V –0 08 - Rehoboth Beach Film Society
V –0 08 - Rehoboth Beach Film Society
V –0 08 - Rehoboth Beach Film Society
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
This astonishingly moving film depicts a group of elderly<br />
kibbutz inhabitants who wake up one morning to find that<br />
everyone else has abandoned them. It seems their beloved<br />
kibbutz is broke, and with it their old-fashioned dreams for a<br />
meaningful, cooperative future are halted. Yuppie developers<br />
are salivating over the land, which they want to transform into<br />
a disco-gambling complex a la Las Vegas. The 12 self-styled<br />
“Eskimos,” taking their name from the supposed Eskimo<br />
custom of leaving their elderly to die alone, are shocked from<br />
drowsy complacency into action. They unite in their goal of<br />
defending their home in ways they never did as members of the<br />
kibbutz. While a serious subject, the story plays out as a wry<br />
comedy in which the elders not only find ways to survive, but<br />
Antoine Sforza, a thirty-year-old man, left his village ten years<br />
before in order to start a new life in the big city, but now that<br />
his father, a traveling grocer, is in the hospital after a stroke,<br />
he reluctantly returns to replace him in his daily rounds. Back<br />
in the village, accompanied by Claire, a young woman he loves<br />
but who hesitates to commit herself, he does the job halfsatisfactorily.<br />
Too blunt, not in harmony with the locals, he<br />
offends them more than he serves them. Fortunately Claire,<br />
who has more business acumen, helps him to improve his<br />
skills. Antoine gradually warms up to his experience in the<br />
country and his encounters with the villagers, who initially<br />
seem stubborn and gruff, but ultimately prove to be funny<br />
and endearing. On the other hand, the relationships are tense<br />
the galIlee eskImos<br />
(eskImosIm ba galIl)<br />
Winner Best <strong>Film</strong> Berlin Jewish <strong>Film</strong> Festival<br />
WED NOV 5 8:00 PM-9:40 PM<br />
THuRS NOV 6 5:10 PM-6:55 PM<br />
FRI NOV 7 12:00 PM-1:45 PM<br />
SPONSORED BY: COAST PRESS/BEACHCOMBER/DELMARVANOW!COM<br />
prepare to kick butt and take names. The filmmakers’ love for<br />
their subject is evident: writer Joshua Sobol, the great Israeli<br />
playwright, lived on a kibbutz for eight years, and co-author/<br />
director Jonathan Paz dedicates his story to his parents,<br />
founders of the kibbutz movement. Their finely-wrought film,<br />
featuring marvelous performances by all the “Eskimos,” is full<br />
to bursting with yearning for the past, but also of hope for the<br />
future.<br />
[Dir. Jonathan Paz, 2007, israel, 35mm, 99 mins. in hebrew<br />
with English subtitles]<br />
Website: www.eskimosim.com<br />
the grocers son<br />
(le fIls de l’epIcIer)<br />
THuRS NOV 6 4:20 PM-6:05 PM<br />
FRI NOV 7 12:30 PM-2:15 PM<br />
SAT NOV 8 12:25 PM-2:10 PM<br />
with his brother François and even worse with his father, who<br />
despises him. So when the latter is back in the village, the<br />
situation deteriorates. The film is a gorgeous, modest, and<br />
quietly intoxicating valentine to rural life that is ultimately,<br />
about the coming-of-age of a man rediscovering life and love<br />
in the countryside. This small gem of a film is the second<br />
feature directed by Éric Guirado, who prepared for it by filming<br />
portraits of traveling tradesmen in southern and central<br />
France.<br />
[Dir. Eric Guirado, 2007, France, 96 mins. in French with<br />
English subtitles]<br />
33<br />
feaTure films