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Director: Eitan Gorlin
Cast: Oren Rehany, Tchelet Semel, Saul Stein, Albert
Illoozi
Country: Israel
Year: 2002
Running Time: 86 min
Format: 35mm
Shot on location in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv last year, before
the current military escalation, Gorlin draws from his diverse
experiences to tell the story of Mendy, a young rabbinical
student, who finds his faith tested and his sheltered worldview
shattered.
In Jerusalem, away from his conservative parents and his
rabbi, Mendy begins to keep company with a decidedly un-Kosher
crowd: He falls in love with Sasha, a Russian prostitute,
and he befriends Mike, a bawdy American ex-pat who owns the
appropriately named Mike's Place, a scuzzy dive bar where
Arabs, Christians and Jews drink side by side.
Asking all the right questions, The Holy Land is a
complex, challenging, disturbing, enigma of a film that offers
no easy solutions. The Holy Land was the winner of
the Grand Jury Prize for Best Feature at the 2002 Slamdance
Film Festival.
--Gabriel Wardell
Presented By: Eitan Gorlin
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After attending school at a West Bank Zionist yeshiva as
well as in the United States, Eitan Gorlin took some
time to travel the world. Meaning to return to Israel temporarily
for his brother's wedding, he instead became an Israeli citizen,
found work as a bartender and spent a year as a gunner in
an Israeli tank unit. Gorlin then returned to the U.S. to
study film production and theory at The New School. He has
also produced Caio Ribeiro's Sometime in August.
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