The festival, which is taking place in person this year at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and other venues around the city, as well as online, until July 10, is opening with this film by Kobi Farag (an actor who has made such acclaimed documentaries as Spotting Yossi, about Yossi Banai, and Photo Farag, which tells the story of his Iraqi family’s photo business) and Morris Ben-Mayor (who directed Spotting Yossi with Farag). Among the film’s producers is the HOT8 channel, and the film will be broadcast on television at a later date.
Damari was much more than just another singer, and the documentary is very entertaining even if you do not know much about her.
The Yemen-born Damari, who moved to Palestine with her family as a toddler in the 1920s, came of age with the State of Israel, never hiding her origins, but embracing her background. She played up her dark beauty (which many found exotic), the songs and dance traditions with which she grew up, her accent and the Yemenite costumes and jewelry which she often wore (back when Mizrahi culture and heritage were often ridiculed and marginalized rather than celebrated), as she built a career as an international singing superstar. She became known as the Queen of Hebrew Music – much as Aretha Franklin was known as the Queen of Soul in the US.
The movie showcases her music and, unlike so many documentaries that show only frustratingly short clips, we get to see her sing significant parts of many of her most important songs, including “Kalaniyot” (Anemones), the song for which she was best known.
The film traces the development of Damari’s musical career, which parallels the development of the Israeli music industry.
Already an emerging star during the War of Independence, she performed for the troops – the first of many times she entertained in war zones – and also went to Cyprus, singing in Hebrew and Yiddish at a displaced persons camp.
After the establishment of the state, international audiences were fascinated by the new nation, and she performed around the world, becoming a kind of unofficial cultural ambassador in the process, and hobnobbed with such stars as Harry Belafonte, who went on to sing the Hebrew classic “Lyla, Lyla.”
Most of her hits were written by Moshe Wilensky, but she continued to develop musically. Eventually, she performed with Matti Caspi and even, in her 80s, with Idan Raichel. In 1988, she received the Israel Prize.
HER PROFESSIONAL career is one side of the story and one that is widely known in Israel. But the film also delves deeply and affectingly into her personal life.
She married young to Shlomo Bosmi, who became her manager, and they had a daughter, Nava.
Her travels took her away from her family for months at a time, and there were rumors she had affairs, mainly with Wilensky, who often accompanied her.
Interviewers in both Israel and abroad often asked pointed questions about whether she was neglecting her daughter, questions that, as several interviewees point out, would never have been asked of a successful male singer. But whether or not the questions were sexist, she did pay a high price for the focus on her international career.
The film shows, mainly through excerpts from letters that she, Nava and Shlomo wrote to each other – an extremely effective way of telling this story – how Nava often felt abandoned by her celebrated mother.
For any child of a celebrity, it can be difficult to grow up in the shadows, but for Nava, a talented musician in her own right, it was especially challenging. Damari was charming and exciting, but she was rarely there for her daughter, who eventually went to live in Canada and returned to Israel only after her mother’s death. It’s a familiar celebrity family story, but told well.
As I watched the extremely beautiful and charismatic singer, it seemed a pity Israel had virtually no movie industry when she was young, because she was born to be a screen goddess.
She did appear in two movies, Hill 24 Doesn’t Answer, in which she played a Druze, and Without Home, about Yemenite Jewry, and displayed real screen presence in both.
One American interviewer asked how she liked being called “Israel’s answer to Ava Gardner,” an actress she resembled, and she answered, “I want to be just Shoshana Damari.”