Canadian Premiere
“Sometimes the most horrific things are aesthetic,” says Micha Bar-Am, one of Israel’s most important photojournalists. Warfare, atrocities, and the quotidian are hauntingly juxtaposed in his photo reels, chronicling over five decades of Israel’s history, alongside intimate snapshots of his own domestic life. Composed of stills and contact sheets selected from Bar-Am’s archive of over 500,000 masterful photos, 1341 Frames of Love and War provides a deep focus on the beauty and horror of humanity as captured through the photographer’s lens.
Through recorded conversations, Bar-Am and Orna, his wife and archivist, reflect on the archive’s most impactful and troubling photos. Now 91 years old, Bar-Am is left to ponder how the photographic image supersedes memory, and how, tragically, “no photograph would avert the next war.” Director Ran Tal’s sobering, intelligent, and skillfully edited film unveils the steep personal cost of documenting and bearing witness to brutality.
Best Director and Best Editor Awards, Docaviv 2022
Q&A Oct 8 & 9
Media Partner
Micha Bar-Am
Israel/UK/USA
2022
In Hebrew and German with English subtitles
Graphic Violence
Book Tickets
Missing VIFF? Check out what's playing at the VIFF Centre
Cookie Queens
A documentary about the annual Girl Scouts' cookie sale is probably not high on your list of must-sees, but don't be too sure — this movie is a delight, a rare celebration of girlhood, supportive family relations, and the art of salesmanship.
A Simple Machine
Cutting costs, swapping four wheels for two, Nick is downsizing to pay off his student debt. It's a path which leads to savings he had not anticipated, even if his girlfriend thinks he's losing it (and she may be right). A lean, low budget gem.
Jackie Brown
Take half a dozen characters who know they're in a fix, and give them half a million dollars to fight over. Tarantino's crime movie (his best) transcends genre in large part because in Pam Grier and Robert Forster it gives us people we truly care about.
Princess Mononoke
A mystical fight between humans and the Animal Gods of the forest. Ashitaka, the last prince of a dying race, struggles to find a way for both sides to co-exist. But the fighting only becomes more and more bloody and all hope seems to be lost…
Credits
Executive Producer
Yael Melamede, Nancy Pomagrin, Guy Lavie, Keren Gleicher, Danna Stern
Producer
Ran Tal, Sarig Peker
Screenwriter
Ran Tal
Editor
Nili Feller
Director
Photo by Uriel Sinai
Ran Tal
Ran Tal, born in 1963, graduated from the Tel Aviv University’s Department of Film in 1994. He directs diverse television projects and is the editor of Takriv, an online magazine for discussion and critique of documentary film. Tal is the recipient of the Ophir Prize, the Jerusalem Film Festival Volgin Award, several awards at the DocAviv Film Festival, among others. Tal teaches cinema in the Film Departments at Sapir College and Tel Aviv University.
Filmography: Skin Deep (1996); Children of the Sun (2007); The Garden of Eden (2012); The Museum (2017)