Contact: Ronen Ben-Tal 10 Pumbedita St., +972 54 6649771 Plan B Productions ltd. 64234 [email protected]

Winner of the Ecumenical Prize Winner of Best Israeli Film & Best Actress Awards International Film Festival Haifa International Film Festival

A film by with & Evgenia Dodina

Lo Roim Alaich Israel – Germany 2011 90 min | 35 mm | Hebrew with English subtitles Two women meet by chance and discover they were both raped by the same rapist. Individually and together they must confront the past and finally integrate the long repressed trauma into their lives.

From the Press (for a full list see below): "'Invisible' is a powerful film… it puts at its front the social dimension and a view of the world… remarkable…" (Michel Ciment, France Culture, Projection Privée, 19.2.11) "Aviad's impressive 'Invisible', with outstanding performances by Evgenia Dodina and Ronit Elkabetz, is different from other films about rape….Aviad tries to do practically the hardest thing of all – shining a light on reality such that its innerness is revealed to the viewers…." (Uri Klein, Ha'aretz, 23.12.11) "Screen highlights some of the new directors...who shone in 2011: MICHAL AVIAD, DIRECTOR… Aviad’s powerful and provocative debut feature 'Invisible' is a haunting Israeli film driven by passionate and impressive performances by Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina." (Leon Forde, Screen, 3.1.12)

1 Cast List Crew

Lily – Ronit Elkabetz Director – Michal Aviad Nira – Evgenia Dodina Producer – Ronen Ben-Tal Michel – Mederic Ory Screenplay – Michal Aviad, Tal Omer Amnon – Gil Frank DOP – Guy Raz Dana – Sivan Levy Editor – Era Lapid Shir – Bar Miniely Co-producer – Gerd Haag – TAG/TRAUM Yuval – Gal Lev Associate Producer – Alexander Bohr – Taxi Driver – Miki Leon ZDF/ARTE Dr. David Giladi – Rami Baruch Sound Design – Aviv Aldema Superintendent Lahav – Shlomo Sadan Location Sound Mixer – Moti Heffetz Policeman – Itamar Malul Casting – Yael Aviv Set Design – Adi Sagi-Amar Costume Designer – Laura Sheim Make Up and Hair – Ziv Katanov

Synopsis

Over twenty years after Lily and Nira were raped by the same serial rapist, an unexpected encounter brings them together. Single mother Nira, a reserved television editor, comes across charismatic Lily, a left-wing activist who is helping Palestinians harvest their olives. So intense is the chance meeting, that Nira finds herself digging into her past, stirring up memories, and trying to bridge the gap between the person she once was and the person she has become. Nira becomes increasingly obsessed with her ‘mission’ to find out all she can about the rapist. She discovers that although he behaved violently towards all the women, the press named him the Polite Rapist and described him as “well-mannered” since he forced his victims to spend hours with him, talking to them and raping them in turn. Lily, bound up in a profound crisis in her marriage, tries to prevent the trauma from surfacing, but it penetrates every part of her life. Her relationships with her son, daughter and husband are strained to the limit, and Lily eventually realizes that she has no option but to confront the cracks in her life. Nira and Lily must join together. What begins as a hard yet liberating journey turns into a subtle and moving friendship: through this relationship, they will finally be able to stop feeling humiliated and guilty. They will no longer be INVISIBLE. An emotionally powerful film, INVISIBLE mixes fact with fiction using televised material and recorded testimonies of women who like Lily and Nira, have survived despite their nightmare.

2 Festivals & Awards

> Winner of the Ecumenical Prize, Berlin International Film Festival (February 2011) > Winner of Best Israeli Film and Best Actress Awards, Haifa International film Festival (October 2011) > Taormina Film Festival (June 2011) > Montreal World Film Festival (August 2011) > Israel Film Festival in Moscow (September 2011) > Rio International Film Festival (October 2011) > Thessaloniki Film Festival (November 2011) > Philadelphia Jewish Film Festival (November 2011) > International Women Film festival, Rehovot – A special daylong event dedicated to Invisible: Sexual Violence in Films – Ethics and a New Cinematic Language (November 2011) > Third Eye Asian Film Festival in Mumbai (December 2011) > Kerala International Film Festival (December 2011) > Bangalore International Film Festival (December 2011) > Goteborg International Film Festival (February 2012) > Jameson Dublin International Film Festival (February 2012)

Release date in Israel: 10 November 2011 Trailer: http://www.4shared.com/video/FLsPa3FJ/invsbl_trlr_4-3_WMV_6000.html

