Darren Lurie | 09.02.2010 | Israel Film Center

Two of the year's biggest film festivals - the Toronto International Film Festival and the Venice Film Festival - recently announced their slates, and both feature an eclectic mix of Israeli films. Varying in genre (documentary, comedy, drama) and scope (personal to political), these picks represent the strength and diversity of the modern Israeli cinema's newest offerings.

2010 Israeli Selections (synopses provided by the festivals):

67th VENICE INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
September 1-11, 2010
NAOMI (HITPARZUT X)
Israel/France Dir: Eitan Zur 
Ilan, an astrophysics professor, is married to the younger and very beautiful Naomi. One day, he finds out that his wife has a lover... A film about guilt, love and unlimited devotion. Based on the best-selling novel by Edna Mazya, one of Israel's most successful playwrights.

MIRAL
Israel, United Kingdom, France, Dir: Julian Schnabel
US Distributor: The Weinstein Company
First-person diary of a young girl growing up in East Jerusalem as she confronts the effects of occupation and war in every corner of her life. In Basquiat, Before Night Falls and The Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Julian Schnabel proved himself adept at extraordinary portraits of subjective experiences. Miral is imbued with the exquisite camera and sound work he's become known for, but the portraiture is more precise than expressionist, matching an emotional arc with apolitical one. As each of these four women face progressively harsher circumstances, they craft increasingly engaged responses.


___________________________________________________________________________

Additionally, acclaimed Israeli film director Samuel Maoz (Lebanon) is on the Luigi De Laurentiis jury at this year's festival.

TORONTO INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
September 9-19, 2010
THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER
Israel, Germany, France, Romania Dir: Eran Riklis
Distributor: Pyramide International
A tragi-comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article. Eran Riklis, the acclaimed director of The Lemon Tree and The Syrian Bride, brings a poignant and personal approach to a story that speaks to the ever-present threat of violence in Jerusalem and the increasing sense of social dislocation.

THE MATCHMAKER
Israel, Dir: Avi Nesher
Distributor: United King Films
In 1968 Haifa, a teenage boy gets a summer job with a Holocaust survivor who makes ends meet by brokering marriages and smuggling goods. Based on the novel When Heroes Fly by award-winning writer Amir Gutfreund (Our Holocaust), The Matchmaker interweaves various personal struggles with remarkable emotional energy. Director Avi Nesher (Doppelganger, The Secrets) plumbs a fascinating juncture in Israeli history, where an embryonic society still reeling from the memory of trauma is beset by the cultural-sexual upheaval of the sixties.

MIRAL
See Above

PRECIOUS LIFE
Israel, Dir: Shlomi Eldar
North American Distributor: HBO
With the help of a prominent Israeli journalist, Precious Life chronicles the struggle of an Israeli pediatrician and a Palestinian mother to get treatment for her baby, who suffers from an incurable genetic disease. Each must face their most profound biases as they inch towards a possible friendship in an impossible reality. Director Shlomi Eldar, who witnessed a shocking amount of bloodshed as a war correspondent on the Gaza strip, indicts the region's violent status quo. While deeply controversial - particularly in Israel, where Precious Life premiered at this year's Jerusalem Film Festival - the film has won acclaim for its raw depiction of courage and the fight for the safety of a family, regardless of religion and politics.

___________________________________________________________________________

In addition to the selections above, the Toronto International Film Festival is premiering The Debt, an American remake of the Israeli film of the same name, which deals with the Israeli political climate of the mid-1960's.

THE DEBT
United Kingdom, Dir: John Madden
US Distributor: Miramax
Helen Mirren, Jessica Chastain and Sam Worthington star in this thriller about three Israeli Mossad agents on a 1965 mission to capture a notorious Nazi war criminal. Thirty years later, secrets about the case emerge. Directed with crisp, confident strokes by John Madden (Shakespeare in Love), it offers all the pleasures of tight plotting and international intrigue, but grounds them in conflicts that have been urgent for sixty years. The stakes here are life, death and the honour of a nation.

MORE INFORMATION ON THE FESTIVALS
Founded in 1976, the Toronto International Film Festival is now one of the most prestigious film festivals in the world. It is a publicly-attended non-competitive film festival held each September in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Between 300-400 films are screened at approximately 37 screens in downtown Toronto venues.

The Venice Film Festival is the oldest film festival in the world and one of the most prestigious. The festival takes place every year in late August or early September on the island of the Lido, Venice, Italy. Screenings take place in the historic Palazzo del Cinema on the Lungomare Marconi. The festival's principal awards are the Leone d'Oro (Golden Lion), which is awarded to the best film screened at the festival, and the Coppa Volpi (Volpi Cup), which is awarded to the best actor and actress. In addition, all the debut full-length feature films presented in the various sections of the Venice Film Festival are eligible for the "Luigi De Laurentiis" Award.