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Ephraim Kishon’s classic blockbuster that drew over a million people to cinemas is the first-ever Israeli film to have earned an Oscar nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category, and to have won two Golden Globes – for Best Foreign Film and Most Promising Newcomer; the latter of which went to Topol. Sallah marks Kishon’s directorial debut, in addition to also being Menahem Golan’s first-ever ‘producer’ credit. US cinematographer Floyd Crosby who had shot Fred Zinnemann’s 1952 Western classic, High Noon, and won the Oscar for his work on F.W. Murnau’s 1931 film, Tabu: A Story of the South Seas, stepped in as director of photography.
The character of Sallah Shabati was born in a skit Kishon originally wrote for the IDF’s Nachal Troupe (‘lehakat hanachal’), inspired by his experiences as a new immigrant in a temporary migrant camp in Haifa. His film, which he based on the skit, is a biting satire that takes no prisoners, including the smug Ashkenazi establishment and the new immigrants from Muslim countries. Sallah, the film’s main protagonist moves his large family to Israel and is sent to live in a temporary migrant camp. There, he must learn to navigate the Eurocentric, socialist Labour-led establishment and come up with ways of working around it in order to improve his and his family’s lives.
Sallah changed popular Israeli film forever, giving rise to the genre that would later be dubbed ‘Bourekas films’ – i.e., working class comedies or melodramas based on the melting pot ideology, and the clash of ethnicities in Israel. The film is also remembered for its soundtrack that featured the songs Mashiach Hazaken (‘old Messiah’) and Li VeLach (‘for me and you’), amongst others. In 1988, the musical Sallah Shabati premiered at Israel’s Habima National Theatre. It was based on Kishon’s film and went on to become a massive success in its own right, producing the now classic hit, Ach Ya Rab (‘oh, dear god’).
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For more information about the rights holders, please visit the relevant collection page, or contact the Jerusalem Cinematheque – Israeli Film Archive (RA) offices.
We have the utmost respect for all rights holders’ copyright and put great efforts to track down any and all intellectual property owners for the purpose of seeking and obtaining permission to use their materials featured on the website.
Any and all materials are used in accordance with clause 27a of the 2007 Copyright Act. If you believe that your rights as intellectual property and copyright owners of any material featured on this website have been compromised, then you may contact the Israeli Film Archive via email with a cease-and-desist notice, requesting that the material in alleged copyright infringement no longer be used. When contacting the archive, please state the merit to your copyright ownership claim, as well as your full name, email address, and telephone number, with a link to the relevant webpage.
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