3 Biographies

Director Michal Aviad

Michal Aviad was born in to an Italian-born mother and a Hungarian-born father. After finishing high school, she studied literature, philosophy and cinema. During the 1980s she lived in San Francisco, where she started making films and became a mother. Since returning to Israel in 1991, she has continued to write, direct and produce award-winning documentary films. Her films include: Acting Our Age (1987, USA), The Women Next Door (1992, Israel), Ever Shot Anyone? (1995, Israel), Jenny & Jenny (1997, Israel), Ramleh (2001, Israel), For My Children (2002, Israel). Aviad’s films examine the complex relationships between women’s issues and the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, militarism, and ethnicity. Aviad has been working on co-writing and directing Invisible since 2006. It is her first feature length fiction film. She is a faculty member at ’s Department of Film and Television. Aviad shares her life with her two children and her boyfriend, in unbearably sunny Tel Aviv.

Producer Ronen Ben-Tal

Ronen Ben-Tal grew up in Tel Aviv, studied cinema at Tel Aviv University and has written scripts and directed short films. Ben-Tal has been soloist and songwriter for the alternative rock group Ur Kasdim since the 1980s. In 1983, he established “DB Studios”, which remains the leading music and sound post production studio in Israel, designing and editing most Israeli films. In recent years, Ben-Tal left DB Studios and today focuses on the production of films and television. Among others he produced The Bubble, directed by Eytan Fox.

Ronit Elkabetz (Lily)

Ronit Elkabetz is an actress, director and screenwriter. Although never formally studying acting, right from the beginning of her career, Elkabetz has played a variety of main roles and made her mark as one of the central female figures in Israeli cinema. Elkabetz has starred in many Israeli and foreign films and won recognition and awards for her achievements in Israel and Europe – among which are three Israeli Academy Awards (1994, 2001, 2007), a commendation for her contribution to Israeli cinema (2010) and the American Critics Association for best actress (2003). Elkabetz is the first Israeli actress to have won the France Culture Film Award at the (2010). Among the films in which she has participated are: Late Wedding by Dover Koshashvili (2001), by (2003), Or by Keren

4 Yedaya (2004), The Band’s Visit by Eran Kolirin (2007), Zion by Joseph Dadoune (2007), Ashes and Blood by Fanny Ardant (2009), Jaffa by Keren Yedaya (2009), La Fille du RER by André Téchiné (2009), Hands Free by (2010), Turkish Head by Pascal Elbé (2010) and Mabul by (2010). Together with Shlomi Elkabetz, Ronit Elkabetz has written and directed two full-length films – To Take a Wife (2004), and The Seven Days (2008) – which gained an enthusiastic response in Israel and abroad and brought her many additional awards. Her flourishing acting career includes an appearance both in a television series and in theater. Elkabetz is currently playing the main role (Penelope) in the play Ithaque, by playwright Botho Struss, directed by Jean-Louis Martinelli, and alongside actor Charles Berling (Odysseus) at the Theater Nanterre-Amandier in .

Evgenia Dodina (Nira)

Evgenia Dodina studied acting at the State Academy of Art in Moscow. In 1990, she emigrated from the Soviet Union to Israel and was part of the Gesher Theater from the day of its inception. Dodina played the lead in most of the plays in this theater and won enthusiastic critical praise in Israel and abroad. In 2007, she left to work with the Habima National Theater. Among her roles are: Ophelia in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Miriam in The Dreyfuss Affair, Armanda in Moliere, Aglaya in The Idiot, Jenny in Adam Resurrected, Doreen in Tartuffe, Masha in Three Sisters, Puck in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Wanda-Sarah in The Slave, Cherubino in The Marriage of Figaro, Medea in Medea, Madame Ranevskaya in The Cherry Orchard, Anna Karenina in Anna Karenina, Rita in Little Eyolf by Ibsen, and Sarah in A Railway to Damascus by Hillel Mitelpunkt. Her roles in the plays A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Slave won Dodina the Israeli Theater Award twice in a row (2001/2002 and 2002/2003). In addition to her work in theater, Dodina has appeared on television and in many Israeli films, among them:Clara Hakedosha by Ari Folman (1996), Zirkus Palestina by Eyal Halfon (1998), Total Eclipse by Shmulik Maoz (2000), Made in Israel by Ari Folman (2001), Nina’s Tragedies by Savi Gavison (2003), and Adam Resurrected by Paul Schrader (2008). At the Warsaw International Film Festival, Dodina was awarded best actress for her main role in the filmSnow Paper (2003) by Slava and Nina Chaplin. Dodina is one of the most outstanding and respected actresses in Israel today. In 2010 she was awarded an honorary doctorate in Philosophy by Tel Aviv University.

