Press Releases

Amos Gitai's ALILA opens on February 27th at the Cinema Village in New York.

Kino International is proud to announce the national theatrical release of ALILA, the latest and most provocative feature film from acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai (KADOSH, KIPPUR, KEDMA). Following its U.S. premiere on January 27th, at the 2004 New York Jewish Film Festival, a collaboration between The Jewish Museum and The Film Society of Lincoln Center, ALILA opens on February 27th at the Cinema Village in New York, expanding to other major cities in the following weeks.

Adapted from a novel by Yehoshua Kenaz (English Title: Returning Lost Loves), ALILA intertwines the stories of over ten characters who inhabit an apartment complex located on the outskirts of an impoverished area of Tel Aviv. Gitai's ALILA paints a complex picture of contemporary life in this Jewish nation as its main characters struggle with immigration, violence, complicated relationships, compulsory military service and many other issues.

One of the lead characters in ALILA is Linda (Lyn Shiao Zamir), a young Filipino woman who migrated to Israel and now takes care of an old Holocaust survivor named Schwartz (Yosef Carmon). Among their neighbors are Aviram (Lupo Berkowitch), his ex-wife Mali (Hanna Laslo), and her young new lover Ilan (Liron Levo). While Mali and Aviram secretly search for their son Eyal (Amit Mestechkin), who deserted his military service, illegal construction on an adjacent apartment — as well as the masochistic love-affair between Gabi (Yael Abecassis) and Hezi (Amos Lavie) -- disturbs the quiet and peaceful space in which Schwartz longs to spend his final years.

Written, filmed and edited in the tradition of other ensemble feature films---like Robert Altman's NASHVILLE and SHORT CUTS-- Amos Gitai's ALILA escapes the clichés of the genre by avoiding the collapsing of different stories into an unified ending. While the film's narrative nucleuses are thematically interconnected, each story stands on its own by the compelling singularity of the characters and their respective backgrounds.

ALILA's cinematographer Renato Berta (Gitai's KADOSH, Manoel de Oliveira's THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE, Claude Chabrol's MERCI POUR LE CHOCOLAT) filmed each scene as long and carefully choreographed dolly shots. Berta's rigorous framing and lighting brings more than aesthetic singularity to ALILA; the film's cinematography gives unity and dynamism to a delicately interconnected narrative which binds together ten main characters, more than six separate stories and over a dozen supporting characters.

Since more than half of ALILA takes place in the aforementioned apartment complex, the building and its apartments have multiple narrative functions. Overutilized, crammed, and divided by thin walls, the scenery and architectural space in ALILA is more than simple background; it exists as character, metaphor, and above all, as a symbolic representation of the feverish and rapid-changing reality of Israel. And while most of the characters in the fictional world of Amos Gitai are informed by an ever-present sense of the physical boundaries surrounding them, it is in ALILA that the connections between land and social conflicts, space and psychological comfort, become central to the very development of the narrative.

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Rodrigo Brandão, Dir. of Publicity
Kino International Corp.
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