DEARDEAR MR.MR. WALDMANWALDMAN Michtavim le America

A FEATURE FILM BY HANAN PELED

Awards: 3 NOMINATIONS Israeli Including Best Actor AUDIENCE AWARD, Reheboth Beach Independent Film Festival Selected Festival Screenings: Jerusalem International Film Festival UK Jewish Film Festival Palm Springs International Film Festival Munich Film Festival Atlanta Jewish Film Festival – Closing Night Film Washington DC Jewish Film Festival Palm Beach Jewish Film Festival Vancouver Jewish Film Festival Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema San Diego Jewish Film Festival Sacramento Jewish Film Festival Denver Jewish Film Festival Israel Nonstop, NYC

Distributed in North America by: The National Center for Jewish Film Brandeis University Lown 102, MS 053 Waltham, MA 02454 (781) 736-8600 [email protected] www.jewishfilm.org

AN OPEN DOORS FILMS/TMUNA COMMUNICATIONS

DEAR MR. WALDMAN

It is the early 1960s in and ten-year-old Hilik knows his goal in life – to make his parents happy and compensate for the grief they both suffered in the Holocaust.

The fragile equilibrium of the new life Rivka and Moishe have forged for themselves and their sons, Hilik and Yonatan, in the new state of Israel begins to waver when Moishe convinces himself that Yankele, his son from his first marriage, didn't actually die in Auschwitz, but rather miraculously escaped to America, where he grew to adulthood and became an advisor to President John Kennedy.

Moishe never really accepted the fact that he alone survived the Holocaust, and after seeing “Jack Waldman’s” picture in the newspaper, he finds himself sinking into his past. When Moishe writes a letter to Waldman, Hilik takes matters into his own hands.

A coming-of-age story about the son of Holocaust survivors written and directed by the son of survivors, Dear Mr. Waldman beautifully captures the milieu of mid-century Tel Aviv and of peculiarities of growing up amid the emotional wreckage of the Holocaust.

Superbly written and acted, Dear Mr. Waldman is a drama about the impact of profound loss on the intimacies of family and friendship and the restorative power of love and compassion.

ISRAEL, 86 MINUTES, 35MM, COLOR, HEBREW WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES

CREDITS CAST Screenwriter & Director: Hanan Peled Rami Heuberger (Moishe) Producers: Yoav Halevy & Hanan Peled Yavgenia Dudina (Rivka) Production Company: OPEN DOORS Ido Port (Hilik) FILMS/Tmuna Communication Dov Glikman (Fruike) Director of Photography: Valentin Belonogov Evelin Kaplon (Rojka) Editing: Shimon Spector & Isaac Zechayek Roy Mayer (Yonatan) Original Music: Yoni Bloch Ela Armoni (Nirit) Art Director: Jacob Torjeman Costum Design: Rona Doron Sound Design: Israel David

SUPPORTED BY Israel Film Fund, Keshet Broadcasting, Wextrust Capitol, Globus Group, Kolnoa Haskaot

WEBSITES www.jewishfilm.org www.dearmrwaldman.com

DIRECTOR STATEMENT by Hanan Peled

About 12 years ago I went with my father to Germany. I took him to a doctor for a treatment for Psoriasis, s sickness that we both share, my father and me. After visiting the German doctor I took my father to Dachau near Munich, where my father had spent the last years of WW2. As we were wandering through the paths of the death camp, or what remained of it, I started thinking about the idea for a film in which I will try to explore and tell the special relationships I have with my father and with the whole big issue of my parent's past during the holocaust.

The first draft of the screenplay was written about a year after that visit. It was mainly autobiographic and still wasn't structured as a dramatic story. A few years later I have decided to write the story first as a book. The book was telling the journey of my father and me to Germany, and in between were scene of my childhood in Tel Aviv during the sixties. The book got published and got very good reviews. I realized it touched a sensitive nerve of many readers, and not just people who had connections with the holocaust. Many people felt attached to the father-son relationship, and I was amazed to realize that even young readers, teenagers, could relate to the book and were agitated by it.

The next step was to readapt the book to a screenplay again. By this time the premise of the story was much clearer to me. I took a step aside from real events and looked for the metaphor that will deliver the premise of the story in a crystallized and sharp form.

