977 because this was a year of upheaval in Israeli society.  There were the political changes of the revolutionary election of the Likud to power as well as the historic visit of Egyptian President Sadat to Jerusalem, which led to the groundbreaking peace agreement with Egypt.  This was also the end of the period of the “generals”, a macho period in which the leadership of the Israel Defense Forces  thought that they had answers to everything, but in fact their conventional understanding of the enemy was mistaken, which led to the debacle of the October 1973 Yom Kippur War.  The fact that   everything got turned upside down in so many different ways is clearly reflected in this relevant film, especially because this is the story of two very strong women.

Ella Sheriff, like her husband, is a musician/composer.  Interviewed on the same talk radio program as Avi Nesher, she said that as a result of participating in this project, she felt that she was being pushed to finally grapple with her story.  She said that before she saw the film, she couldn’t believe that this would be a true telling of her family’s story.  But now, having viewed it, she realized how much Avi Nesher caught the depths of who she is and the important aspects of her story. 

The narrative of the film is about two sisters -- Sephie is learning music at the Academy of Music in Jerusalem, and Nana, who is older, is married and co-publishing a provocative intellectual magazine together with her husband.  At a choral performance in Berlin, an older woman shouts at Sephie that her father was a murderer.  Clearly shaken by this outburst, she undertakes a journey, together with her sister, trying to discover who her father really was and what happened to him during the war. 

This is not just another Holocaust film.  It is a deeply compelling look at some of the extremely difficult moral choices people were forced to take, and how those choices impact on their lives 30 years later. 

The film is also like a concert, showcasing extraordinary choral music and concluding with a triumphant, even cathartic, concert performed back in Berlin. 

Past Life, which opened at the Toronto International Film Festival earlier this year, is probably Avi Nesher’s best film yet.  Don’t miss it!

Biblical Motifs

 It is interesting that so many films over the last decade in Israel have included major biblical motifs.  For example, three films that referred to the Akedah story (sacrifice of Isaac) were Footnote, My Father My Lord, and Trumpet in the Wadi.

In honor of the upcoming holiday of Rosh Hashanah, on which we read from the Torah about Hagar and Ishmael (Genesis 21), I have chosen to write about a feature film, Harmonia by Ori Sivan, based on that story.    

You might remember that the biblical story is about Abraham and Sarah and Hagar.  Abraham and Sarah are unable to have a child.  Together with Hagar, Abraham fathers Ishmael.  But after her own child, Isaac, is born, Sarah becomes jealous of Hagar and Ishmael and insists that Abraham send them away.

The blowing of the shofar (ram’s horn) on this day is meant to remind us of the ram that was found in the bushes providing Abraham with an alternative sacrifice instead of his son, Isaac.  In a study session with Avrum Burg, however, I learned that the blowing of the shofar on Rosh Hashanah also reminds us of Hagar’s crying out for help in the desert, after she has been exiled together with her son, Ishmael. 

The contemporary version of the story, as seen in the film Harmonia, tells about three people in the Jerusalem Symphony Orhestra. Sarah is the harpist, her husband Abraham is the maestro, and Hagar from East Jerusalem is a young French horn player.  After Sarah and Hagar form a special friendship and Hagar is present at Sarah’s miscarriage, she offers to her friend to have a baby for her, together with her husband Abraham. 

[photo: courtesy of Inosan Productions]

Although the film is rather slow-paced, it is nevertheless a beautiful study of three people, and how they manage their relationships.  It is also about their two sons – Ishmael and Isaac – both of whom become accomplished musicians.  A concluding and dramatic musical encounter makes this film particularly poignant and relevant for today.

We, the children of Isaac and Ishmael, need to learn to live together in this supposedly "holy" land. This film hints at the importance of the descendants of these forefathers coming to grips with reality and learning to live in coexistence.

Harmonia is available from Go2Films. 

Junction 48 by Udi Aloni

The prizewinning film, Junction 48, directed by Udi Aloni, is a great film of complexity and political depth, with lots of good music and talented young singers.  The film provides insight into the issues of Palestinian Israelis in the contemporary reality and is very critical of how the Palestinians of Israel are treated -- both socially and by the authorities.  

The story takes place in Lod, a mixed Jewish-Arab city in central Israel, where drugs abound together with poverty.  There is resentment against the Israeli authorities, tensions between different groups of Palestinians and Bedouin, and also between the local Jewish and the local Palestinian young people.

Karim's parents perform as a musical team, but Karim's music is different -- he does Arabic rap and the lyrics are biting and critical.  He performs with his brother and some other friends.  One of his friends lives in an old shack, which they are desperately trying to save from demolition  by government bulldozers.  Another friend is involved in the sale of drugs.   Karim's girlfriend, Manar, who also sings with Karim's rap group, is being pushed by her family to get married since she lives what they consider an immodest and dishonorable lifestyle.  

