2021 ‘סינמה סבאיא’ Directed by Orit Fouks Rotem
Eight women, Arab and Jewish, take part in a video workshop hosted by Rona, young filmmaker. With each camera take, the group dynamic forces the women to challenge their beliefs as they get to know one other.
Фильм Сабайи, Film för nybörjare, Σινεμά Σαμπάγια, 她和她們的電影課, 萨巴亚影院, Sabaya i jej kino
Poland
GreeceK15
Greece
Poland
Women Talking
But much better than the insufferable American movie “Women Talking” (2022), although that’s not saying much, and, granted, “Cinema Sabaya” is also ivory-tower didacticism bemoaning how hard it is to be a woman, among other things, and with groan-inducing dialogue such as: “Say it, a terrorist…. We call them freedom fighters.” Whatever you call them, kill me now.
It’s entirely set in a female-only “workshop,” or classroom, so is a lecture-within-a-lecture, with both Jews and Palestinians. It also unaccountably won a bunch of awards, including at the Israeli version of the Oscars, the Ophir Awards, which led to it being submitted for the Academy Award for Best International Film (for which it wasn’t nominated). It’s hard to make…
It's not easy to develop one original character, but Orit Fouks Rotem manages with nine profound and interesting women. She created nine different worlds, each of her heroines has its unique character and own conflict integrating naturally in the stories of each other. Although not all of them get equal screen time and consequently some of the stories feel incomplete.
Being a film featuring Arab and Jewish women coming together for the workshop, "Cinema Sabaya" could easily fall prey to endless and superficial scenes about the local conflict. But quoting Fouks-Rotem, her film is not about "co-existence", but about "existence". Though she doesn't avoid the theme, she keeps it in reasonable proportions.
"Cinema Sabaya" manages to surprise as a sensitive…
MFF 2022 Watch #35
I really didn't want this one to end! Nine Arab and Jewish women gather for an intro to filmmaking course of sorts but really it's about sharing and connecting as women. Each character is distinct and the class allows them to delve into their personal struggles. The performances are so spectacular I really had a hard time believing this wasn't a documentary. Truly captivating and I loved the communal vibe.
Maybe I’m just a sucker for meta-fictional and self-referential films, but this was amazing.
What I admire the most about Cinema Sabaya (2021) is its sincerity. There is so much heart written into each and every single character that its contagious. You care for every single person in the room, and can absolutely see their point of views when contention arises. There’s so much nuance and subtlety that boils deep within the surface of every action, line of dialogue, and facial expression, too. While not directly talking about the previous—and current—ethno-national conflict between Palestine and within Israel, it says so much. Films such as these are so important because they act as reflections of a current social truth, an important…
Such a wonderful film. With its simple language it can make you care and love each of the different 9 characters - for all their flaws.
It’s a truly humane film - discussing and accepting the differences across sexuality, race and ethnicity. Showing us how cinema brings out our humanity.
JFF 2021 #2
If I didn't know better, I'd think this was either filled with non actors, or an actual documentary film. Phenomenal acting. My god.
Cinema Sabaya gets better as it progresses, but has ultimately bitten off more than it can chew as it attempts to flesh out nine different prospective filmmakers and the interpersonal relationships between them all. It's a mammoth task which would have been smarter to pare down, focusing on less people and giving each more screentime to be developed.
The opening hour or so is languid, meandering through the psyches of each woman through the lens of their footage, attempting to comment on the psychological capacity of film to express each one's unique perspective on life. There's the potential for that kind of film to work, but here it's a remarkably boring way to establish these characters and any discussion when…
雖然最後的走向出人意料之外，但謝謝你們讓我看見了。
2023奧斯卡最佳國際影片以色列代表。最近真的蠻喜歡這種「舞台劇感」強烈的電影，不同年齡、信仰與文化背景的女性，齊聚一個電影工作坊，利用影像與來回的談話，挖掘出自身力量與萌芽的意識。
從第一堂課剛開始要用阿拉伯語或希伯來語上課，就已經定義本片所想產生的感覺。上一段用綠幕拍片的眾人非常愉悅，下一段用演戲講出那些在不敢述說之事卻引發更激烈的衝突。在衝突、磨合與歡笑中，本片的半劇本半即興，看到了彷彿《歡樂時光》中在工作坊互動的女性們，之間若有似無的靈光。（結局小可惜，可以再拉長一點也不為過）
Sabaya不只是問候，是一群女性的身分，也是奴隸的稱呼。最終標題所指的Cinema Sabaya，可能不會成為「電影/影像的奴隸」，但肯定成為了「把握(攝影機當下)生活自主力量與自由面貌的女性們」
The weird thing about watching movies on a plane is that you can stumble over an utter gem like this, become deeply emotionally meshed with all the women in it, while also reading Armie Hammer's rancid sexts on someone else's screen via a true crime documentary. Postmodernism is fucking weird.