One of the episodes in the book, and in real life, was the story about my father writing a letter to J.F Kennedy's adviser who carried the same Family name as ours (In real life it was Feldman) My father wrote a letter to the Whitehouse, hoping to find a forgotten relative in the American government. After some time an answer came, a disappointing answer I should say, and that was the end of it.

Shakespeare once said that: "Plays should not tell the reality as it is, but as it could have been" Or as an Israeli well-known writer phrased it: "Stories are opportunities to live our life again in a different, sometimes amended, way".

The decision to take the story of the lost relative was combined with the fact that my father had a previous family before the war, a wife and 2 years old boy, who disappeared one night and were sent to Auschwitz, while my father was working in the German bindery outside the Ghetto.

The premise of the story became clear to me now. As a member of the group of "2nd generation to holocaust survivors, I was motivated all my life to please my parents and compensate them for the great indescribable lost and suffering that they went through. As I grow up I fought against this unbearable burden that blocked me from developing my own life, and sometime even mange to lead a normal life, but as a young boy I was defenseless and took this duty without hesitations, questions or resistance. I knew I must make my parents happy, what ever it takes, and whatever sacrifices I had to give. Besides being too young to even grasp the meaning of the holocaust, I also had to compete with dead people and slowly realizing that I became as many others 2nd generation sons and daughters, by the age of ten, a parent of my parents.

This premise with the two story elements became the basis of the story of the final screenplay "Tea and Rice". I omitted the journey story of the present, and concentrated on the past. It became a story of 10 years old boy who is trying desperately to make his father happy. When the chance that his father's first dead son could be alive and even became an important American, Hilik is determined to do anything, as he knows his duty is, to please his father, even if it means faking a letter just to calm his father, and even when there is a danger that little Hilik would loose is father forever, he doesn't hesitate and fulfills his duty, causing a turmoil and almost the dismantlement of the whole family.

But Hilik is brave enough and wise enough to try and fix what he had done. After seeing the consequences and, by the first time in his life seeing his mother side (He learns from his brother that their mother was already once inside the showers of Auschwitz and somehow was taken back to the block, an experience that made her cling to life by all means.)

The truth falls on Moishe's head as a heavy rock. He passes a process of death and resurrection, and only after a week of lying in bed and mourning for the first real time after his dead son and first wife, and after Hilik takes away the "evil eye" conducting a ritual he'd learnt from his father, Moishe is ready to start his life with his new family.

As the story deals mainly with relationships, the look of the film will be mostly intimate and interiors. The faces will be the main characters of the film, decorated with the streets, the colors and noises of Tel Aviv during the early sixties.

There are few fantasy scenes, the last scene and two dream scenes that will have a special atmosphere to differentiate from the realistic scenes. Even though the scenes will be realistic, I will try to make them somewhat unique in color and atmosphere, concentrate on warm colors, so that they will deliver the feeling of reminiscence. Camera movement will mainly follow action and not become an additional actor, with exception of several scenes in which the camera will play a bigger roll.

Music will be a mixture of a background music emphasizing dramatic or comic moments, with music of the sixties as heard from radios, record players, etc.

Final remark: During those 12 years of process I lost my father and mother, and they are both dead now. To my regret, they will not see the film, in which I am trying to sum up the essence of our relationship, but there are millions of 2nd and 3rd generations to the holocaust that will easily find themselves and the story I am trying to tell.

HANAN PELED (DIRECTOR & SCREENWRITER)

Born 1951 in Tel-Aviv, Israel, Hanan Peled is a well-known Israeli writer for fiction films, television dramas, plays, and novels. Hanan lives in Tel-Aviv.

Fiction Film Filmography 2001 RETURN FROM INDIA (HASHIVA MEHODO, Dir: Menahem Golan) – Screenwriter 1991 A BIT OF LUCK (TIPAT MAZAL, Dir. Zeev Revach) – Screenwriter 1986 DON'T GIVE A DAMN (LO SHAM ZAYIN, Dir: Shmuel Imberman) – Screenwriter 1985 WAR ZONE (Dir: Nathaniel Gutman) – Screenwriter

