‘I’m very honored,” said documentary producer Nancy Spielberg as she received an honorary award at the graduation ceremony of the Maaleh Film School at the Jerusalem Cinematheque on Sunday night. Maaleh is a school that welcomes religiously observant students but is open to all students, regardless of their level of observance.
Spielberg has had a distinguished career in documentary filmmaking, and many of her films deal with Israeli and Jewish issues.
Among her best-known films are Above and Beyond, about a group of Jewish-American veterans of the US Air Force who helped create the Israeli Air Force by smuggling planes to Israel and flying them in the Independence War; and Who Will Write Our History, the story of Emanuel Ringelblum and the Oyneg Shabes Archive, the secret archive he created and headed in the Warsaw Ghetto. Both films were directed by Roberta Grossman.
Her recent film, Closed Circuit, directed by Tal Inbar, is about the terror attack on the Sarona Market in Tel Aviv in 2016.
A tribute film about Spielberg at the graduation outlined her career, and its narrator noted, “Nancy fights to make the Israeli voice heard, connecting her love for cinema with her love for the State of Israel.”
Neta Ariel, the director of Maaleh, spoke about Spielberg’s accomplishments in Hebrew, and the charming and self-deprecating Spielberg opened her own speech by saying, “I understood her, actually.”
Spielberg, who spends part of every year in Israel and whose daughter, Jessica Katz, was a contestant on the Israeli talent show, The Voice, said she would like to see the Maaleh student graduation films that were shown at the ceremony again with English subtitles.
Getting more serious, she said she was impressed by the students, adding, “I’m a little intimidated by what you have done.”
How she handles her famous brother
Spielberg does not try to conceal the fact that her brother is the legendary filmmaker, Steven Spielberg, although she is adamant about keeping her career separate from his. She noted that she started out very early in the film business, at the age of six.
“It was not my choice. I was forced by my brother to make his films.” She and her other two sisters acted and worked behind the scenes. “He used to say: ‘Collaboration is the most important thing in filmmaking, to make a great film, and if you don’t collaborate, I will torture you.’”
She said she always loved storytelling and that her family was full of storytellers: “There was never a boring day in the Spielberg family.”
Initially, she focused on writing but eventually got interested in filmmaking, because “people kept sending me stories, most of them were really meant for my brother, but many of them were Jewish stories; mostly after Schindler’s List, we were flooded by Jewish stories… I’m very involved in the Jewish communities and I love Israel.”
Before Above and Beyond was screened before a packed Jerusalem Cinematheque at its Israel premiere in 2014, she said she “trembled” thinking Israeli audiences would be skeptical about an American telling an Israeli story, but when the lights came up, “I saw an audience that was weeping and moved and so very grateful that somebody bothered to tell their story. That’s the power of film…
“This is what we have to do. If you‘re a storyteller, you’ve got to tell the stories. They’re bursting to get out. It is a tough time for independent filmmakers and mostly for Israeli filmmakers because a lot of the world has shut their eyes and their ears to our stories.”
Spielberg said her next film is called Letter to David, about a hostage held in Gaza, David Cunio, which is being made by Israeli director Tom Shoval. Shoval directed Cunio and his brother, Eitan, in the drama, Youth, which won worldwide acclaim in 2014.
The Cunio brothers played siblings who, ironically, kidnap a classmate in a misguided attempt to get their family out of debt. David Cunio was widely praised for his performance but instead of pursuing acting, he became an electrician. He was living in Kibbutz Nir Oz with his family when he was kidnapped by Hamas terrorists along with his wife and twin daughters.
His wife, Sharon Aloni Cunio, and daughters were released in the hostage deal in November 2023. David’s brother, Ariel Cunio, was also taken hostage, along with his girlfriend, Arbel Yehud. They are also still being held hostage. When David’s wife begged Hamas for a sign of life from David last week, the terror group released a clip of the family from early in the war, with n information on David’s current condition.
Shoval said that he and David formed a strong bond while making Youth and that the new documentary includes raw footage from that film, as well as behind-the-scenes material. Shoval said, “The documentary will serve as both a personal letter and a multi-layered portrayal of the new reality in war-torn Kibbutz Nir Oz, where many were murdered or abducted.
This affecting visual journey reflects on what was and never will be again, the cruel separation of the brothers, and the inexplicable connection between life and cinema, memory and reality. The film will not use footage from October 7 but will rely on existing materials to testify to the unimaginable.”
He recalled that when he was making Youth, he realized that he needed to cast real brothers to play the characters and searched all over Israel to find the right actors. David and Eitan were “two kibbutzniks with no acting experience and they gave themselves completely with devotion and soul… Until today, I treasure their appearance in my film as the most generous gift I ever got – one that gave me my vocation.”
Ariel spoke about how the school’s students had made several films dealing with the war since it broke out and led those gathered in a prayer for the soldiers, bereaved families, and the hostages.
The Maaleh graduation ceremony, which was delayed due to the war, featured a screening of the graduates’ films, the themes of which reflected the diversity of the school.
Avia Shaked’s To Wipe Away the Curse from My Family is a documentary about how the director, who is looking for love, seeks guidance from family members whose marriages have failed. Noise, by Michael Shenhav is a drama about a mother trying to get her daughter to see a psychologist.
Would You Care to Dance? by Tahel Tsvik, tells the story of a young woman who is filled with anxiety when her fiancé, an actor, has to perform a sex scene onstage. Week 24, a drama by Netanel Fish, is about a couple struggling when their unborn child is diagnosed with a developmental problem.
Two films by Rotem Avidani were shown: Preventive Treatment, a documentary about a fiercely independent woman who owns and runs a garage, and Love Letter to My Brother, about a woman whose twin brother becomes religious.
Shmuel Elmaleh also had two films shown at the ceremony: The King of Shlock, a documentary about a Jewish rock star from the 1980s trying to make a comeback, and We the People, the story of an American father who has to confront rowdy Israeli teens when he takes his family on a camping trip.
In early January, the Maaleh Film School and its video therapy group of bereaved mothers were guests of President Isaac Herzog and first lady Michal Herzog, at the President’s Residence in Jerusalem, and a film made by mothers who lost children at the Supernova Festival or in combat was screened for the president and 100 guests.
Spielberg concluded her speech by urging the Maaleh students to persist in the face of all obstacles: “You know what to do. You have to pick up your camera, you have to focus and you call, ‘Action!’ And I will be watching.”