05/09/2014 - Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, The Farewell Party and The Policeman’s House will be screened either in Toronto’s Contemporary World Cinema programme or in its Wavelengths programme

Three films by Israeli directors will premiere at the 39th annual Toronto International Film Festival: Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile], which premiered in Cannes’ Directors’ Fortnight, The Farewell Party [+see also:
film review
trailer
interview: Tal Granit & Sharon Maymon
film profile] and The Policeman’s House.

Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem will be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema programme. The film is about an Israeli woman seeking to finalise her divorce from her cruel and manipulative husband. She finds herself effectively put on trial by her country’s religiously based marriage laws in the engrossing drama by brother-sister duo Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. The two siblings have previously also co-directed To Take a Wife, which won the Audience and Isvema awards at Venice in 2004, and 7 Days.

The Farewell Party, by Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit, will also be screened in the Contemporary World Cinema programme. This film is about a devoted elderly couple, living in a Jerusalem retirement home, who are faced with a pair of devastating challenges that threaten to divide them after decades of marriage. The film recently also screened at Venice in the Venice Days official selection. 

Mich’ael Zupraner’s The Policeman’s House will premiere in the Wavelengths programme. In this short film Zupraner explores his precarious position as an Israeli Jew living in the Palestinian city of Hebron in the West Bank. Zupraner’s previous short film Snow Tapes won an award at the Oberhausen Short Film Festival in 2012.

The Farewell Party and Gett, The Trial of Viviane Amsalem are supported by the Israel Film Fund.