This is a film about the frustrations of living in a divided society, and about the meeting point between Israelis and Palestinians within Israeli society.  Uri Klein (in his Ha'aretz review of the film this past week) calls this the collision and interaction between Israelis and Palestinians. When Karim's rap group gets a gig to perform in a Jewish rap club in Tel Aviv, there are tensions between the Jews and the Arabs.  The burly Jewish host rapper, trying to provoke Karim and his friends, is similar to the real-life provocative and extremist Israeli rapper, who goes by the name "The Shadow". 

  

The film is filled with irony. For example, when asked about the performance in the Jewish club, Karim responds in his witty style, "oh fine, they apologized for 1967 and also for 1948." Many other critical and sarcastic comments can be found throughout the dialogue and in the rap songs of the dynamic Palestinian rap group, which help the viewer understand the feelings and thoughts of Palestinian Israeli young people.  

The language of the film is almost completely Arabic, which itself is unique and powerful for the many audiences which will view it. It is a demonstration of cultural respect on the part of the filmmaker and is a reflection of the fact that there is heightened interest in Israel today in learning and speaking Arabic.  

Junction 48 is an important film.  It is well-written with fast pacing, and it works  successfully in a number of different genres -- there is great music, a touching love story, and much social criticism. 

Udi Aloni's previous feature film, Forgiveness (2006) also provided a strong political comment.  It was about an idealistic American Jew who comes to Israel, joins the army, and becomes emotionally traumatized after killing a child during his military service in the West Bank.  He is brought to a mental hospital at Givat Shaul that is built on the ruins of Deir Yassin (an Arab village outside of Jerusalem where hundreds of Arabs were slaughtered by Jews in 1948).  The other patients at this mental hospital are Holocaust survivors.  Strangely, a patient/survivor becomes involved in his treatment. 

Nahum Heiman

Nah'che, directed by Anat Goren, is an exciting documentary film about the legendary Israeli folksong composer, Nahum Heiman (nicknamed Nah'che), winner of the Israel Prize for his contribution to Israeli folk music, a man who composed hundreds of songs, so many of which have become popular with the Israeli public. 

The film opens with Nah'che at the age of 79, moving from his home to a town where they have named the town square in his honor!  The filmmaker makes use of much footage from public homages to Nah'che, and the viewer has the opportunity to see and hear so many of his songs being performed.

 

The film confronts his troubled relationship with his daughter, Si, herself a well-known singer.  Their professions are intertwined, yet so different.  He mainly composes.  She is a talented singer.  His genre is folk.  Hers is rock.  His style is more restrained.  Hers is passionate and strong.  

Nah'che is not a biopic in the regular sense.  Rather, it is a portrait of a man who has great charm, who has composed beautifully touching songs, a film about his joie de vivre.  This documentary film (70 minutes) is available from Maya Weinberg (mayafilmfest@gmail.com). 

Recommended documentaries about Israeli composers and performers that might go nicely with this one in a series on Israeli music (all of these have been previously reviewed on this blog) --

• Wind, Darkness, Water (directed by Yahaly Gat) about the legendary, Naomi Shemer
• The Hungarian Cube (directed by Gilad Inbar) about the composer, Andre Hajdu
• Rita Jahan Foruz (directed by Ayal Goldberg) about the singer, Rita

Kutiman, Give It Up and Princess Shaw

Kutiman is a musical phenomenon.  He remixes other peoples' youtube clips of music and songs and makes them into new creations.   The film  Presenting Princess Shaw (aka Thru You Princess, directed by Ido Haar, documents the story of how Kutiman discovered a tremendously talented lyricist/singer on you tube and transformed her into a star!  Samantha, known as Princess Shaw on youtube,  is an African-American woman from New Orleans, who writes phenomenal lyrics and sings beautifully and puts all her songs up on youtube.  The film follows her in her lonely personal life, her work as a caregiver in a home for the elderly, her disappointments in trying to get her singing career to take off, and her surprise when Kutiman's mix uses her song Give It Up. She is a wonderful woman, projecting much charm, and a fair amount of soul! 

Check out the song and the remix on youtube -- Kutiman- Give It Up

 Kutiman lives on a kibbutz in the Negev, mixing music from you tube pieces that he uncovers.  The film opens with a scene at the Guggenheim Museum where he is honored as the entire museum is transformed into a glittering youtube screen, projecting enormous images from his productions.  He "discovers" Princess  Shaw and, when his remix goes viral, she becomes a star! 

In a moving sequence, Princess Shaw comes to Tel Aviv for a magical performance together with Kutiman and his orchestra, at the Habima Theater.  She sings her own soul lyrics, accompanied by Kutiman and his orchestra.

Following the screening at the Jerusalem Film Festival today, she received thunderous applause and returned the audience's love with an impromptu rendition of one of her songs!  

I loved this film! Presenting Princess Shaw (documentary, 78 minutes) is a heartwarming music documentary, showing how we are all interconnected today via the internet, providing  the story of an African-American singer with an Israeli connection! Available from First Hand Films and Go2 Films.