5 About the Film

Michal Aviad on the film:

Many films include scenes of rape in their stories. Those scenes are often portrayed as a combination of sex and violence, two crowd pleasing elements. But the effects of rape on their victims are hidden and silenced. In this film I wanted to explore the invisible wounds victims of rape wrestle with. The long-term effects of rape, is a subject rarely dealt with in cinema. I wanted to describe the different ways women experience rape many years after its occurrence. Invisible tells the story of two women who were victims of the same serial rapist, over twenty years before the film takes place. Meeting each other, brings to the surface the trauma which has continued to torment them and affect their lives. Each one experiences and reacts to the re- entering of the rape trauma differently. In the course of the film, we learn that their rape and trauma did not only scar them, it also influences their relationships with their children, parents and spouses.

In the film, the two women realize that as frightening as it is, each has to face again the event and its ramifications, so that they can go on with life. The film was preceded by a thorough research into the subject, and it is a combination of fiction and documentary: While the protagonists of the film, their families and their social contexts are fictional, the serial rapist the film presents, is totally real. He operated in 1977-1978 in the Tel Aviv area. He raped about 16 women and girls. In the film, every reference to the rapist, in the dialogue between the protagonists, in their findings of newspaper clippings and TV reports, is factual. Two vocal testimonies of actual victims of the same rapist are interlaced in the film.

6 I feel that the combination of fiction and facts is necessary for the viewers’ experience: The facts do not allow us to brush away the events as if they were imaginative. The fiction allows the inner-psychological drama of the protagonists to take place hitting us with the horrors of nuanced, mundane and terrifying facts from the past. While the protagonists are in search of the terms for talking, of speaking out their stories, of putting an order, words and action to their traumas – society, their families and each of them keep silencing them. Shutting them up includes blunt and hidden reactions and the many ways the event of rape marks them for life. Nira and Lily live in Israel. The violent occupation of Palestinians is part of their reality. We tend to relate to rape as a “women’s issue” and to war as a “political/national issue”. I wanted to blur the borders between the two phenomena, while not allowing one to be a metaphor for the other. The film mixes documentary footage shot by human rights cinematographers and activists, with footage we shot ourselves. Violence, invasion, and penetration patently exist both in the context of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians and in rape relationships. I want the film to enable us to look at the traumatic effects of helplessness and humiliation on individuals in a new way. I have chosen two celebrated Israeli actresses for the roles. I felt that convincing, subtle, and varied acting is called for. Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina got excited about playing the roles from day one and saw it as a challenge. We have worked on the roles for months. Long before rehearsals started, we met often, told each other our life stories, and conducted research as we met relevant people together. Our task was to create characters that in spite of their inner wounds do not evoke pity. UN figures from 2007 estimate that worldwide, as well as in each European country, 1 in 5 women will be a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. Therefore, 1 in 5 of the women around us, carries the trauma of rape throughout her life, the trauma of 1 in 5 women affects her family and children. Yet each of these women experiences the trauma in a different way, and more often than not, alone.

7 Ronit Elkabetz on her work in the film:

My creative work is always drawn to the margins of society, to social material, out of awareness, alertness and the desire to shift things and bring about change. I believe that art can bring about change and for this reason my work lies in social cinema, the aim of which is to speak for those who cannot speak for themselves. Over and above the act of rape and its repercussions, the film wishes to acknowledge the rape victim’s own process in the shedding of the guilt attached to a shameful and violent act for which she is not to blame. The rape victim is even more denigrated by society than the rapist himself. And rape is generally an “issue” that is denigrated and prohibited, an issue they are still attempting, without success, to define on a judicial level. Accordingly, many rape victims prefer to remain silent and avoid the humiliation involved in an enquiry relating to the violent act against them, their body and soul, and they pay for this in repression, which costs them their life. Lily, the character I play, lives a life of extreme repression for many years, an inevitable defense mechanism that protects her from the entire world and, primarily, from herself. However, repression is not healing.

The film deals with the point at which she can no longer repress the sensations and feelings, the pain or the shame that must burst out at any price, to smash and shatter the life of illusion she has constructed for herself on her way to live a life that is full and real, a life in which she acknowledges her worth as a person and a woman. Films are not often made about this subject. Certainly not films that deal with rape from a radical, incisive perspective. In this film, progress is slow and inward and the blood that flows is internal and not external. It is about coping with post-trauma unconsciously. It is the encounter between these two women, Lily and Nira, which releases the demons and enables them to free themselves.

