Labels: academic boycott, anti-Semitism, Binyamin Netanyahu, Hassan Nasrallah, humor, LATMA, Oscars, Palestinian prisoners, satire, Third intifada, Tzipi Livni
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:54 AM
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But while there is nothing in the log to contradict Burnat's account or his gratitude to Moore for leaping to his aid, the document does suggest that Moore overstated, at least, the length of the incident. The filmmaker's tweets originally drew complaints from an airport official that Moore was overhyping a routine, and relatively brief, incident. That account, in turn, prompted Moore to accuse BuzzFeed (and presumably the source) of dishonesty.
Airport officials Tuesday agreed to show BuzzFeed the agency's log from February 19, whose timeline appears to confirm the original source's claim.
According to the log, which is kept in the secondary inspection area at LAX's Tom Bradley International Terminal:I'm shocked. Just shocked....
5:28pm: Burnat was referred to secondary inspectionOfficials at LAX made the logbook available and five officials spoke to BuzzFeed on the condition of anonymity, citing a policy against discussing individual cases. (A spokesman for Customs and Border Protection declined to comment on the incident.)
5:30pm: Burnat was admitted to secondary inspection
5:53pm: Burnat was released from secondary inspection
Labels: Oscars, Palestinians, United States
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:20 PM
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Labels: Michelle Obama, Oscars
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:50 PM
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The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) on Monday derided as “offensive and not remotely funny” the segment, saying it was “sad and disheartening that the awards show sought to use age-old, anti-Jewish stereotypes for laughs.”
Indeed. Imagine if they had made the same kind of jokes about blacks or gays or Muslims. No one - not even the Times of Israel - would try to excuse them.“For the insiders at the Oscars this kind of joke is obviously not taken seriously,” the ADL said in a statement. “But when one considers the global audience of the Oscars of upwards of two billion people, including many who know little or nothing about Hollywood or the falsity of such Jewish stereotypes, there’s a much higher potential for the ‘Jews control Hollywood’ myth to be accepted as fact.”
Labels: anti-Semitism, Oscars
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 10:14 PM
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5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers' loss at the Academy Awards was no loss for Israel, Bayit Yehudi MKs said on Monday morning.A group called Consensus: Guardians of the IDF Spirit, an NGO meant to counter anti-IDF attacks in the media has posted a video to YouTube that spoofs 5 Broken Cameras, as well as Waltz with Bashir and Beaufort, Israeli films that were nominated in 2008 and 2007, respectively.
"The Israeli film, the anti-Israel 5 Broken Cameras did not win the Oscar. I did not shed a tear," Bayit Yehudi leader Naftali Bennett wrote on Facebook.
MK Uri Orbach (Bayit Yehudi) took to the social network to write a sarcastic message: "Make a face like you're disappointed that the two documentary films that 'represent Israel' didn't win the Oscar for Best Documentary. Oy, so unfortunate."
...
MK Ayelet Shaked (Bayit Yehudi) expressed support for a campaign by reservists who are considering suing the creators of 5 Broken Cameras for libel.
After appearing on a Channel 10 talk show together with a reservist who served in Bil'in, Shaked called the soldier a hero.
"The whole studio was full of pride when he spoke," she stated. "The truth will win over those trying to twist it."
However, the film repeatedly ignores history and context. It blames Israel for the Palestinian hostility and violence that occurred after 1967, when Israel began administering the West Bank.
The viewer never learns from the film that terrorism against Jews and Israelis was not a result of Israel’s administration but rather has been a regular feature of life since pre-state days.
Palestinian Arabs murdered over 1,000 Jews between 1920 and 1967, and they ethnically cleansed all Jewish communities from the areas they captured during the 1948 war, including the West Bank, Gaza and eastern Jerusalem. The pattern of terrorism simply continued after Israel’s victory in its 1967 defensive war. Yasser Arafat organized 61 Fatah military operations from the West Bank in the few months after the war, and 162 Israelis were killed by terrorists between 1968 and 1970.
Visually and verbally, the film portrays Israel as a heartless occupier. Audiences get no information about how harsh life was for Palestinians under Egyptian and Jordanian rule between 1948 and 1967, with rampant childhood diseases, economic stagnation and restricted civil and political rights. In addition, the documentary completely overlooks the big picture of positive Israeli-Palestinian relations after 1967.
Even as Israel sought to stop terrorists, it also instituted Palestinian municipal self-government and administration, introduced freedom of speech and association, and vastly modernized the Palestinian economy as well as Palestinian health, welfare and education, turning the West Bank and Gaza into the world’s fourth fastest growing economy in the 1970s and 1980s.
In line with his political agenda, Moreh tries to paint all religious Israelis, settlers and right-of-center parties as extremist and intransigent.That article, however, goes on to give a very simplistic view of the so-called Jewish Underground. The Jewish Underground was not just a 'group of extremists from Hebron' as the article would have you believe, and most of the people who were eventually arrested and imprisoned for being part of the 'Underground' had nothing to do with a plot to blow up the mosques on the Temple Mount. Anyone whose name came up in the interrogation of the 'Jewish Underground' (which used many of the same methods that are used with 'Palestinian terrorists') was charged with being a member of a terrorist organization.
