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Visit Films has acquired international sales rights to Amos Gitai’s Berlinale Special selection Shikun and will kick off talks with buyers at the EFM next month.

The Israeli film is inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s allegorical play Rhinoceros, and dramatises the emergence of intolerance and totalitarianism through a series of theatrical episodes that take place in a single Israeli building, the Shikun.

Among this diverse group of people of different origins and languages, some turn into rhinoceroses, while others resist.

The ensemble cast includes Irène Jacob (The Double Life Of Véronique), Hanna Laslo (Free Zone), Yael Abecassis (Sacred), Bahira Ablassi...

Updated on October 19, 2021 with new additions.

The American Film Institute announced today the full lineup for this year’s AFI Fest, which includes Sony Pictures Classics’ “Parallel Mothers,” written and directed by Academy Award winner Pedro Almodóvar and starring the beloved Spanish auteur’s longtime muse Penélope Cruz. The film will receive a red carpet premiere at the historic Tcl Chinese Theatre on Saturday, November 13. Jane Campion’s “The Power of the Dog” has also been added, and will screen at the Tcl Chinese Theatre on Thursday, November 11.

Other additions to the lineup include buzzy festival titles such as Sean Baker’s “Red Rocket,” Nadav Lapid’s “Ahed’s Knee,” Ryusuke Hamaguchi’s “Drive My Car,” and Apichatpong Weerakethakul’s Tilda Swinton starrer “Memoria.”

The full lineup joins the previously announced world premiere of Lin-Manuel Miranda’s feature directorial debut, “Tick Tick Boom”. The Netflix feature is based on the autobiographical...

A family worships musical greatness above all else in Itay Tal’s film about a mother raising a pianist son under the scrutiny of her family

A classical pianist gives birth to a hearing-impaired son in Israeli director Itay Tal’s impressive feature debut. You could interpret his film as an allegory of tiger parenting and other child-raising techniques with gimmicky names. And the script raises all sorts of questions about whether talent is innate, how far it is influenced by genes, and whether it needs to be developed while young. Tal refrigerates these questions into an elegant and disturbing family drama that has echoes of Michael Haneke: it’s a film with a shard of ice lodged in its heart.

Naama Preis is the pregnant pianist, Anat, who is on stage when her waters break. Not missing a beat, she carries on playing, amniotic fluid trickling into her shoe.

"We were at your concert just now. We really enjoyed it." Film Movement has released an official US trailer for God of the Piano, and Israeli drama that is currently playing in "virtual cinemas" in the US as of this weekend. It originally premiered at the Rotterdam Film Festival last year, and also stopped by a few other international film fests. The drama tells a multi-generational story of a family of musicians. For Anat, music is everything. Having never been able to reach her father's musical standards, she rests her hopes on the child she's about to have. He is born deaf, and still grows up to be a talented pianist, but there is still one great obstacle - his grandfather. She must finally confront him. The film stars Naama Preis, Andy Levi, Ze'ev Shimshoni, Ron Bitterman, and Shimon Mimran. This looks quite good. I'm intrigued by the twist with her son early on,...

God Of The Piano (Elohe HaPsanter) Film Movement Reviewed for Shockya.com & BigAppleReviews.net linked from Rotten Tomatoes by: Harvey Karten Director: Itay Tal Writer: Itay Tal Cast: Naama Preis, Andy Levi, Ze’ev Shimshoni, Ron Bitterman, Shimon Mimran, Leora Rivlin, Alon Openhaim, Eli Gornstein, Itay Zipor, Ezra Dagan, Ami Weinberg, Omer Migram Screened at: Critics’ link, […]

The post God of the Piano Movie Review appeared first on Shockya.com.

The whole of Amos Gitai’s “Laila in Haifa” is set in and just outside Fattoush, a bar in Israel that has been touted as “the best place to party in Haifa.” Maybe it is. One of the few venues in town where Israelis and Palestinians can socialize together, Fattoush boasts a knowledgeable barman, a small stage for musicians and drag queens, an adjoining art gallery, and plenty of such shabby-chic staples as bare brick walls, vintage posters and hanging plants.

If nothing else, the film may be useful to design historians as a record of what hipster-ish cafés and restaurants looked like in the early 21st century. It’s also a venue with no shortage of resonant thematic possibilities: trains trundle right past the beer garden, and beyond that a mountainous cruise ship is docked in Haifa’s harbor. But, as much as Fattoush has to recommend it, there...

Club Fattoush is a real-life bar and arts space in the Israeli port city of Haifa: a kind of bohemian, liberal-minded gathering point for a broad array of residents, be they Israeli or Palestinian, Jewish or Arabic, gay or straight, and so on. Veteran Haifa-born filmmaker Amos Gitai is sufficiently enamored of the venue to have made a feature-length fictional celebration of its diversity and cultural import. Enter “Laila in Haifa,” a spaghetti pile of connected and disconnected narrative strands, revolving around a series of Fattoush employees and patrons over a single evening of business. It’s enough to convince you to drop into the place should you ever find yourself in town: It’d almost certainly offer a better time than “Laila in Haifa,” which, for all its good intentions and social interests, is among Gitai’s most listless films, not even propped up by his usual formal rigor.

Sales agent Film Republic has closed further territory sales on “God of the Piano.” Film Movement previously picked up North American rights to the film, as reported exclusively by Variety.

Mont Blanc Cinema has taken the rights for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Paraguay. Limelight Distribution is looking after the Australian and New Zealand releases, Hualu Media has the rights for China, Hong Kong and Macao, and Joint Entertainment will bring the pic to Taiwan.

Itay Tal’s debut first launched at the Rotterdam Film Festival, before screening at Bafici and Moscow. It took the best actress prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, for Naama Preis in the role of Anat, an overbearing mother who goes to extremes to maintain her composer family’s musical legacy.

For Anat, music is all she has. Having never been able to reach her father’s musical standards, she rests her hopes on the child...

Film Movement has picked up North American rights to “God of the Piano,” with the deal sealed by sales agent Film Republic.

Itay Tal’s debut first launched at the Rotterdam Film Festival, before screening at Bafici and Moscow. Last week it took the best actress prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival, for Naama Preis in the role of Anat, an overbearing mother who goes to extremes to maintain her composer family’s musical legacy.

For Anat music is all she has. Having never been able to reach her father’s musical standards, she rests her hopes on the child she’s about to give birth to. When the baby is born deaf, she uses extreme measures to make sure her son becomes the composer her father always wanted. But as he grows up and confronts his grandfather, Anat must finally stand up for her son.

The film features a...

Other winners included Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables for best international feature.

At its awards ceremony last night (August 1), Jerusalem Film Festival (Jff) presented Yaron Shani’s Love Trilogy: Chained with the Haggiag award for best Israeli feature while Ladj Ly’s Les Miserables won the Jerusalem Foundation award for best international feature.

Chained follows an Israeli policeman whose marriage and masculinity are threatened after he is accused of sexual assault by two teenage boys. A Berlinale premiere in February, it’s the second film in Shani’s Love Trilogy following Stripped, which first showed in Venice Horizons last September.

Exclusive: Here’s a first trailer for Israeli feature drama God Of The Piano, starring Naama Preis (Beyond The Mountain And Hills).

Itay Tal’s completed debut, which Film Republic launched sales on in Cannes, follows a young mother who desperately strives for her deaf son to continue their family’s strong musical tradition. Producers are Tal, Hila Ben-Shushan and Shani Egozin. The original score comes from Hillel Teplitsky and Roie Shpigler and DoP is Meidan Arama (People That Are Not Me).

The film has been pre-sold to Limelight for Australia/Nz in a deal negotiated by Film Republic’s Xavier Henry-Rashid and Limelight’s Fergus Grady. Additional pre-sales are understood to be pending.

Also on the slate of London-based arthouse sales label Film Republic are titles Katrina’s Dream, Aleksi and Out Of Paradise.

Sales agent Film Republic has picked up international rights (excluding Israel) to Itay Tal’s debut feature, “God of the Piano.” The film will be launched at Cannes.

It tells the story of a young mother, Anat, who comes from a family with a strong musical background. When her son is born deaf, she adopts drastic solutions. Anat is played by well-known Israeli actress Naama Preis, whose filmography includes a hat-trick of features in Cannes Critics’ Week – “From the Diary of a Wedding Photographer” (2016), “Beyond the Mountains and Hills” (2016) and “The Kindergarten Teacher” (2015).

For the past 12 years, Itay has been directing short films, including “When You Played”. “God of the Piano” is produced by Itay, Hila Ben-Shushan and Shani Egozin. Hila’s credits include “The Pit” by Itamar Lapid.

The original score to “God of the Piano” is composed by Hillel Teplitsky and Roie Shpigler, who composed the score for...