Search results for: Samuel Maoz

Naturally not by intent or design, this year my number of films viewed actually matched the festival edition number. My main takeaway from the...

Continuing in the tradition of anti-war films from Israel such as Beaufort and Waltz With Bashir, a little more than a year ago at the 66th edition of the Venice Film Festival, Lebanon was honored with the Golden Lion, but due to a scheduling and voting technicality, Ajami would represent Israel as the country's Oscar's Best Foreign Picture category.

Words were my enemy, so it was a very tough two months preparation without a word which was to get them to experience inside the tank. So I talked about the experience then I locked them each separately in a dark containers for few hours. Instead of telling them about the claustrophobic experience, I let them experience it.

Winning Venice Film Festival's top prize is certainly proof that Samuel Maoz did something right with his first feature film - what he made was a moving, well-crafted anti-war film statement on a shoe-string budget. How shoe-string was the picture? No actual tanks were used for 99 percent of the film. Moaz stripes away any unnecessary details - this is a psychological profile without extra trimmings.

Golden Lion-winning film Lebanon is an anti-war film from the earliest stages of the film, and is tense in a claustrophobic type of way - think Das Boot.