15/02/2008

The press was left somewhat cold at the end of the screening of Restless [+see also:
trailer
film profile], a French/Belgian/Israeli/Canadian co-production by Amos Kollek (61), presented in official competition at the Berlinale.

The film tells the bittersweet story of Moshe, a writer who left Israel for the U.S. many years earlier, full of memories, regrets and lost dreams. He also has a son whom he abandoned, who is now an adult and harbours great resentment towards his father and deep anger. The encounter between the two is not only a conflict between father and son but between very different generations that must learn to communicate.

Kollek, the director of Fast Food, Fast Women (2000) and Queenie in Love (2001), said: "The film is about changing times and values, in Israel as in the western world".

He added: "On the one side, the father grew up in a precarious period, during the creation of a new state. On the other, the son lives in today’s confusion, he was raised in a rapidly changing world and has no fixed points of reference, no role models and, above all, no father figure. The title comes from this, from the sense of anxiety that I felt when I lived in New York, and later when I returned to Israel".

The film was produced by Hamon Hafakot & Pie Films along with Amérique Film, Twenty Twenty Vision, Liaison cinématographique, Paradise Films and Entre Chien et Loup. Bavaria Film International is handling world sales.

(Translated from Italian)