Question the Script

often been deemed anti-national because of his sympathies with

the Palestinians. “I am touching sensitive issues in my films. I cannot understand how people in my trade want to keep everyone happy,” he says.

Disengagement,which was screened at Alliance Francaise in association with the Embassy of Israel on Tuesday,links a woman’s search for her daughter against the backdrop of the eviction of

Israeli settlers from the disputed Gaza strip. “Some events inspire only one film,others,a number of films. I have been exploring the subject of Disengagement over a long period,” says Gitai.

The filmmaker,whose father was an architect,studied architecture from the University of Berkeley,California,and his mother “never took cinema seriously”. He never trained professionally as a filmmaker,but forayed into cinema in the early ’80s at the end of the Yom Kippur war of 1973,(in which Egyptian and Syrian armies sprung a surprise attack on Israel). Gitai was an army rescue pilot and his helicopter was shot down by a Syrian missile on the fifth day of the war. “When we returned from the war,we had many questions,about the destiny of the country,social injustices and issues that should be questioned. Somebody needed to ask those questions,and only an artiste could do that,” he says.

It took Gitai another 27 years to make his critically acclaimed autobiographical film based on that war,titled Kippur (2000). “It is a war engraved in my memory and it shaped my conscience. At first,I wanted to forget the war,so it took a long time to gather energy and make that film,” he adds.

Even before Kippur,Gitai’s films were making many in the country uncomfortable during the conservative period of the ’80s. His 1980 film Bayit (The House) and Yoman Sadeh (Field Diary,1982),were regarded as inflammatory,which forced him into exile in Paris for more than a decade.

Gitai used the period to learn about cinema and “surrounded myself with great masters”. He cast German dancer Pina Bausch and Italian filmmaker Bernardo Bertolucci in one of his films (his only acting project) and “in breaks would discuss cinema techniques with Bertolucci”.

After his return to Israel in the early ’90s,he created feature films such as Yom Yom (1998),Kadosh (1999),Alila (2003) and Free Zone (1995). “For me,impactful cinema is one that is not consumed like a hamburger. It leaves a trace,” he says.

Of late,his works have been more inward looking,exploring his links with his parents through films such as Carmel (2009) and Lullaby to My Father (2012). He also recently inaugurated an exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art,New York,based on his father’s work as an architect. Even after all these years,he still likes the thought of questioning decisions. “When I will not be questioning,I will stop making films,” he says.