The prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in the Czech Republic announced on Tuesday that Tropicana, a film by Israeli director Omer Tobi, will take part in the Proxima section of the upcoming festival, which will run from late June to early July.
Tropicana, Tobi’s feature-film debut, stars Irit Sheleg, who appeared in the movie, Fill the Void, and the television series Sirens, as a cashier at a supermarket in the Negev. When the head cashier is murdered under mysterious circumstances, Sheleg’s character gets the job and is drawn into the dark world of her late colleague’s passions and secrets.
'Untangling the complicated inner workings of intimacy'
“I am very excited to screen Tropicana in its world premiere at the Karlovy Vary International Film Festival,” Tobi said. “Tropicana is a film about a person in a desert town, similar to the one where I grew up. It aims to untangle the complicated inner workings of intimacy, the arduous journey toward a moment of human warmth, against the reality of constant survival, and explores the influence of geography on the presence of desire in our lives.
“I am full of gratitude for the team of creators and the ensemble of actors and actresses who dedicated themselves with great talent to the stormy journey of creating the film. I am excited to present our joint work to a foreign audience, who will be able to take a deeper and more complex look at the people living in our turbulent reality.”
Several Israeli movies have won top prizes at the Karlovy Vary festival, among them Restoration by Yossi Madmony in 2011 and The Cakemaker by Ofir Raul Graizer in 2017.