Update: ARTE France Funds Still Available For Israeli Cinema

Update: Two weeks ago we reported that ARTE France is putting their financial support of Israeli films on hold (see below). This week Jérôme Clément, the president of ARTE, is visiting Israel, and in an interview to Ha’aretz newspaper he overturned the decision.” ARTE has no intention of putting a stop to the successful collaboration” – he says. “We did not invest in Israeli movies because they were Israeli. We invested in them because the scripts we read were good and interesting”. Katriel Schori, director of the Israeli Film Fund said that he is relieved to hear the Clément’s announcement, for there was a danger of a domino affect, as European investors became hesitant when it came to Israeli projects when they heard ARTE was cutting funds. To prove his point, ARTE announced this week it will be supporting a project called Zirelson (Working title), a film that will be directed by Micha Levinson, a long time Theatre director, stepping behind the camera for the first time.

Original Nov.16th article: ARTE France, a broadcaster who’s been behind quite a few Israeli successes throughout the last decade (they were co-financiers of movies such as Late Marriage, Waltz with Bashir, Lebanon, and Jellyfish – just to name a few) have announced over the weekend they are putting their support of Israeli cinema on “hold”. The reason being that they want to broadcast all of their films they helped produce. As it turns out, they have too many films, and too few slots. ARTE France officials added that once they run out of movies to show on TV premieres (in a year or two), they might re-establish producing connections with Israeli producers.

This comes as a major blow for Israeli cinema, as ARTE France is the foreign producing body who was the most supportive of Israeli movies. Plans for alternative ways of financing projects have already put into motion: an agreement signed between both Israeli and French culture secretaries over the weekend will enable Israeli producers to seek financial support of their film projects with the CNC (Centre National du Cinéma), the French national government fund, and another agreement was signed last week in Jerusalem between the Israeli and British Foreign secretaries, granting tax deductions and other financial encouragements to British-Israeli co-productions.

Recently, the nominees for the European Academy Awards were announced, and the Israeli film Lebanon is one of the major contenders. The film that delivers the claustrophobic feeling of being inside a tank in a very real way is nominated for six awards, but it will have to beat much more celebrated directors such as Roman Polanski and Fatih Akin. Last year’s Venice Golden Bear winner may win the cinematography award (by far, one of the best works by a cinematographer in the last few years), and maybe even win the Best Debut Film for helmer Samuel Maoz, but as far as the other four nominations, it looks very unlikely.

And finally, good news for Eran Riklis: Film Movement has acquired Israel’s selection for the foreign film Oscar, The Human Resources Manager, and intends on distributing it in Northern America. Film Movement will now have to decide which of her movies to promote for an award, as they also hold another intriguing selection, the Romanian If I Want to Whistle, I Whistle, which is an irony, for the Israeli film, that tells of a journey of one man to retrieve the body of a deceased employee to her family, takes place mostly in Romania, and the languages spoken in the film are Hebrew, English, and Romanian.