Television Filmography 1999 IVGI SWISSA REPORT – Writer of 6 episodes. 1999 SESAME STREET Israeli-Palestinian co-production – Head Writer for 65 shows 1995 EFRAIM'S SUFFERINGS (sitcom) – Writer of 13 episodes 1994 GOOD MORNING YENUHAMIA (sitcom) – Writer 1980-1995 ZEU-ZE (Israel’s most popular sitcom/satire) – Writer of 200 scripts 1980-1990 SESAME STREET (Israeli version) – Head writer of 100 episodes 1988 THE VISITORS (50 min. drama broadcast on IBA) – Writer 1988 TWO ON THE ROAD (50 min. drama broadcast on IBA) – Writer 1985 ASHKARA

YOAV HALEVY (PRODUCER)

Born 1967 In Tel-Aviv, Israel, Yoav Halevy is an award-winning producer and screenwriter. His films have been screened at such prestigious film festivals as, Quinzaine Des R’ealisateures and Cannes Film Festival (WHITE NIGHT) and Karlovy Vary International Film Festival (GOD’S SANDBOX).

Fiction Films Filmography 2002 GOD’S SANDBOX (TAHARA) – Screenwriter & Producer WINNER Best Film, Best Director, & Best Screenplay, Manchester (Vermont) Film Festival 2000 ZEDEK MUCHLAT (Feature Film starring Ofra Haza) – Screenplay 1999 IT WILL END WITH A CRY A (TV miniseries) – Producer 1996 WHITE NIGHT (LAYLA LAVAN) (feature film) – Producer & Screenwriter WINNER Young Cinema Award, Director’s Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 1990 ANOTHER BED ANOTHER MORNING (Short Film) – Producer

VALENTIN BELONOGOV (DIRECTOR OF PHOTOGRAPHY)

An award-winning cinematographer, his films have been screened in many prestigious film festivals.

Selected Filmography 2006 THINGS BEYOND THE SUN (HADVARIM SHEMEAHOREI HASHEMHESH, Dir: Yuval Shaferman) 2002 BROKEN WINGS (KENAFAYIM SHVUROT, Dir: Nir Bergman) 1999 YANA'S FRIENDS (CHAVERIM SHEL YANA, Dir: Arik Kaplon) 1996 SAINT CLARA (CLARA HAKDOSHA, Dir: & Ori Sivan)

RAMI HEUBERGER (MOISHE)

First noticed in a famous TV Israeli series, Rami has become one of the best actors in Israel, working with many Israeli directors, including Dover Kosashvili (GIFT FROM ABOVE) and Dror Shaul (OPERATION GRANDMA). Rami has recetnly finished shooting THE LITTLE TRAITOR, a feature directed by Lyne Roth and starring Alfred Molina and Theodore Bikel. His performance in DEAR MR. WALDMAN garnered uniformly excellent reviews, including the following statement my the Jerusalem Post” "The film's performances are uniformly outstanding. Rami Heuberger gives one of the best leading performances I've ever seen in an Israeli film as the emotionally wounded father.”

Selected Filmography 2006 THE LITTLE TRAITOR (Dir: Lyne Roth) 2006 DEAR MR. WALDMAN (MICHTAVIM LE AMERICA, Dir: Hanan Peled) 2003 GIFT FROM ABOVE (MATANA MISHMAYIM, Dir: Dover Kosashvili) 2000 OPERATION GRANDMA (MIVTZA SAVTA, Dir: Dror Shaul)

YAVGENIA DODINA (RIVKA)

Working in GHESHER Theatre as the leading actress, Yavgenia become a sought after actress in theatre & television dramas.

Selected Filmography 2006 LOVE & DANCE (SIPOR HAZI RUSSI, Dir: Eitan Anner) 2003 NINA'S TRAGEDIES (ASONOT SHEL NINA, Dir: Sabi Gabinson) 2001 MADE IN ISRAEL (Dir: Ari Folman)

By Peter Keough

Needless to say, the Holocaust looms over all modern memory, and it figures with poignance and terror in Israeli director Hanan Peled’s autobiographical first feature, Dear Mr. Waldman. The film starts out in Cinema Paradiso fashion with a voiceover from a pre- adolescent kid, Hilik (Ido Port), whose passion for movies (Spartacus is his favorite) elevates him above his humdrum surroundings — Tel Aviv in 1962. Hilik’s naive and fanciful point of view takes in the domestic travails of his mother and father, Rivka and Moishe, both Auschwitz survivors, the latter still mourning his loss there of his first wife and son. When Moishe sees a picture in the paper of Jack Waldman, an adviser to President Kennedy, he’s convinced the man is the son he thought he’d lost. In an attempt to make his father happy, Hilik fakes a letter from Waldman, another familiar plot device in this kind of movie. But the hilarious and heart-rending chaos that erupts transcends cliché. A scene in which two Holocaust survivors clutch together in an illicit embrace passes from broad comedy to wrenching pathos to stark horror, and the performances, especially from the changeling-like Port, haunt the memory.

