While it might seem that art is a luxury during these turbulent times, given the power that art has to soothe the soul and stimulate the mind, it’s never been more vital. The 15th edition of Epos, the International Art Film Festival, will present films on the arts from all over the world from April 23-27 at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, and these movies will transport you to different worlds and realities.
The opening event will be a screening of Saskia Boddeke’s Inside My Heart, which follows a theater company that integrates performers with disabilities and chronicles the actors’ rehearsal process for a play they are staging. The camera catches the fears, conflicts, and moments of encouragement and love that they share.
An Israeli film about performers with disabilities, The Power of Balance by Amit Mann and Tom Barka’i, looks at four dancers in wheelchairs who join the Vertigo dance troupe for an integrated modern dance performance.
Elwira Niewiwea and Piotr Rosolowski’s The Hamlet Syndrome is about a group of actors in war-torn Ukraine staging a play that is partly a production of Hamlet and partly the story of their lives.
Bill Evans: Time Remembered by Bruce Spiegel is a look at the life and work of the jazz music genius. It looks back at how Evans arrived in New York and slowly made a name for himself within its jazz scene, eventually being hired by Miles Davis, with whom he performed on the best-selling masterpiece Kind of Blue.
Henrik Martin Dahlsbakken’s Munch tells the story of the life of the great Norwegian painter, best known for his painting, The Scream, but it isn’t a conventional biopic. Four different actors (including a woman) portray Munch during different periods in his life, and not in chronological order. These include his time in Berlin where his art was rejected; his final days under Nazi occupation of Norway; his youth and first loves; and his alcohol addiction and psychological crises. Each part is written by a different screenwriter and depicts part of Munch’s multifaceted personality.
TWO FILMS look at the work of major Israeli painters, Portrait of an Artist – Moshe Castel, about an artist known for his kabbala-inspired works, directed by Yona Zaretsky, and Portrait of an Artist – Yehezkel Streichman, directed by Jachin Hirsh, about an artist and teacher who began painting watercolors late in life.
DEPOT – Reflecting Boijmans is a documentary by Sonia Herman Dolz about the creation of the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam, which stores 150,000 works of art and is open to the public as a museum. Inaugurated in 2021, the structure looks like a shiny silver teacup from the outside, and it has garnered objections and criticism as well as praise.
Festival's literary section
In the literature section, Eli Gorn’s Burning Off the Page examines the sensual work of Yiddish poet Celia Dropkin. The words she penned a century ago were so far ahead of their time, they shocked her contemporaries, but these groundbreaking, acclaimed works of literature are getting their due now. The film looks at her poems, her diaries and her life, with contemporary commentators putting it in context. Some of her work is brought to life with original animations by Yaron Shin.
Yosef Millo’s classic 1967 movie, He Walked Through the Fields, which brought Moshe Shamir’s 1947 novel to the screen, starred a young Assi Dayan as a hero kibbutznik and Iris Yotvat as a new immigrant from Iran who falls in love with him. It’s not a subtle film, but it is both a sexy and romantic story of a young couple, and a romantic vision of building a homeland. Those who only know of Dayan from his later years, as a great character actor, can see him as a gorgeous young leading man. The movie features a beautiful score and songs by Sasha Argov.
FANS OF SEX and the City know the distinctive and playful work of fashion designer and stylist Patricia Field, even if they don’t know her name – and now there is a documentary about her fabulous career, which has spanned more than 50 years, Happy Clothes: A Film About Patricia Field, directed by Michael Selditch. Her New York City store was once a mecca for fashionistas, and anyone with an eye for style will enjoy this film.
Another film in the Fashion & Design section, Invisible Beauty, tells the story of Bethann Hardison, a witty and charming entrepreneur and activist who was a pioneering Black fashion model. The movie, which was directed by Hardison and Frederic Tcheng, shows how she opened doors in a field that was long dominated by white women.
Nancy Buirski’s Desperate Souls, Dark City and the Legend of Midnight Cowboy examines the making of the gritty Oscar-winning film about a male prostitute in the Big Apple. It features interviews with one of its stars, Jon Voight, as well as archival material, to tell the story of how such a dark movie achieved mainstream success.
The closing event of the festival will be a screening of a newly restored copy of Carmen, Carlos Saura’s 1983 drama that features Antonio Gades, one of the greatest flamenco dancers of all time, playing a choreographer who stages an updated flamenco version of Bizet’s opera, Carmen. A tempestuous romance develops between him and the lead dancer, played by Laura del Sol. As time passes, the line between them and the characters they play gets blurred, and the hatred, jealousy, and violence in the dance seep into life – right up until the tragic ending. The film also features flamenco dancer Cristina Hoyos and virtuoso guitarist Paco de Lucia.
Student video dance films will be screened before some of the festival films, in tribute to Sapir College in Sderot. There will also be a section of short films on the arts.
For the full program, visit the festival website at https://www.filmart.co.il/