UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE TO PRESENT UNPRECEDENTED TRIBUTE TO THE JERUSALEM SAM SPIEGEL FILM SCHOOL:
8-WEEK HOMAGE TO 8 OUTSTANDING GRADUATES 21/1/2016-10/3/2016
Møller Center Auditorium, Churchill College, Storey’s way, CB3 0DE
The University of Cambridge will present an unprecedented tribute for the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School to mark the 25th anniversary of the school’s establishment.
Under the title “Between Escapism and Strife,” the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies will host an eight-session tribute. Beginning January 21, 2016 and each successive Thursday for eight weeks, one of eight outstanding graduates of the school will screen their films, and discuss the social, political and cinematic contexts of the works.
The opening event of the Tribute will be held in the presence of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel School founding director Renen Schorr, together with graduate Tamar Kay, the newly-announced winner of the IDFA Festival for her documentary film The Mute’s House.
“Each year, we invite a number of Israeli artists to Cambridge who are influential in various realms of art,” stated Dr. Yaron Peleg of Cambridge, who initiated the tribute together with Dr. Tali Artman-Partock. “This year marks the first time in the annals of the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty that we have invited a group of eight varied, diverse Israelis who express the “quality mass” that has emerged from the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, an institution whose singular method brought about the renaissance of Israeli cinema in Israel and the world. We are keenly interested in the means by which the unique voice of each of these graduates has developed in relationship to the political, social and cultural arenas. The Tribute sessions are free of charge, and we expect an open dialogue with an audience arriving not only from Cambridge but also from London and throughout England at large.”
The Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School boasts over 700 graduates. The eight that have been selected for the Cambridge Tribute represent filmmakers from the first through the last graduating class. They include David Ofek (Bat Yam – New York, Minimum Wage), Dr. Dan Geva (Footsteps in Jerusalem – tribute to David Perlov), Talya Lavie (Zero Motivation), Nadav Lapid (The Kindergarten Teacher), Elad Keidan (Afterthought), Yaelle Kayam (Mountain), Yehonatan Indursky (Shtisel), and Tamar Kay (The Mute’s House).
“We are very excited about the upcoming Cambridge event,” noted Renen Schorr, director of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel School. “To date, over 190 retrospectives have been mounted throughout the world in tribute to our school, including at the MoMA and the Berlin Festival. But this latest tribute is particularly moving since it is taking place within the elite academia with much broader ramifications, outside of the “cinema bubble,” where the 700-year-old Cambridge “court” is paying tribute to the 25-year-old “court” of Jerusalem.”
The Cambridge Tribute is being held through the assistance of University of Cambridge, the Lord Alex Bernstein Estate, Sharon Harel, the Jerusalem Foundation, the Israel Film Fund, and the UK Jewish Festival.
For further details, contact: Dr. Tali Artman-Partock, Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, ta378@cam.ac.uk; 01223 335333.
The full programme booklet can be found here: University of Cambridge Tribute to Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School (21.1.16-10.3.16) – Booklet