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Israeli Filmmaker’s First Feature Making World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival Is a Personal Tribute to Her Brother
Actress Lia Elalouf as Eden in a scene from Tom Nesher’s feature film “Close Closer.” Photo: Provided.
Israeli director and writer Tom Nesher told The Algemeiner on Tuesday that her first feature film, which will make its world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City this week, is “very personal” and served as a “lifeline” for her during a time in her life when she was coping with the loss of a loved one.
Come Closer is a coming-of-age drama about a young woman named Eden and how she struggles to grieve the death of her best friend, her brother Nati, after he is suddenly hit by a car and killed. When she discovers that Nati had a secret girlfriend, a girl named Maya who is much more reserved and modest, Eden tracks her down and together the two women forge a bond in pain and grief that turns passionate and dangerous. The Hebrew-language film, with English subtitles, explores the topics of love, loss, pain, and friendship.
Come Closer will make its world premiere on Thursday at the Village East Cinema, as part of the Viewpoints section of the Tribeca Film Festival, and will be screened a second time on Saturday.
“The tonality of the film is very inconsistent, in a fun way,” Nesher told The Algemeiner. “It starts super young and fun. Then it’s sad and scary, and then fun again, and sexy and funny. It goes through a rollercoaster, and that resembles my life and what I was going through because life doesn’t have one tone to it. Just having everything happening at once — you’re growing up, you’re becoming your own person while dealing with something that is extremely difficult.”
The storyline hits close to home for Nesher, whose 17-year-old brother Ari died in 2018 in a hit-and-run accident. Ari and a friend were riding an electric bike in Israel when they were run over by former Israeli Premier League soccer player Itzhak Asefa, who was then convicted and served two years in prison. Tom wrote the screenplay for Come Closer while grieving her brother’s death. She has directed four award-winning short films and created many freeform documentary pieces as a journalist, but Come Closer is her feature film directorial debut.
“This film was created for my brother,” Nesher explained to The Algemeiner. “I wanted to make a film that he would like. So not a family drama [or] sad film, but a coming-of-age, funny, sexy, full of life — just like an exciting film for him to watch also.”
“The process that I was going through [after Ari’s death] was very similar to the process that the characters were going through,” she added. “They were taking this deep dive into love instead of trying to move on, and that’s also what I was doing. This film became kind of like my lifeline. I was coping with the grief I was dealing with through making this film, which is very full of love and passion.”
Nesher also incorporated other aspects of her personal life into the film, such as the wardrobe and even the shoes worn by the character Nati. Scenes were filmed in Nesher’s grandmother’s home and characters wore Nesher’s own clothing or those of her real-life friends. One emotional scene at the end of the film even includes a song that was sung at Nesher’s brother’s funeral by the choir of the school they attended together. In the film, the song is performed by Israeli singer Odeya Azoulay.
“There’s a lot in this film that is very personal to me,” the director said. “It’s very intimate in many ways.”
Come Closer stars newcomers Lia Elalouf and Daria Rosen in the lead roles of Eden and Maya, respectively. The cast includes Netta Garti, Jacob Zada Daniel, Shlomi Shaban, Ido Tako, Ofek Pesach, and Yael Shoshana Cohen.
Eden and Maya also have resemblances to Nesher, the director explained.
“The actresses Lia and Daria always had this argument of who is more similar to me, Eden or Maya,” she joked. “They both have parts of me and parts of the actresses as well. They brought in a lot of their own personality and while I was casting, I was looking for the most interested people and not the most accurate actresses. Just people that will bring the more interesting colors into this story. And I have a lot from my real life inside their life, but also a lot of it is just a metaphor for the feelings I was having.”
The screening of Come Closer at the Tribeca Film Festival on Thursday will be the first time that Nesher will watch her feature film with a large audience. She said having her film included in the lineup for the film festival is extremely meaningful to her and a dream come true. “I lived in New York until I was five years old so I’m coming back home in a sense,” she said.
When asked what overall message she hopes to convey to audiences with Come Closer, Nesher explained: “It’s like they say, ‘if you love someone, set them free. But if they love you, then you’ll find them again by your side.’ That’s kind of the message of the film. You don’t have to move on but you don’t need to cling to the person who you’re saying goodbye to, because the love will always be present in your life. And if your love was grand as you feel, it will keep being a part of you and he will keep being a part of you.”
