Life
The fighters and the filmmakers
Israeli director Avi Nesher's new film highlights a kibbutz's battle in the 1948 War of Independence
May 5, 2022 09:52
Israeli director Avi Nesher's new film highlights a kibbutz's battle in the 1948 War of Independence
May 5, 2022 09:52Avi Nesher is a busy man. In between scouting locations in the desert for his next film, the acclaimed Israeli writer-director is hard at work promoting his current release, Image of Victory, attending festivals in the US and Europe. Despite his chaotic schedule, he plans to be in London next week for the film’s opening night gala screening at Seret, the Israeli film and television festival. “It’s really hectic but these are good problems to have,” grins Nesher, 69, via Zoom, late at night from Tel Aviv.
In a career spanning more than four decades, Nesher has often based his films on real life stories and in that respect, Image of Victory is no different. It is set in 1948 during the War of Independence and tells the little-known story of the battle of Kibbutz Nitzanim from two conflicting perspectives: the kibbutz members and soldiers who stayed to defend it from an Egyptian attack and the experience of a young, aspiring Egyptian journalist and filmmaker tasked with documenting events while accompanying Egyptian troops. Starring Joy Rieger (Valley of Tears, Past Life, The Other Story) and Amir Khoury (Fauda), it is a story about war, Nesher emphasises, not the war itself.
Image of Victory (Signature Entertainment)
Militarily under-resourced and outnumbered by the Egyptian forces, the kibbutz eventually surrendered after many of its members were killed. Its fall was perceived by some as a defeat, including by the country’s national poet Abba Kovner, who was a soldier in the elite Givati Brigade at the time and appears briefly in the film.
Those who surrendered and were taken prisoner were accused of being traitors. Nesher had been approached by producer, Ehud Bleiberg to make a film about “the great injustices done to Nitzanim,” he explains. Bleiberg’s father, Yerah, had been a member of the kibbutz — and features as a minor character — but Nesher was initially not keen. “There are many injustices in the world, this one not very different than the other ones. But then I discovered the whole thing was filmed, and that got my attention — why was there a movie camera and who brought it?” He learnt that the renowned Egyptian journalist, Mohamed Hassanein Heikal had been asked by King Farouk to manufacture a triumphant story of the battle. Had that particular angle not existed, he says, he would not have made the film.
