Hagar Ben Asher’s The Slut is Set to Be Promiscuous at the 2011 Critic’s Week

Looks like not one, but a pair of items that made my list of the “Most Anticipated” Films coming out of Israel this year will be appearing on the Croisette next month. My number one most anticipated pic for 2011 made it into Cannes’ Main Comp (Footnote) and my number 5 pick, The Slut will be in the Critic’s Week (a.k.a Semaine de la Critique). The sidebar (which is reserved only for first time and sophomore efforts) officially announces their selections tomorrow.

Hagar Ben Asher’s debut feature is supposed to be a tragic account of womanhood. The Slut will tell of a woman (Ben Asher herself) drifting away from one sexual encounter to another. Tamar’s behavior is fixed. One man after another, a hand job, a blow job, and so on. But she is also the mother of Mika and Noa, 12 and 8. She no longer seeks redemption, until Shai arrives. He comes in order to handle his dead mother’s property. Shai is not aware of Tamar’s behavior, but soon enough discovers her way. He does not care for it, for he thinks he can save her. They fall in love and soon Tamar stops messing around. The tightly knit society is skeptical of her purification process, but true trouble lies in this new daily routine creating a harsh sense of emptiness in Tamar’s core.

Ben Asher made a name for herself when her short, Pathways, won the cinefondation prize in Cannes a few years ago. The script for The Slut was developed as part of Atelier in Cannes, and while Ben Asher was raising funds and preparing to shoot her film, she became famous as an actress in a TV series called “The Ran Quartet”, and in the motion picture Julia Mia (in which her character is cast to play in a film based on her resemblance to Julia Roberts). The project was also developed at the TorinoFilmLab – same place where Le Quatrro Volte was born. Here are some film rush vids.