The Death of Cinema and My Father Too

This is a film which keeps you on your toes, a hybrid puzzle that alternates between fiction, documentary and home video. In the film we meet Assaf, a director who is so completely engrossed in capturing his dying father on film that he recruits his family to play roles in a fictional film about a possible attack from Iran. Real-life director Dani Rosenberg bases this on his own experiences with his father.

Assaf’s project comes at quite a cost, as he is scarcely able to be there for his pregnant girlfriend. With a handheld camera, Assaf and Rosenberg (the real-life Assaf) try to freeze time and place, so that the grief will be easier to bear. Just as Rosenberg had originally planned to do with his own father, Assaf's dying father plays the lead role in the drama of a possible attack from Iran.

Will he be able to gather the family members on the flight from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem when grandmother has to cook for the trip, the ex-wife is causing trouble, the cat runs away and the main character himself, the director's father, takes it all in stride?

His father is either going to die of cancer or an attack from Iran – it’s all the same to him. Is this the turmoil of the night or is it just paranoia? Or is it the actual story of the film?

Here’s where the power of comedy emerges and shows how absurd day-to-day life in Israel can be, while we are also exposed to the gravitas of saying goodbye, and the fear of losing the present as it slips through our fingers.

This film is available at Kosmorama Digital 8th – 14th of March.