The new film ‘Sublet’ explores the US-Israel identity divide from a queer lens June 9, 2021 10:55 am Israeli actor Niv Nissim, left, and American John Benjamin Hickey star in the new film Sublet, a drama from director Eytan Fox about an American travel writer who tours Tel Aviv alongside a local. (Daniel Miller/Greenwich Entertainment)
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(JTA) Eytan Fox’s new film “Sublet” opens with a slow fade-up on travel photographs of Israel: red rocks in the desert, a young woman smiling with the mud of the Dead Sea on her face, two paddleboarders on clear turquoise water. As the image comes into focus, it becomes clear that we’re actually looking at tourism ads in an airport. The film’s protagonist, Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), glides past with a vague look in his eyes. He does not look at the images.
Eytan Fox’s new film “Sublet” opens with a slow fade-up on travel photographs of Israel: red rocks in the desert, a young woman smiling with the mud of the Dead Sea on her face, two paddleboarders on clear turquoise water. As the image comes into focus, it becomes clear that we’re actually looking at tourism ads in an airport. The film’s protagonist, Michael (John Benjamin Hickey), glides past with a vague look in his eyes. He does not look at the images.
2021 Lighthouse International Film Festival Preview
(LONG BEACH ISLAND, NJ) After paving the way last year as the first full drive-in film festival in the world (screening 28 new films in five days during COVID times), the
2021 Lighthouse International Film Festival strives to recapture a sense of normalcy as a cultural event that offers in-person screenings of the best new indie films as well as industry panels, master classes, and parties all during one long summer weekend (June 3-6) in the special atmosphere of Long Beach Island, New Jersey.
The LIFF 2021 lineup includes screenings of several films that premiered at Sundance and SXSW, as well as other festivals from around the globe. Some of these films will be shown on the big screen for the first time on LBI. Many of them will be followed by Q&A sessions with attending talent, such as celebrated comic book writer and acclaimed indie filmmaker Dash Shaw, who will be presenting his new animated film
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May. 12, 2021
Two of the five movies that competed last month for the Academy Award for Best Short Film were filmed on the same small, disputed strip of land in the Middle East. Tomer Shushan’s “White Eye” was filmed in Israel, and “The Present,” by British-Palestinian director Farah Nabulsi, was filmed in the Palestinian Authority.
Open gallery view
An Israeli soldier checks the identity cards of Palestinian women at a checkpoint near the town of Bethlehem, in the occupied West Bank, this week.Credit: HAZEM BADER - AFP
Granted, the American film “Two Distant Strangers” ultimately won the coveted prize. But for Nabulsi, being nominated was not just the climax of a dizzying string of successes that “The Present” has enjoyed over the past year, but also an opportunity to provide a prestigious platform for her people, who are forced to cope with the Israeli occupation on a daily basis.