At the official opening of the 40th Haifa International Film Festival on Thursday night, film fans and city residents alike celebrated the return of one of the city’s most beloved traditions, while keeping in mind those who have lost their lives in the past year in the ongoing war and those still held in Gaza.
Before the ceremony got underway, clowns, dancers, jugglers, jazz musicians, and even a mariachi band performed on the plaza outside the festival venue for an enthusiastic crowd that included many children.
The joyous atmosphere was a clear illustration of the revival of the city since the ceasefire with Lebanon was signed in late November, putting an end to the near-daily missiles fired by the terror group Hezbollah into Haifa.
In an emotional opening ceremony, the festival’s artistic director, Yaron Shamir, noted that last year’s festival started smoothly but was forced to shut its doors abruptly on the morning of its last day, October 7, 2023, when the war broke out.
The festival, which is traditionally held during Sukkot and which features the best of recent international and Israeli films, was postponed this year due to the war until December 31, when it started with two days of New Year’s festivities ahead of the official opening.
“We had to postpone the festival, but we never considered canceling it,” said Shamir. The festival, which includes contemporary films, classics, culinary cinema, midnight movies, and family films, will run until January 11 (https://www.haifaff.co.il/eng).
Oscar-winning director Michel Hazanavicius will present his latest film, The Most Precious of Cargoes, at the festival this week.
The opening ceremony combined a warm embrace of cinema with a somber reflection on those who lost their lives or were kidnapped on October 7, along with the soldiers who were killed in the fighting, as virtually every speaker called for the release of the 100 hostages still held in Gaza and expressed hope for a speedy end to the war.
THE FESTIVITIES, which were hosted by actor/director Lior Ashkenazi, included a concert by the Haifa Symphony Orchestra playing beloved tunes from Israeli movies, accompanied by popular singers Moshe Datz, Oshik Levi, and Boaz Sharabi, which turned into a high-energy sing-along with the audience.
But the mood became decidedly darker when Culture and Sport Minister Miki Zohar took the stage – and the audience, which included evacuees from the Gaza border region and hostage families, erupted in loud boos and calls of “Shame” and “Bring them home now.”
Zohar tried to speak in spite of the outburst, saying, “To let people express themselves is important” and that he understood the pain Israelis are feeling.
But his barely audible words did nothing to pacify the audience, whose shouts and jeering only got louder. Ashkenazi, who frequently hosts the Saturday-night anti-government protests on Kaplan Street in Tel Aviv, urged the audience to be quiet, but mostly stood back.
'You know, he can’t hear you'
When President Isaac Herzog addressed the audience via a video message, there was a similar outpouring of anger, and Ashkenazi pointed out wryly, “You know, he can’t hear you.”
But as loud and angry as the crowd was when addressed by members of the national government, they were silent and clapped respectfully for Haifa Mayor Yona Yahav, who helped found the festival in the 1980s and appointed the late Pnina Blayer to be the director of the Haifa Cinematheque and the film festival a few years after its inception.
Yahav was also instrumental in getting the Cinema Law passed in 2001, which helped revive the Israeli film industry, when he was a Knesset member.
Yahav and many speakers paid tribute to Blayer, who turned the Haifa festival into a world-class film event, which was named one of the top festivals in the world by Variety. Blayer, who retired recently and passed away in June, was set to be given the festival’s achievement award, which her children accepted for her. She was also honored with a star on the event’s red carpet.
THE FESTIVAL has hosted hundreds of distinguished guests over the years, among them some of the greatest actors and filmmakers of all time, including Willem Dafoe, Harvey Keitel, Brenda Blethyn, Klaus Maria Brandauer, Sophie Marceau, Joseph Fiennes, Paul Giamatti, Elliott Gould, Paul Schrader, Valeria Bruni-Tedeschi, Mohsen Makhmalbaf, Andrey Zvyagintsev, Brian Cox, Costa-Gavras, Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, Jiri Menzel, and Peter Greenaway.
Shamir, who worked with Blayer for decades at the festival, eulogized her, praising her for valuing “tolerance and creativity, which characterized the festival, as well as the city in which it takes place.”
Director Avi Nesher, whom Blayer had asked specially to speak at her award ceremony when it was being planned, praised her as a “festival creator, which seems a more appropriate term than festival manager or director.” She nurtured Israeli filmmakers, he said, and always gave nervous directors a reassuring glance before their films screened, telling them it was going to be fine.