Israeli film-maker Inbar Horesh focuses on the issue of Jewish nationalism – and in particular on one individual who may or may not qualify for the ‘Birthright’ initiative that allows Jewish-oriented individuals to return to their homeland.
Film And TV Now spoke with the director as she reflected on the film and its’ very important subject matter.
FILM AND TV NOW: The dynamic of repatriation as well as national identity run high through BIRTH RIGHT. We understand it was inspired by your lead actress Nataliya Olshanskaya’s story of immigrating to Israel. Tell us a bit more about her own real-life experience.
INBAR HORESH: Nataliya herself immigrated to Israel after participating in a Birthright-Israel tour. She grew up as a Christian to Christian parents while her father had Jewish roots. She heard about the opportunity to travel for free to Israel coincidently, from a friend in a bar, and she decided to take the opportunity and travel.
Feeling that she is looking for a change and wanting to start anew in a faraway place, independent from home, she decided to come to Israel, and only during the immigration process, she realized that it is an issue to be a non-Jew in Israel. In the short film we were trying to compress the experience of this realization that of course took much longer in real life.
FTVN: In terms of the effect of the initiative, how many Jews from outside of Israel have actually repatriated into the country?
IH: In the real Birthright initiative that is used as an inspiration for the film, it is not allowed to encourage the participants to immigrate to Israel. Since it’s a governmental program Israel is not allowed to “steal” young adults from their home countries.
But because the idea of “Aliya” – the birth right of every Jew to immigrate to Israel is so rooted in the subtext of the trips, I’ve allowed myself to turn it into a text in my film. For the same reason there are no published statistics about the percentage of participants who choose to immigrate.
FTVN: Tell us about your cast.
IH: While casting for Birth Right I was looking for non-actors, young adults who speak Russian as their first language and live in Israel.
I met so many fascinating people and heard so many fascinating stories during the casting process that eventually I wrote several parts in the script for specific actors I had met during casting and invited many of the nominees that didn’t get a main roll to take part in the shooting as extras. Eventually we spent a week of shooting in the desert with a group of 20 young adults, non-actors from Russian speaking countries, some of whom didn’t speak any Hebrew or English and some were visiting in the desert for the first time. It was a beautiful, real, funny and fascinating experience.
The leading actress, Nataliya Olshanskaya, is a non-actor, a friend of mine who I wrote the role directly for. Since then she has enrolled in acting studies.
Ilya is Roman Gudovich, another brilliant non-actor whom we found by chance through Facebook and played his first role ever as an actor in Birth Right.
The rest of the cast: Kristina Sara Sim, Liza Staroselsky and Anton Makalenko are all talented young emerging actors in Israel who contributed a lot to the film with their personal deep connections to the topic.
FTVN: Tell us about your production team.
IH: The production team was made up of friends and colleagues, all independent filmmakers from Israel.
Leah Tonic, the producer is a writer director herself. Ilya Marcus is a Russian born Israeli based cinematographer whom I’ve known from film-school and so is Shaked Goren, the editor which is also a successful documentary filmmaker.
FTVN: Where did you shoot and for how long?
IH: We were shooting and sleeping, for one week, in a touristic Bedouin camp in the Negev desert called Han Beerotayim.
FTVN: How did you raise finance for the short?
IH: I won the support of the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund and the Tel Aviv Students International Film Festival in a pitching competition based on the script.
FTVN: The region remains a major source of conflict at the moment. How has the overall legacy affected you?
IH: My main goal in creating my short and cinema in general is to question our beliefs and behaviours as a society. I truly hope that by highlighting the absurdity of our reality and politics, things can change for the better.
Perhaps if we understand that our segregating policy as a Jewish country has casualties within the Jewish community itself, we’ll be able to be more accepting, towards everyone who dwells on this land.
FTVN: You were born in Jerusalem, which remains an iconic location given the historical and religious significance. How much of an influence does the city have on you as a female and a film-maker?
IH: I left Jerusalem and moved to Tel Aviv when I was 18 years old and never considered going back there. I think this says it all. Although I feel deeply connected to Jerusalem, and love visiting, I can’t see myself living there. The atmosphere of extreme religion and conflict is very present everywhere.
I don’t feel comfortable to dress as freely as I would in other cities and I constantly feel the tension of the divided city: East vs. West, Israelis vs. Palestinians, religious vs. the secular. I guess that growing up in the Jerusalem area made me very aware and conscious about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and as a female it made me really appreciate other places in the world where women can dress as they please.
FTVN: What are your reflections on the state of the Israeli Film Industry at present?
IH: It is very hard for me to answer this question at this exact moment of the Covid-19 pandemic. Israel like many other places is suffering a major economic blow and it is still hard to tell how it is going to affect our film industry that is very small to begin with. I guess we can only prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
FTVN: Diversity and gender are big news in the entertainment industry. What progress do you feel has been made to support female film-makers like yourself?
IH: I am now participating in a script writing hub for female directors, supported by two major film funds in Israel that is running for the second year and is wonderful. It feels that with time there’s more and more awareness in the Israeli industry to push for a distributive justice of budgets and allow the existence of female directors. For the time being it seems that we have a very long way to go in order to see more female directors in TV and film. Hopefully we will be able to see the results of this process in the near future.
FTVN: You use camels in one scene. How complicated are they to use in a shoot like this?
IH: The camels were not so easy to work with. Knowing that in advance, we planned our shootings accordingly, shooting most of the dramatic scenes without having the camels in the frame. Then, we shot the camels only in a very routine camel walk, that they are used to doing with tourists on a daily basis.
FTVN: You studied and now subsequently teach at Minshar Film Academy directing courses. What are the key pointers that you impart to your students which have benefitted you when you make films?
IH: As a directing teacher I’m focused on helping my students develop their own voice or in different words, discover what they are interested in exploring through cinema.
But on a more practical for shooting level – I believe that life should interact with the filming, I encourage my students to arrive as prepared as possible to the set but at the same time be willing to change their plans and reinvent their film with what’s happening in real life.
FTVN: How has COVID-19 affected your development and evolution as a film-maker?
IH: Since I’m currently in the writing stage of my future projects, I feel that staying in at home was not too bad for me. But not being able to meet the audience and travel to festivals is really a shame since in my past experience this was a major opportunity to learn about the effectiveness of the film by seeing live responds to it.
For the time being my main concern is how the pandemic will affect the entire industry. If many film productions will be set back, it means that I as well will have to wait a longer time till I can produce my next project.
FTVN: Finally, what are you most proud of about BIRTH RIGHT?
IH: My biggest pleasure as a director is to hear my audience laugh. Managing to raise political and critical topics with humor in this film is a great pride for me.
But even more then that, I was very happy to realize that this very personal topic for me, managed to cross through and touch the jury of Palm Springs ShortFest which granted us with the best film award. Managing to be very local and understood internationally is one of my greatest challenges as a filmmaker, and I was proud and happy to receive signals that it worked.
