Directed by Avi Mograbi
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. MOGRABI is an original new "semi-documentary" from the director of HOW I LEARNED TO OVERCOME MY FEAR AND LOVE ARIK SHARON.
Mograbi, a documentary filmmaker not unlike himself, is hired by an Israeli TV producer to make a film about the celebrations of Israel's fiftieth birthday. The producer, sensitive to every development in Israeli politics, changes his instructions to Mograbi accordingly.
The Palestinians, too, are marking a fiftieth anniversary - of the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem - the Nakba (catastrophe). A Palestinian colleague asks Mograbi to search for lost Palestine, to film the locations that used to be Palestinian and became Jewish settlements following the 1948 War. He wants only pictures of places, no interviews, just images of houses, ruins, signs of life lost.
Mograbi tells the camera a third story, of his attempt to achieve the Israeli dream. This story involves the purchase of a lot in the outskirts of the city, with the intention of building a small house.
During an interview concerning the Fiftieth Anniversary Celebrations, Mograbi discovers that this year his own 42nd birthday and the State of Israel's 50th Anniversary (which is marked according to the Hebrew calendar) coincide.
As the three simultaneous birthday's approach, the film becomes an argument between its three stories, each trying to overcome the others - one taking over for a minute before being supplanted by another, like video static.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MR. MOGRABI ends on the eve of Israel's Independence Day. People celebrate in the streets. In the Occupied Territories, Palestinians mark Al Nakba - the catastrophe. Fireworks light the sky. Palestinian protesters are shot dead by Israeli soldiers. Mograbi sits at home alone, and finishes the telling of the three parallel stories.
"A clever and fascinating film." - Aviv Lavie, Ha'aretz
"Maneuvers between the ridiculous and the solemn, between amused mockery of the local mayhem and serious unequivocal criticism of this society." - Meir Schnitzer, Ma-Ariv
"Of this three-fold approach results a script full of humor and seriousness, a heterogeneous composition, built as much of reality as of personal questions which, step by step, find meaning." - Le Monde (Paris)
** Best Documentary Award, Ann Arbor Film Festival, 2001 ** Distinguished Filmmaker Award, 1999 Doc-Aviv Film Festival (Tel Aviv) ** 1999 Berlin Film Festival (Germany) ** 1999 Yamagata Documentary Film Festival (Japan) ** 1999 Seattle Film Festival ** 1999 San Francisco Jewish Film Festival ** Official Selection, 1999 Middle Eastern Studies Association Film Festival
77 minutes / Color / 1999 Sale/video: $440 Rental/video: $100
<http://www.frif.com/new99/happybi.html> -- Yoshie
* Calendar of Events in Columbus: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/calendar.html> * Anti-War Activist Resources: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/activist.html> * Student International Forum: <http://www.osu.edu/students/sif/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osu.edu/students/CJP/>