Nesher is the daughter of award-winning Israeli director Avi Nesher, who won a lifetime achievement award from the Israeli Ministry of Culture and Sports in 2018.
The post Israeli Filmmaker’s First Feature Making World Premiere at Tribeca Film Festival Is a Personal Tribute to Her Brother first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich attends an inauguration event for Israel’s new light rail line for the Tel Aviv metropolitan area, in Petah Tikva, Israel, Aug. 17, 2023. Photo: REUTERS/Amir Cohen
i24 News – Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich said on Sunday that the government would establish an administration to encourage the voluntary migration of Palestinians from the Gaza Strip.
“We are establishing a migration administration, we are preparing for this under the leadership of the Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] and Defense Minister [Israel Katz],” he said at a Land of Israel Caucus at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament. “The budget will not be an obstacle.”
Referring to the plan championed by US President Donald Trump, Smotrich noted the “profound and deep hatred towards Israel” in Gaza, adding that “sources in the American government” agreed “that it’s impossible for two million people with hatred towards Israel to remain at a stone’s throw from the border.”
The administration would be under the Defense Ministry, with the goal of facilitating Trump’s plan to build a “Riviera of the Middle East” and the relocation of hundreds of thousands of Gazans for rebuilding efforts.
“If we remove 5,000 a day, it will take a year,” Smotrich said. “The logistics are complex because you need to know who is going to which country. It’s a potential for historical change.”
The post Smotrich Says Defense Ministry to Spur Voluntary Emigration from Gaza first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30
A general view shows the plenum at the Knesset, Israel’s parliament, in Jerusalem. Photo: REUTERS/Ronen Zvulun
i24 News – The Knesset’s (Israeli parliament’s) Special Committee for Foreign Workers held a discussion on Sunday to examine the needs of wounded and disabled IDF soldiers and the response foreign caregivers could provide.
During the discussion, data from the Defense Minister revealed that the number of registered IDF wounded and disabled veterans rose from 62,000 to 78,000 since the war began on October 7, 2023. “Most of them are reservists and 51 percent of the wounded are up to 30 years old,” the ministry’s report said. The number will increase, the ministry assesses, as post-trauma cases emerge.
The committee chairwoman, Knesset member Etty Atiya (Likud), emphasized the need to reduce unnecessary bureaucracy for the wounded and to remove obstacles. “There is no dispute that the IDF disabled have sacrificed their bodies and souls for the people of Israel, for the state of Israel,” she said. Addressing the veterans, she continued: “And we, as public representatives and public servants alike, must do everything, but everything, to improve your lives in any way possible, to alleviate your pain and the distress of your family members who are no less affected than you.”
Currently, extensions are being given to the IDF veterans on a three-month basis, which Atiya said creates uncertainty and fear among the patients.
“The committee calls on the Interior Minister [Moshe Arbel] to approve as soon as possible the temporary order on our table, so that it will reach the approval of the Knesset,” she said, adding that she “intends to personally approach the Director General of the Population Authority [Shlomo Mor-Yosef] on the matter in order to promote a quick and stable solution.”
The post Defense Ministry: 16,000 Wounded in War, About Half Under 30 first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad speaks during an interview with Sky News Arabia in Damascus, Syria in this handout picture released by the Syrian Presidency on August 8, 2023. Syrian Presidency/Handout via REUTERS
i24 News – Over 1,300 people were killed in two days of fighting in Syria between security forces under the new Syrian Islamist leaders and fighters from ousted president Bashar al-Assad’s Alawite sect on the other hand, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights on Sunday.
Since Thursday, 1,311 people had been killed, according to the Observatory, including 830 civilians, mainly Alawites, 231 Syrian government security personnel, and 250 Assad loyalists.
The intense fighting broke out late last week as the Alawite militias launched an offensive against the new government’s fighters in the coastal region of the country, prompting a massive deployment ordered by new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.
“We must preserve national unity and civil peace as much as possible and… we will be able to live together in this country,” al-Sharaa said, as quoted in the BBC.
The death toll represents the most severe escalations since Assad was ousted late last year, and is one of the most costly in terms of human lives since the civil war began in 2011.
The counter-offensive launched by al-Sharaa’s forces was marked by reported revenge killings and atrocities in the Latakia region, a stronghold of the Alawite minority in the country.
The post Over 1,300 Killed in Syria as New Regime Accused of Massacring Civilians first appeared on Algemeiner.com.
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