Preproduction for "Salad Stories" Trials

“Salatim,” the Hebrew word for salads, are commonly served at almost every meal in Israel, including breakfast. Preparing, serving and eating “Salatim” is a cultural phenomenon that crosses all of Israel's divides: the religious and secular, the Arab Israeli and Jewish Israeli, the Ashkenazi and Sephardic. Can one find a way to bridge differences through this common peaceful activity?  

One of the most popular salads, commonly called Israeli salad (also called, Arab salad or salat Aravi), consists of finely chopped cucumbers and tomatoes, often with the addition of onion, parsley, and peppers, dressed with olive oil, lemon juice, salt and pepper. There’s an art to preparing Israeli salad, and the most valued salad is chopped into extremely fine uniform pieces, described in Hebrew as “Katzutz, katzutz [chopped, chopped].” When I lived on a Kibbutz when I was 19, I would offer to help my adopted family prepare Israeli salad, but was politely refused because it was assumed that I wouldn’t successfully cut the pieces small enough. The other day I asked a friend about the significance of cutting the vegetables so small; her answer—which I’m certain is one of many--was that some people find the act of finely chopping vegetables therapeutic. Another friend she's certain it actually tastes better. 

Apart from Israeli salad, there are a myriad of other salads, cooked and fresh, made with eggplant, peppers, cabbage, carrots, corn, artichokes, bulgur, often served either as appetizers with pita bread, humus and tehina or accompaniments to a meal. 

 

http://www.rest.co.il/sites/Default.asp?txtRestID=8646&txtNavID=2

My vision is to select people from different cultural, religious and socio-economic backgrounds, and ask them to make a salad of their choice. Possible subjects include the secular Israeli, the Kibbutznik, the modern Orthodox Jew, the Bedouin, the Israeli Arab, and Jews of Moroccan, Ethiopian, Yemenite and Eastern European origins. While filming them in the act of preparing a salad, I will engage them in a conversation to elicit their personal stories about their backgrounds. Interviews will be conducted in either Hebrew or English, depending on individual preference. For the trials, I’ve either spoken with or have in mind the following individuals: Hadas, a modern Orthodox Jew of Yemenite and Iranian origin, living in the Lower Galilee community of Mitzpeh Hosha’aya; Merav, a secular Israeli from Kiryat Tivon, a suburb of Haifa; Hillel, a veteran Kibbutznik from Kibbutz Gal-on in the Northern Negev, founded as part of the Socialist-Zionist movement, Hashomer Hatsa-ir; Aliza, a modern Orthodox Jew of Moroccan dissent, also living in Mitzpeh Hosha'aya; and my friend Elisheva Dara's mother of the town Kiryat Gat, also in the Northern Negev, who trekked across Ethiopia to reach Sudan and eventually make her way to Israel. Other possibilities are vast and varied: for example, through friends I hope to be connected to a nomadic Bedouin tribe that settles in the Northern Negev in the spring time.

Here are some sample questions to stimulate conversation:

What type of salad are you preparing?

What ingredients you using?

Where did you learn how to make this salad?

Describe your background: Where did your parents come from? How did they get to Israel? Why did they leave their birthplace?

I envision collecting many different stories over a one to two year period, eventually cutting them into a feature length documentary. The question is open on whether political views have a place in this film. If individuals express their political views, can this still be a film about bridge building?

Camera and Equipment

I will be using the Canon XA10 with a Rhode NTG-1 Microphone and possibly an  LED video light, depending on the lighting in the space.  For stability, I will mount the camera on a monopod. Additional equipment and crew may be necessary as the project develops.

Mise en Scene/ Framing and Composition

I'm still exploring and experimenting with framing and composition. Should the scene be set up like a cooking show with all the ingredients "mise-en-place," put in place? Do I want to go with one long take of the entire event or have varied shots—wide, medium and close up?  Should each shoot involve two or more cameras and extensive lighting, or will this be invasive and diminish the comfort level of my subjects and their willingness to share? How staged should these shoots be? Should I try and capture my subjects engaged in the act as part of their routine or in preparation for a special occasion, like a party celebrating a daughter's induction into the Israeli army (a coming of age event for Israeli boys and girls when they turn 18)?

Resources

I’m currently reading the book by Abbie Rosner, Breaking Bread in the Galilee, which explores local foods and ancient culinary traditions still being practiced in the Galilee today. Rosner demonstrates how sharing food practices is a powerful means of overcoming negative perceptions and building bridges among Jews and Arabs.

I recently read the article in the newspaper Haaretz titled, “Peace in Every Bite,” an interview with Palestinian Arab Myassar Seri.  I share her philosophy; she stated, “We need to get to know one another, be closer, more intimate, closer to the soul. Food is one of the greatest projects we can undertake in order to get to know one another up close.”

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/.premium-1.533709

The cookbook, Jerusalem, by Yotam Ottolenghi and Sami Tamimi, explores the culinary traditions of Jerusalem with its diverse Muslim, Jewish and Christian communities. Both born in Jerusalem—Tamimi on the Arab east side and Ottolenghi in the Jewish west—their cookbook is about how food can bring different communities together.  I would like to see the companion documentary film Jerusalem on A Plate.

