Event

RED FIELDS - Opening Night

6:00PM - Opening Night

RED FIELDS

Directed by Keren Yedaya
Israel, Luxembourg, and Germany, 2019, 93 min
Narrative
Hebrew and Arabic, with English subtitles
NY Première

Followed by Moroccan After Party

Long Synopsis:
After warming hearts at the Toronto Film Festivals in 2019, award-winning filmmaker Karen Yedayas RED FIELDS is a poetic, at times surrealistic, but ultimately sensitive adaptation of the legendary anti-war Israeli rock opera MAMI. Written by Hillel Mittelpunkt, MAMI became a cult play in the 1980s. Mami, beautifully played here by Neta Elkayam, is a young Sephardi woman who works as a gas station cashier in a poor Israeli development town in the southern periphery, and dreams of a better future with her beloved husband Nissim upon his return from the front. Everything changes when Nissim is brought home paralyzed. Mami decides to rewrite her destiny by leaving for the big city, Tel Aviv. With sixteen songs recorded live on screen by Dudu Tassa and Nir Maimon, this cinematic musical breaks ground in format, storytelling, and creativity.

Director Bio:
Keren Yedaya is an Israeli filmmaker who trained at the Camera Obscura School of Art in Tel Aviv. She has directed the short films ELINOR (1994), LULU (1998), and UNDERWEAR (2000), and the features OR (Caméra d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, 2004), JAFFA (Cannes Film Festival, 2009), and THAT LONELY GIRL (Un Certain Regard, Cannes Film Festival, 2014). RED FIELDS (2019), her latest film, was in competition at the Cannes Film Festival, the Toronto International Film Festival, and the Jerusalem International Film Festivals.