Labels: General Security Service, Jewish Underground, movies, Oscars
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:49 PM
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Emad Burnat, Palestinian director of Oscar nominated "5 Broken Cameras" was held tonight by immigration at LAX as he landed to attend Oscars
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
Emad, his wife & 8-yr old son were placed in a holding area and told they didn't have the proper invitation on them to attend the Oscars.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
Apparently the Immigration & Customs officers couldn't understand how a Palestinian could be an Oscar nominee. Emad texted me for help.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
I called Academy officials who called lawyers. I told Emad to give the officers my phone # and to say my name a couple of times.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
After 1.5 hrs, they decided to release him & his family & told him he could stay in LA for the week & go to the Oscars. Welcome to America.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
"It's nothing I'm not already used to," he told me later. "When u live under occupation, with no rights, this is a daily occurrence."
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
Emad Burnat, Palestinian farmer turned filmmaker, director of "5 Broken Cameras", the 1st Palestinian doc ever nominated for the Oscar.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
This all just happened tonight, a few hours ago. He was certain they were going to deport him. But not if I had anything to do about it.
— Michael Moore (@MMFlint) February 20, 2013
Oscar-winning American documentary filmmaker Michael Moore has taken to Twitter to express his dissatisfaction with immigration officials at LAX airport in Los Angeles, after they allegedly threatened to send fellow filmmaker Emad Burnat, "back to Palestine."5 Broken Cameras is one of two anti-Israel films nominated in the 'documentary' category. I hope neither of them win.
Burnat had been visiting LA to attend the 85th Annual Academy Awards. He had been nominated in the category of Best Documentary for his film "5 Broken Cameras."
"5 Broken Cameras" documents the first years of life for Burnat's baby against the backdrop of the West Bank village of Bil'in's battle against the Israeli security fence. Five of Burnat's cameras were smashed by the Israeli army as he documented friends and family members being shot and injured by Israeli troops. The film won the documentary director's award this year at the Sundance Film Festival.
According to Moore, once Burnat presented the authorities with his invitation to the 85th Annual Academy Awards, he was told that his official Oscars invitation wasn't "proper". Moore then tweeted the entire incident as relayed to him by Burnat.
Labels: Oscars, Palestinians, United States
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 4:59 PM
1 comments
Despite tough censorship and the repression of leading film makers, Iranian art cinema has earned international acclaim over the past 20 years. Asghar Farhadi's "A Separation" won the Oscar for best foreign language film in February, the first Iranian film to do so.Boo Hoo.
Culture and Islamic Guidance Minister Mohammad Hosseini said Iran would boycott the next Academy Awards "to protest against the making of a film insulting the Prophet and because of the organizers' failure to take an official position (against the film)," the Iranian Students' News Agency reported.
He also urged other Islamic countries to boycott the Oscars.
...
"The position that Western politicians have adopted on these great insults are no different from a position of enmity," Iranian media quoted Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as saying on Monday.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:04 PM
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Israelis have been flocking to see the Iranian academy award winning film - everyone has to show how cool they are. But of course, the Israeli entry into the prize competition won't be seen anywhere in Iran. So let’s start with the obvious: “Undemocratic” countries don’t show films produced by their worst enemies in theaters throughout the country; they ban them. You won’t, for instance, be able to see “Footnote” at a movie theater in Tehran. That this even needs saying is a disgrace. But given the frequency with which Israel’s critics have been hurling the “undemocratic” label at it, it’s clear many self-proclaimed Western liberals need a refresher course in the basics of democracy.Read the whole thing. And be grateful that you have the right to do so.
What’s equally true, however, is that “anti-peace” regimes generally don’t want their citizens to learn about their neighbors’ culture, for very good reason: If a regime really seeks to prevent peace, dehumanization of the enemy is vital. Thus, it’s important to shield the public from anything that might cause it to view enemy nationals as people more or less like themselves. That’s precisely why, for instance, Israeli books are almost never translated into Arabic, nor are Israeli movies shown almost anywhere in the Arab world.
In contrast, a country that seeks peace is intensely interested in getting to know its neighbors’ human side, because humanization enhances the prospects for peace. That is why, for instance, you can easily find translated Arabic literature in Israel, and it’s also why “A Separation” has been such a hit. It’s not just that it’s an award-winning movie, though that obviously helps. It’s because Israelis, to quote AP again, were intrigued “by the rare glimpse it offered into the living rooms of a country they regard as a threat.”
Labels: freedom of speech, Iranian films, Oscars
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:50 AM
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"Footnote," the story of the rivalry between two Talmudic scholars who are also father and son, was the second Academy Awards entry for Cedar, 43, a New York native who now lives in Tel Aviv. “Beaufort,” his film about the first Lebanon War, lost its bid in 2007.Okay, so let's watch the trailer of A Separation. Let's go to the videotape.
