The Israel Film Service Collection

Under the Mediterranean Sky

26 Minutes, 1994
Genre:
Documentary

  • Rate
Directed by: Serge Ankri
Production:David Schitz
Production Company:Israel Film Service
Photographer: Roni Katzanelson
Narrator: Serge Ankri
Languages: Hebrew, Arabic, French
|
Subtitles: Hebrew

This short documentary film, directed by Serge Ankri and produced by Israel Film Service, follows Ankri as he welcomes a delegation of North African filmmakers to the tenth annual Haifa Film Festival. Ankri, who was born in Tunisia and spent his entire life, by his own admission, carrying out ” athetic attempts” to construct memories from the country of his birth through his films, interviews contemporary directors, producers, and actors hailing from Tunisia and Morocco. His goal is to gauge the extent of the cultural bond between North African Jews who have migrated to Israel and the creators and artists who continue to make art from within Arab culture. Meanwhile, Ankri also meets Israeli artists of North African descent such as Moshe Mizrahi, David Benchitrit and Shlomo Bar, documenting their views about how the cultural gap may be bridged thanks to North African Jews’ kinship to Arab culture. Alongside this optimism, these artists and peace activists express some frustration at the unwillingness of Israeli society to significantly incorporate Arab art into its culture. After joining the Arab delegation on visits to Acre’s Old City and Jerusalem’s Wailing Wall, Ankri draws the conclusion that the similarity Arabs and Jews share is the most valuable lesson to be learned, though he remains unsure of whether the delegation’s arrival had been a savvy commercial move or a small step towards peace; indeed, in the words of Shlomo Bar, “If I end up making peace with Arabs, I will make peace with my own culture, because at the end of the day, a large part of the art I make is Arab art”.

Persons in segment: