Raphaël Nadjari
Shaul (Uri Pepper), the film’s protagonist, a solitary divorced man, tries to overcome his difficult emotional state. He goes to see his father Shimon (Moni Moshonov) in Haifa and confronts him, blaming his father for all his current woes. Shimon and his partner Betty (Michaela Eshet), try to help Shaul with alternative methods, using stones with magical attributes and therapeutic oils. With their help, Shaul becomes much more optimistic…
A History of Israeli Cinema is the result of years of researches, studies, documentation, screening, interviews, some recorded, some to learn, to understand, to unfold. Actors, thinkers, producers, filmmakers, professors, critics negotiated to build a narrative that remains fragile and incomplete. It is the process rather than the result that is shared here.
Michale is a thirty year old woman. She works with her father in a Tel Aviv accounting office providing services to important religious institutions. She divides her time between her child, her husband, her work and the man with whom she is having an affair. When Michale learns of the tragic death of her lover, her life is shattered.
The first film of New York-based French director Raphael Nadjari is an adaptation of Dostoyevsky's The Gentle Creature, which had also inspired Une Femme douce of Robert Bresson. The Shade is a drama about a mysterious woman and a pawnbroker who meet in New York. The film begins with Simon, who is alone in his apartment with the corpse of his wife, Anna, who has just committed suicide. In his grief, he remembers the first time he met her, a year ago when she walked into his pawnbroker's shop in Spanish Harlem. Mysterious Anna, who seems to come from nowhere, impresses solitary Simon with her sad beauty, and he proposes to her on their first night out. The Shade is a love story with great psychological insight.
