The Nada Lapid director said that his new “yes” film about a musician who was asked to rewrite the Israeli national anthem is an answer to the “blindness” of his country to suffering in Gaza.
Lapid has previously dissected the evils of his country in “Synonyms”, which the golden bear won in Berlin in 2019, and “Ahed’s Knee” (2021).
In “Yes”, he portrays a buried society under his own “dark side” since the Palestinian militants Hamas attacked Israel on October 7, 2023.
“The blindness in Israel is unfortunately a fairly collective disease,” said the 50 -year -old director at the Cannes Festival on Thursday where the “yes” was released on Thursday.
Approximately two and a half hours, follow a musician named and, who is commissioned by the authorities to rewrite the Israeli national anthem in a piece of propaganda that asks for the eradication of the Palestinians.
“What happened on October 7, the level of horror and cruelty, led everything to a biblical scale,” he said.
“The great Israeli fantasy … or wake up one day to find the Palestinians who have gone into a political program.”
He added that “very few people are defending to say that this is happening in Gaza is unbearable” and that there is “a son of consensus on the superiority of Israeli lives about Palestine life.”
In a scene, and his wife (Shai Goldman) continues to feed their baby while looking indifferently at their phones, which shows notifications of new mortal attacks in Gaza.
In another, a small crowd gathers on a roof to dance happily to the sound of the combat planes above.
On the eve of the Cannes Festival, Lapid was one of the more than 380 film figures, including the main Hollywood actors, to sign an open letter condemning the silence of the film industry about what he called “genocide” in Gaza.
– Isolated –
Lapid said he had to overcome numerous obstacles before starting the film, which was carried out in “guerrilla mode”, since the Israeli offensive in Gaza was underway.
The technicians and the actors retired, and some sponsors decided not to get involved.
“They told me that people no longer make political films on these issues. Not because movies for or against war, said the director.
“Yes” also refers to the only answer that artists can give in Israel when asked about their support for war, according to the main Bronz.
“Our first duty as artists is not to go where the wind blows,” said Bronz, who caused Uprar in 2016 to insert an Israeli flag into its anus, a performance in Tel Aviv.
“We need to pay a personal price and it is a real struggle to survive in this position where you are fully isolated in your own country,” he told AFP.
French producers supported the film and there was also support from an independent Israeli public background despite their scathing tone.
“Yes” will open in European cinemas in September, but no Israeli distributor has so far travel to project it.
“If I did not do it within me the ambition, hope, pride and fantasy of shaking things, I would not have succeeded,” Lapid added.
“I think society needs a shock, and I hope this movie is one.”
Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023 left 1,218 people dead on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP account based on official figures. Another 251 people were hostages of tasks.
The Israel retaliation campaign has killed at least 53,762 people in Gaza, mostly civilians, according to the Ministry of Health in the territory led by Hamas, whose figures consider reliable by the United Nations.
