AVI MOGRABI, ON THE EDGE OF THE STRIP, ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT RETROSPECTIVES OF THE 8TH EDITION OF LAS PALMAS DE GRAN CANARIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival will offer, for the first time at a national level, a retrospective on the Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi, a personal, committed author whose films have been applauded in prestigious festivals
Following its line of informing about the diversity of works grouped in the non-fiction epigraph, the 8th edition of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria International Film Festival has programmed the retrospective Avi Mograbi, on the edge of the strip. The filmmaker will visit the city of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria to talk to the press and present this series on his filmography to the public.
A producer, scriptwriter, actor, director of photography and image, sound engineer, film editor, delegate producer, Avi Mograbi, (Tel Aviv, 1956), is, without a doubt, a fundamental author of Israeli films, committed and critical like few others.
The author of four feature films, How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon (Eich Hifsakti L’fahed V’lamadeti L’ehov et Arik Sharon, 1997); Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi (Yom Huledet Same’ach Mar Mograbi, 1999); August: A Moment before the Eruption (2002) and Avenge but One of my Two Eyes (Nekam Achat Mishtey Eynay, 2005), the revelation film at the Cannes Film Festival. In each of these documentaries, Mograbi looks at the contradictions of his own process of creation in a context as difficult as Israel. The director, in front of the camera, comments on his deliberations, there is always a film in production that is under threat.
His filmography constitutes a work without precedents in world films, each of his titles shows the present political and military situation of Israel. The Palestine-Israel conflict, the military occupation, the Intifada, the religion, the politics, the colonisation, the attacks, are all recurrent themes in his films; but above all, Mograbi portrays those similar to him with an affectionate gaze. In his filmography, we find a mixture of agitation, ill will and unresolved contradiction, a door through which we can enter into the complexity of his films.
The author of films that are usually highly amusing, radical, destabilising. Unmistakeable documentaries, in that he appears in them as protagonist, he introduces elements of fiction, humour and irony. This has led him to being compared to Nanni Moretti (The Son’s Room, Dear Diary), and even to the controversial Michael Moore (Bowling for Columbine, Fahrenheit 9/11).
Mograbi is a dissident who knows how to integrate what is personal with what is political in a critical choice that is more necessary than ever. A series that seems to have been grabbed from the news headlines, with the urgency of a piece of news toned down by the reflection of committed editorialist.
The programmed series is made up of his four feature films and three medium length ones, seven films in all which will reveal to many people an incomparable author, as none of these documentaries have been shown in Spain. After their screening at the 8th edition of the festival, the retrospective will be able to be rescued from the Valencia Film Library, IVAC and the Galician Centre of Image Arts, CEGAI.
1. Gerush (1989) Deportation
2. Shich’zoor, Ha- (1994) The Reconstruction / The Reenactment
3. Eich Hifsakti L’fahed V’lamadeti L’ehov et Arik Sharon (1997) How I Learned to Overcome My Fear and Love Arik Sharon
4. Yom Huledet Same’ach Mar Mograbi (1999) Happy Birthday, Mr. Mograbi
5. August: A Moment Before the Eruption (2002)
6. Detail (2004)
7. Nekam Achat Mishtey Eynay (2005) Avenge but One of my Two Eyes