A family held hostage by a father's tragic past Hannah Brown, THE JERUSALEM POST Jan. 2, 2007 DEAR MR. WALDMAN ✰✰✰½

Written and directed by Hanan Peled. Hebrew title: Michtavim L'America. 90 minutes. In Hebrew, with English and Hebrew titles. With Rami Heuberger, Ido Port, Yavgenia Dodina, Roy Mayer, Evelyn Kaplun, Dov Glikman, Ela Armoni

Well-written and superbly acted, Dear Mr. Waldman treads ground that will be familiar to anyone used to seeing Israeli movies or reading Israeli novels. It's a coming-of-age story set in the Sixties that deals with a boy's attempt to console his father, a Holocaust survivor who is grieving over the loss of his family in World War II. While at times the pathos threatens to overwhelm the drama, the vividly drawn characters manage to remind the audience that these are real people trying their best to cope with overwhelming problems, and not the stereotypes we've seen too many times in lesser dramas.

Although the son, Hilik (Ido Port), is the narrator of the story, it is his father, Moishe (Rami Heuberger), who is at the story's center. Moishe has made a new life for himself in Israel, where he owns and runs a print shop in Tel Aviv with his friend, Froyeke (Dov Glikman), a wheeler dealer who keeps trying to get the reluctant Moishe to invest in his business schemes.

Moishe's bond with Froyeke is in some ways deeper than his relationship with his wife, Rivka (Yavgenia Dodina), because it was Froyeke who saved his life during the war. Moishe is depressive and often takes to his bed, looking over and over at the one photo he has of his dead wife and child. His longing for his lost family isn't easy on the one he actually has, naturally.

Rivka, an extremely pragmatic woman, has pretty much given up trying to make her husband face reality and instead focuses on the only one of Froyeke's deals that makes sense, buying a plot of land in the sand dunes that will become Holon. Yonatan (Roy Mayer), the oldest child, loses himself in reading, and his only real contact with his father comes through the books Moishe brings him from the print shop. But it is Hilik, the younger son who loves movies and is obsessed with Spartacus, who desperately wants his father's happiness and approval. A boy who understands without being told that his impossible mission is to make his parents happy, Hilik is the most frustrated that he can never measure up to Yankele, his dead half-brother.

When Moishe sees a newspaper article about Jack Waldman, a young advisor to US President John F. Kennedy, he becomes convinced that this young man is his long-lost Yankele. Moishe writes to him and begins to live in a fantasy world, telling himself that since he didn't actually see his son die - although, as Rivka reminds him at every turn, several others did - Yankele may well be alive and living in Washington.

Moishe begins to talk about going to Washington to visit Yankele, and in a misguided attempt to keep his family together, Hilik forges a letter, supposedly from Jack Waldman, giving just enough information to confirm Moishe's wildest hopes.

The fallout from Hilik's forgery is more or less what you'd expect. In spite of this built-in predictability, though, the movie is never boring. The sadness and tragedy on the screen are too real to be dull. Although a slightly upbeat ending feels a little forced, it is to veteran screenwriter Hanan Peled's credit that he manages to nudge his characters out of the past and into a future that is not so bleak.

The film's performances are uniformly outstanding. Rami Heuberger gives one of the best leading performances I've ever seen in an Israeli film as the emotionally wounded father. Yavgenia Dodina, the celebrated stage actress who began her career in Russia, is pitch-perfect as the mother who can seem cold but is simply adept at survival. It's the kind of naturalistic, lowkey acting that is easy to overlook because it feels so real.

Dov Glikman is almost too believable as the oily Froyeke, while Ido Port is one of the few young Israeli actors who speaks and acts like a child, rather than an undersized 40-year-old.

The excellent production design and costumes prove that Israeli film has truly come of age in this area.

Although the subject may be one you'd prefer not to revisit, Dear Mr. Waldman brings it to life with style and intelligence.