‘What was it Samuel Beckett said? I can’t go on, I’ll go on,” said the late Lia van Leer, founder of the Jerusalem Cinematheque and the Jerusalem Film Festival, as she was organizing a film festival at the height of the Second Intifada.
It’s been 10 years since she passed away, and she is being honored at the Jerusalem Cinematheque with Lia Fest, the annual women’s film festival that coincides with Women’s History Month, which will run from March 8-29 this year.
Her statement, made 20 years ago in perfect English, came back to me as I attended a tribute to her earlier this week at the Jerusalem Cinematheque before a preview screening of the new Iranian film, The Seed of the Sacred Fig. By quoting Beckett, she was making light of the difficulties of putting on a festival during such a turbulent period.
The screening of The Seed of the Sacred Fig is part of a tradition of showing a new movie every year “that Lia would have loved,” said Jerusalem Cinematheque CEO Roni Mahadav-Levin. In 1974 – five years before the Iranian revolution – van Leer tried to organize a festival of Israeli films in Tehran, he recalled. It never happened, but it wasn’t a crazy idea in the pre-Khomeini era.
He also noted that in addition to marking a decade since her death – during which the cinematheque has continued to thrive – this year also marks the centenary of her birth and the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Jerusalem Cinematheque.
Lia Fest showcases movies about strong women whom van Leer would have admired. Van Leer was married to Dutch-Jewish entrepreneur Wim van Leer, founder of the Van Leer Institute in Jerusalem. She could easily have taken a background role but was moved by her passion for cinema to build her movie empire.
The festival includes both documentaries and feature films. Among the documentaries is Bird in the Room, by Ari Davidovich, about the poet Tirza Atar, daughter of Nathan Alterman, who died under mysterious circumstances.
'A Place of Her Own'
Filmmakers Adi Toledano and Dana Pney-Gil will be on hand to discuss their new documentary, A Place of Her Own. The film is about women in the Arab village of Jisr e-Zarka, who try to create a women’s center while an upscale beachfront neighborhood is being developed that threatens the character of the town.
Marathon Mom, a portrait of ultra-Orthodox runner Beatie Deutsch, by Rebecca Shore and Oren Rosenfeld, will be screened in the presence of Deutsch and Michal Herzog, Israel’s first lady.
Among the feature films is Shambhala, by Min Bahadur Bham, about a pregnant woman in a polyandrous Himalayan village whose husband disappears and who sets out on a journey to find him.
In Thea Sharrock’s Wicked Little Letters, residents of a small town in 1920s Britain start receiving profanity-laden letters. Jessie Buckley plays an Irish single mother who is the main suspect, while Olivia Colman makes it her business to discover the truth.
CEO Mahadav-Levin said that several other programs will mark the cinematheque’s 50th anniversary in the coming months; details will be announced soon.
For the full Lia Fest program, go to jer-cin.org.il/en.