Amos Gutman, Filmmaker | ||||||||||||||||
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North American Premiere |
Israel, 1997, video, 64 minutes, Hebrew with English subtitles. Director: Ran Kotzer
From 1977 to his untimely death in 1993, Amos Gutman directed six films, all of them deeply personal reflections of his own life. Interviews with lovers, family and friends - including some of the most important people in Israeli cinema - tell the gripping story of a strikingly handsome, charismatic and deeply passionate gay man who has become a revered cult figure in Israeli cinema. Fascinating footage of Amos Gutman on his film sets convey the passions that come through in scenes from his films, lovingly selected by documentarian Ran Kotzer. Like Fellini, Gutman transformed his dreams and everyday conversations with friends and family into integral parts of his pictures. He dared to portray subjects that were taboo in his society, and his search for the right of individual expression is the connecting link of his works. Gutman is most remarkable for his striking and original use of the frame. Every shot is a treasure.
Gutman directed Himmo, King of Jerusalem,
an audience favorite of the 1988 SF JFF.
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Filmmaker in Person US premiere |
Canada, 1998, video, 48 minutes, English. Director: Joe Balass 
"What do you get when you ask your 92-year-old Nana and a 73-year-old man
you've just met questions you've only just dared to dream of? You get answers more
outrageous than you could have possible imagined."
George is 73, a gay writer born in Shanghai and now living in London. Nana is the 92 year-old grandmother of the director who lives in Israel. Both are Iraqi Jews in exile, George voluntarily and Nana as a result of having been uprooted by anti-Semitic persecution in Iraq, her place of birth. George has lived an outrageous life, always outside of the mainstream, while Nana is the matriarch of a traditional Jewish family. Two very different people brought together in a remarkable film, a meeting point at the crossroads of identity, age, culture, religion, politics, and sexuality. A young, gay Iraqi-Jewish filmmaker takes a funny, intimate and charmingly unconventional look at three Iraqi-Jewish lives.
Director Joe Balass has created a touching online exhibit for his short film Nana, George and Me. The simple 2-page website http://www.spectr.com/blork/nana has biographical information, recorded voices, and close up photography of documented protagonists Nana and George.
UNDERWRITTEN BY THE CULTURAL EQUITY FUND OF THE SAN FRANCISCO ARTS COMMISSION
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Copyright © 1998 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival. All rights reserved.
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