Gail Mooney’s ‘Opening Our Eyes’ which follows 11 ordinary but inspiring people around the world was the closing film. After the screening, aspiring filmmakers and interested people sat through a Master Class conducted by Dan Wolman, Israeli director of ‘Gei Oni’. The talk was divided into three parts where he talked about independent filmmaking, the history of Israeli cinema and his works.[break]
Purna Singh Baraily, Festival Director and Chairperson of the Human Rights Film Center, said that they were very excited and happy with the response garnered by the festival. “There was a very good response and I believe we had around 5000 people during the four days of the festival. We will take this as an encouragement and create a better festival for the coming year,” he said.
25 films from countries like Nepal, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Norway, Japan, Egypt, Israel, and USA were screened during the festival.
Go on and make films: Dan Wolman
The 71-year-old energetic filmmaker, Dan Wolman believes that there should be no hesitation and barriers when it comes to making films. His film ‘Gei Oni’ was screened Saturday at the festival. ‘Gei Oni’ was adapted from Shulamit Lapid’s novel, and Wolman says he was fascinated when he read it. Very successful in Israel, the film has won awards from countries like China, France, Germany and recently awarded the ‘Best Film’ in the World Cinema section of the Delhi International Film Festival.
The film is set some 140 years back. How relevant is the film to Israel today?
The political conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians is a very major thing. Through ‘Gei Oni’ we see how the seed of what continues today was just being sown. The Jewish people actually paid money for the land they occupied and since Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire then, there were Arabs living peacefully alongside the Jews and the Palestinians. That was a different relationship then.
Many people see the film as a picture of the old Israel. The spirit of helping one another was very strong at that time and there was something very pure. Also, I think people liked the film because there was something very naïve there.
What’s the most important thing to remember while adapting literature into a film?
I like to see it as a spring board. I don’t believe that I need to stick to every plot of the book to the last detail. I made a film called ‘My Michael’, which was a very popular book by perhaps the most popular author of my country. The book is very metaphorical, and there’s not much action in it. So if I had made a film sticking to every detail of the book, then I would just have a woman sitting on a chair with her head full of thoughts.
I take the idea not the entire thing. Even with ‘Gei Oni’, I changed the ending. In the novel, the hero dies but I made sure that the characters have a happy ending. Someone wrote to me, ‘Dan thanks for taking me from the land of words to the land of images with no pain’. That makes me think that I didn’t betray the novel.
What suggestion do you have for aspiring filmmakers?
I see most young filmmakers fear. They think that to make a film takes a lot of money. But something has happened because of digital photography. It’s so simple to make a films now. Write a script, get some friends and shoot on a weekend. I’m trying to give strength to people to not be afraid and just go ahead.
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