《她和她們的電影課》或許不是偉大的哲學探討，也沒有要發表很硬的批判，但她把故事講得有趣、把人物立體刻劃出來就好好看。女性跨越彼此差距和民族藩籬找到共同點的情誼很美。
以色列女導演Orit Fouks Rotem的首部長片《她和她們的電影課》，八位來自不同地區和背景的婦女參加一個拍片工作坊，一位年輕女導演教她們基本的拍片技巧，每週他們都帶著各自完成的「回家作業」到課堂上或在課堂上進行創作練習。她們大概只是需要完成這門課程以獲得證書（並非真正想成為導演）。當她們各自拿到攝影機，體現的是女性私電影外，也是電影這項藝術的「民主化」——借班雅明的話來說——藝術不再是高高在上、強調靈光的東西，而是每個人都可以靠近、取得的，甚至開始參與創作。
整部電影都發生在他們的「教室」中，空間上相對單一狹窄，卻透過影像和對話開展了空間。教室其實也就是幾張椅子、一個投影機和投影幕構成的聚會空間，通常我不太喜歡全片都只在同一個空間那種視覺上很封閉的感覺（claustrophobic），但這部靠著九位獨特的角色故事以及她們的回家作業打破了密閉單調的空間感，那些未經修飾的影像卻帶有最原始直接的情感，將空間延伸至鏡頭拍下的那些地方，帶我們去到她們各自的家，她們生動的敘述有時候也讓我想像到遠超出教室的空間。
她們拿椅子圍一個圈，就像是一個團體therapy（或是女性互助會？），在每週觀看同學作品時談到自己的故事，那些關於生活、生命、生存的事。電影在這個過程中作為一個媒介，一個雙向連結，觀者直接或間接與拍攝者的畫面/聲音產生連結，連結的過程雖然需要敞開內心脆弱，卻也是療癒的。影片也有帶到這之中的界線問題，像是老師在引導創作過程中推過頭、侵犯私領域，只不過這部分我認為處理的不是很好（下面會談到）。
正因為團體成員各自的多樣性（國家、年齡、價值觀等都非常多元），她們的討論不只是帶出許多議題，更透過各自的立場建構起複雜性。她們互相認識是從衝突開始的。有位成員第一天就提出「為什麼是用希伯來語進行？」透過語言問題很直接揭示阿拉伯—以色列的政治情況，也爭論到恐怖攻擊、以色列人在路上看到阿拉伯人的恐懼心理等。但導演沒有停留在政治問題太久，她在一個訪問中說，「（我）想過要把政治情況拍得很明顯（overtly），或直接對議題表態，但我們開始拍攝時就發現不需要這麼做，因為政治在她們的生活中已經是處處可見的了——從她們互動的方式和她們看待現實的角度。」
劇本在角色建立上很厲害，居然讓八個人都那麼有個性、真實，很難相信這不是紀錄片（導演的確是想探索劇情片與紀錄片的關係）。但成也劇本敗也劇本，導演/老師這個角色始終保持著神秘，從未真正分享過自己的生活，似乎在隱藏什麼，除了最後被用來製造衝突的那點之外，我覺得依然有未被處理的地方，看完有點失望，感覺衝突是為寫而寫，衝突完後就草草結束了，收得不太好。
不過我還是很享受過程中跟著人物一起笑一起難過，跟著鏡頭好像也成為隱藏的一員，參與這一堂有趣的課。