My Experience at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival

Last week I attended the Jerusalem Film Festival and was introduced to the work of exiled Iranian filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf. The Festival paid tribute to Makhmalbaf by showing three of his films, Salaam Cinema (1995), Gabbeh (1996), and his latest film, The Gardener (2012). He was present for two of the screenings and participated in Q & As, sharing his influences and motivations behind the films. I was deeply impacted by his work, especially by the film Gabbeh, about an Iranian nomadic tribe of carpet weavers. One of his goals for Gabbeh was to make a film rich in color when, at the time of the Islamic Revolution, black was predominant in Iran. He uses the vivid colors of the carpets, tribal dress, and landscape to achieve this. In Makhmalbaf’s words, his “film was trying to give hope and life to our [Iranian] society.” In addition, the film is lyrical in that it weaves in the poetry of Hafez and Rumi. All of his films are a combination of documentary and narrative, and he uses ordinary people as actors because they have “fresh life in their face[s].”

Iranian Filmmaker Mohsen Makhmalbaf with former Program Director of the the Film Society of Lincoln Center, Richard Pena

Makhmalbaf’s films expose the Islamic Republic and give the message of peace, friendship and human dignity through art. In Salaam Cinema, he shows the 5000 Iranians who responded to Makhmalbaf’s call for actors for this film marking the 100^th anniversary of film. This highlighted the everyday Iranian’s desire to act in spite of the regime’s strict codes of modesty for dress and public behavior. Makhmalbaf spoke about the hypocrisy of Iranian society today: there is the real face and the outside face, the face inside the home and the face outside the home. In The Gardener, Makhmalbaf exposes the persecution in Iran of the 700,000 members of the Bahai faith and advocates for peace between different religions. 

What were my take-aways from my exposure to Makhmalbaf’s work, specifically Gabbeh? I’d like to imbue my Iran documentary with a more poetic and lyrical quality through the inclusion of Hafez poetry that has been important to the Mizrahi family, the subjects of my film. Hafez’s poem, “The Pearl that Slipped Its Shell,” is one such example where imagery can symbolize the Iranian Jewish community’s exile and lingering connection to Iran. The Persian carpet is another important cultural element to explore and weave in, to help depict Kerman, the city featured in my film known for its carpets. Finally, the contrast of the black of the Revolution and the colorfulness of my characters’ lives today is another possible element to incorporate.

A fascinating experimental film that I saw was Leviathan, by Lucien Castaing-Taylor and Verena Paravel of the Sensory Ethnography Lab at Harvard, which offered a visceral look at the hard life of North Atlantic deep sea fishermen.  Absent of dialogue with the exception of a few words spoken by the crew, the film is a compilation of unique angles capturing the perspectives of the caught fish flopping around on deck, the fisherman as he hoists the heavy nets out of the water, the boat as it crashes through the sea, the synchronized rhythm of the fishermen cleaning fish or shucking scallops.  The eerie film score that accompanies the visuals gives the movie a haunting quality, which reinforces the persistent threat of a life at sea. 

I also saw the film Life Sentences by Nurit Kedar and Yaron Shani, the story of the inner turmoil and conflict in the son of a Jewish mother and Arab father who turned out to be behind dozens of terror attacks in Israel in the late 60s. After this is discovered, the mother flees the country with her kids and settles in Montreal’s orthodox Jewish community. The filmmakers successfully elicit the emotion of the son, now a grown man, who has struggled all his life to define his identity as either Arab or Jew.  To allow the main character—who has gone by different names in his lifetime—to tell his story, the filmmakers give him tremendous breadth and space, thereby eliciting his pain and suffering. 

Overall, my experience at the Festival was enriching, but the highlight was the exposure to Makhmalbaf and his work, which left me with the desire to see more of his films and learn more about his style of filmmaking.

Sample from my Work-In-Progress Documentary, Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran

Work Intro Continued: Living with Mitochondrial Disease

Here are the links to the full version of Living with Mitochondrial Disease that I produced for the organization MitoAction.org.

http://www.mitoaction.org/overview

or on YouTube
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UjIBu0tiXk0

Introduction to My Work

My Reel up to December 2012

This is a representation of the type of  work I've done as an editor and producer up to entering the MFA Program.  It includes samples from the following: 

A parody of The Wizard of Oz based on community events and starring community members. I've produced other parodies based on the films Young Frankenstein and Monty Python and the Holy Grail;

An early version of my documentary, Uprooted: Memoirs of Jewish Iran;

A narrative based on the short story "The Most Dangerous Game" by Richard Edward Connel, produced and edited while I was a student at the Center for Digital Imaging Arts at Boston University;

Montages honoring individuals, depicting their unique personalities, characteristics and histories; done for celebratory occasions and special milestones;

Reel Part 1

 

An advertisement for the website "Everyday Oasis";

An interview of Nobel Laureate Robert Solow in honor of MIT's 150th Anniversary; this was part of a series I worked on as Assistant Editor at MIT's Academic Media Production Services;

A sample from MIT World, an online series of videos that I archived while at MIT;

A narrative educational video for NKP Media; part of series produced by NKP Media for their client Cengage Learning;

A documentary style video, Living with Mitochondrial Disease, produced for the organization MitoAction;

Graphics created in Photoshop, Final Cut Pro and Aftereffects. 

Reel Part 2