Others vying in the best foreign-language film category included “In Darkness,” by Poland’s Agnieszka Holland, which follows the fate of a dozen Jewish men, women and children who hid for 14 months in the underground sewers of Lvov during the Nazi occupation of Poland. Also, “Bullhead” by Belgium’s Michael Roskam, and "Monsieur Lazhar” by Canada’s Philippe Falardeau.
At the Cannes Film Festival, "Footnote" was awarded the top prize for best screenplay, and in the United States the National Board of Reviews of Motion Pictures placed the film among the five top foreign-language features.
Cedar's first two films, "Time of Favor” and “Campfire,” also were chosen as Israel's entries to the Academy Awards but did not make the finals. They explored the gulf between observant and secular Israelis.
The groundbreaking success of "A Separation," which tells the story of a failing marriage, was cast mostly in nationalist terms by Iranian authorities amid a mounting showdown between Israel and its Western allies over Tehran's disputed nuclear program.Read the whole thing.
Yet the high-profile attention by Iran's Islamic leadership also represents a rare stamp of approval on the country's movie industry, which collects awards and accolades worldwide but is often dismissed by hard-liners at home as dominated by Western-tainted liberals and political dissenters.
...
Javad Shamaghdari, head of Iran's Cinematic Agency, portrayed the Oscar decision as the "beginning of the collapse" of Israeli influence that "beats the drum of war" in the U.S.
In Israel, however, the film has been a hit despite the daily headlines in Israeli newspapers warning of the Iranian nuclear threat.
"It's very well acted, exceptionally well written and very moving," said Yair Raveh, film critic for Israel's leading entertainment magazine, Pnai Plus. "Ultimately you don't think about nuclear bombs or dictators threatening world peace. You see them driving cars and going to movies and they look exactly like us."
The local favorite was still Israel's Oscar contender, Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," a Talmudic scholar saga. But their interest in "A Separation" was piqued by the rare glimpse it offered into the living rooms of a country they regard as a threat to their very survival.
During the two-hour panel discussion, Cedar and Farhadi did not speak to each other directly, but joined their colleagues in chuckling at each other’s jokes and politely applauding their respective remarks.I wonder what the Iranian authorities will think of the panel. I also wonder when the Israeli movie will be shown in Tehran like the Iranian movie is shown in Jerusalem. Probably never.
The same applied when Holland discussed her film about a dozen Jews hiding in underground sewers during the Nazi occupation of Poland, a theme directly contradicting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s insistence that the Holocaust never happened.
All the panelists used hand-held microphones except for Cedar, whose stationery mike was fastened to the armrest of his chair, because of the Jewish Sabbath.
The symposium is always held on Saturday preceding the Sunday Academy Awards and Cedar, who is a Shabbat observer, walked two miles from his hotel to the theater.
In 2007, when Cedar’s war film “Beaufort” also was among the five finalists, he consulted his rabbi and was told that he could not use a mike during the symposium. As a result, only those in the first few rows could hear his remarks. This time Cedar consulted a different authority, who advised that the director could speak into a mike, as long as he did not actually hold it in his hand.
Labels: Footnote, Iran, Oscars
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 11:19 PM
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posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 2:26 AM
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The Israeli film "Footnote," up for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film this year, is Israel's fourth such nomination in the past five years, giving Israel more nominations during that period than any other country.Here's the trailer. A summary follows.
It's an indication to the renaissance of Israeli cinema, which has grown from a fledgling industry with poor cinematography and low box office sales to a darling of world film festivals. That's in spite — or perhaps because — of the country's troubled international reputation, due to its lengthy conflict with the Arab world.
The last three Israeli films that made it to the Oscar shortlist all mine the country's troubles with its Arab neighbors. "Beaufort," nominated in 2008, and "Waltz with Bashir," nominated a year after, both explored Israeli soldiers' experiences in Lebanon. "Ajami," the 2010 nominee, centers on Arab-Jewish tensions in a violence-ridden neighborhood near Tel Aviv.
This year's nomination went to an Israeli film featuring a more internal conflict — two professors of Talmud, a father and son, dueling for academic prestige and a coveted national prize.
"It's a badge of honor for Israel," said Moshe Edery, producer of "Footnote," at a news conference after the Oscar nomination. "It's Israel's best business card around the world, especially these days."
FOOTNOTE is the tale of a great rivalry between a father and son. Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are both eccentric professors, who have dedicated their lives to their work in Talmudic Studies. The father, Eliezer, is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. While his son, Uriel, is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades, endlessly seeking recognition.I'd be happy if this film won... I think.
Then one day, the tables turn. When Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in the country, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. His son Uriel, meanwhile, is thrilled to see his father's achievements finally recognized but, in a darkly funny twist, is forced to choose between the advancement of his own career and his father's. Will he sabotage his father's glory?
FOOTNOTE is the story of insane academic competition, the dichotomy betweenadmiration and envy for a role model, and the very complicated relationship between a father and son.
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:30 PM
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I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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