Talking to PvNew at the Taormina Film Festival, celebrated Israeli director Amos Gitai spoke about his next feature film following his Berlinale entry “Shikun,” which has the title “Why War?”
Gitai explained: “Why people make war is the subject of my next film. It’s the dialogue between Einstein and Freud in 1931. Albert Einstein was asked by the League of Nations to choose one intellectual to put one question to. And he chose Sigmund Freud. And he asked him a question of two words, which is: ‘Why war?’ There’s an exchange of letters between the two with Einstein putting his interpretation on Freud’s answer and that’s the basis of my next project.”
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According to production company Elefant Films, the script for “Why War?” was written by Marie-Josée Sanselme, and the film is produced by Alex Iordachescu. The cast includes Irène Jacob, Mathieu Amalric, Bahira Ablassi, Keren Mor, Yael Abecassis, Pini Mittelman, Menache Noy, Minas Qarawany and Micha Lescot.
PvNew is talking to Gitai as news comes through of a deadly Israeli attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp, in which – at the time of writing – over 90 people have been confirmed killed. Is there a renewed sense of urgency?
“We have to stick to the truth, and ask very penetrating questions. All my projects around the assassination of Rabin were investigating it,” Gitai said. “Obviously, the ongoing tragedy parallels our film but art does not change reality. I’m in disagreement with Michael Moore. I don’t think that if we make a militant film, it will change the world. Art marks the trace of a memory.”
Gitai put the current conflict in a wider context.
“When Picasso paints ‘Guernica’ in 1937 after the bombardment by the Luftwaffe of the Basque village, in the duel between Franco and Picasso, Picasso lost. Franco stayed in power for 30 years. But if you ask anyone today, what is Guernica? It’s the painting of Picasso. So we are working in the hope that in the long term we will change the reality but it’s not immediate. Good cinema doesn’t change things instantaneously. It doesn’t change governments. I mean, Michael wanted to help Hillary Clinton win by doing a film!”
His film “Shikun” is a loose adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros,” set in an Israeli housing project and starring Irene Jacob. Gitai sees the process as part of the film’s raison d’être: “The big achievement of ‘Shikun’ was that I could bring Israeli, Palestinian and Iranian musicians on stage in Berlin together. So we showed that in creating the stage for dialogue and against the forces which want war, destruction, killing, that they will not succeed: we will remain friends.”
Gitai’s criticism of the Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regime is full-throated: “The illusion that Netanyahu and his gang put into the minds of not so few Israelis that they will win just by the power of force is a crazy idea,” he said.
“First of all, they will not win. By the way, there is nothing to win, except death. What do they think they will win? And the Jews have to be more smart than they are. Force will not resolve the issue.
“When I went with Yitzhak Rabin to Washington, I remember what he said to me about Gaza. He said: we cannot move out unilaterally. We have to make sure that 26,000 Palestinian workers, functionaries, get their salaries: they need water, they need electricity, even oxygen in the hospital. So when you really want peace, you have to talk to the other. It’s not unilateral now, including the savagery of the actions of Hamas on 7 October, killing Kibbutzniks who were for peace and saving children in Gaza.
“So what is this? Who thinks that what they did, or what is done now to Gaza will bring any solution now? Now we’re talking in the heart of Europe, but even the smart Europeans, nothing less than 100 years ago, they managed to burn the entire continent twice. With 10s of millions killed, to come to the simple conclusion that maybe they can disagree.”
“Shikun” was completed before the Oct. 7 attacks and the Israeli military response in Gaza. Does he see the film and his approach differently now? Fittingly as we’re talking in Sicily, Gitai sees inspiration in the work of Italian neorealist Roberto Rossellini.
“When [Roberto Rossellini] did ‘Germany: Year Zero,’ he is the only filmmaker not making these stupid American or British comedies of the tanks rushing through Germany, and he’s showing how Germany committed suicide, herself. This film is a masterpiece.
“The great films that I’ve seen in my life start when the screening is over. Then you say, okay, what did this person actually want to tell you, and you have to reconstruct it and figure it out. So on a dark day, like today, your question is legitimate, but what else can we do? I’m not going to re-edit the film.”