8 Evgenia Dodina on her work in the film:

My work in this film has been particularly challenging and difficult because, in contrast to other figures I have played in theater and cinema that cope with difficult situations, here everything happens under the surface. In order to construct and understand Nira’s character, an important part of my work was to evoke memories, talk during rehearsals about events I hadn’t thought about in years, and to connect with unpleasant, past experiences as a woman. When I understood Nira, my way as an actress to reach the thing itself was to act intuitively. Ronit and I worked in different ways, but the understanding that each of us held her own keys to the characters made it a joy to work together.

Awards of the Ecumenical Jury

“This film deals with women’s rape – a major and frequent social problem of physical and mental trauma. It shows with empathy, and brilliant psychological relevance, the complex feelings and behavior of two victims who meet by chance. They try to overcome the long- lasting sequelae from which they are suffering. Through the generosity, the energy, and the talents of the Director and her two actresses, this first feature film is based on real facts. It shows the successful fight for women’s rights and dignity.”

9 Facts and figureson the phenomena of rape in the western world

It is estimated that, worldwide, 1 in 5 women will become a victim of rape or attempted rape in her lifetime. (2007) http://www.un.org/en/women/endviolence/situation.shtml

In a randomly selected study of nearly 1,200 ninth-grade students in Geneva, Switzerland, 20% of the girls revealed that they had experienced at least one incident of physical sexual abuse. (2005) http://www.unifem.org/gender_issues/violence_against_women/facts_ figures.php?page=3

UK: Only 5.7% of rape cases reported to police result in a conviction, but studies estimate that between 75 and 95% are never even reported, and most of those that are reported fall by the wayside before they get near a court. (2008) http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/mar/08/ukcrime.gender 26% of those asked said that they thought a woman was partially or totally responsible for being raped if she was wearing sexy or revealing clothing, and more than one in five (22%) held the same view if a woman had had many sexual partners. (2005) http://www.amnesty.org.uk/news_details.asp?NewsID=16618

In France, 75,000 women are raped each year, 200 women each day and a woman each 7 minutes. (2010) http://lci.tf1.fr/france/societe/2010-11/une-femme-victime-de-viol- toutes-les-sept-minutes-6163064.html

US: 20 to 25% of college women experience rape or attempted rape during their college career. 65% of these attacks go unreported. Alcohol is involved in 75% of attacks. (2004) http://www.aauw.org/act/laf/library/assault_stats.cfm 43% of college men admit using coercive behavior to have sex, including ignoring a woman’s protest; using physical aggression; and forcing intercourse; 15% acknowledged they had committed acquaintance rape; 11% acknowledged using physical restraint to force a woman to have sex (2001). http://www.crisisconnectioninc.org/sexualassault/college_campuses_and_ rape.htm 60% of college men report they would rape a woman if they were certain that they would get away with it. (1999) http://web.mit.edu/stop/www/statistics.htm

10 From the Press

A review by Mark Adams, Screen magazine | 15 February, 2011

http://www.screendaily.com/reviews/latest- Lily is married with two grown-up children, but reviews/invisible/5023846.article her marriage is failing with her husband feeling he has nothing to offer this self-contained and Michel Aviad’s powerful and provocative debut determined woman. feature Invisible is the gripping story of two The two women gradually spend more time women who meet by chance and realise they together, recalling the terrible moment of their are still haunted by a shared nightmare from rape; delving into court records and eventually their past. Driven by passionate and impressive driving to the house of the rapist, who was performances by Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia released after just 10 years, despite being Dodina, this haunting Israeli film will be a fixture found guilty of being a serial rapist. on the festival circuit and has the resonance to As usual Ronit Elkabetz makes a striking also appeal to art house distributors. impact as the seemingly perfect wife/mother/ Michal Aviad shoots with a good deal of campaigner whose life is beginning to crack restraint, never exploiting the harrowing ever-so-slightly, with her glacial aloofness subject matter, but allowing the moving meshing perfectly with the character of the story of two women dealing with a long forthright Lily who gradually realises she must repressed trauma be told in an engrossing deal with the horrors of her past. Equally fine and emotive manner. is Evgenia Dodina, with her frizzy fair hair and The charismatic two lead actresses will be sense of compassion a physical contrast to the driving force behind the film which details Elkabetz, but who realises that re-living the how two intelligent and driven women attempt past will help the two women deal with their to deal with the fact that they were victims of futures. a serial rapist (dubbed ‘The Polite Rapist’ by In her debut film, director Michal Aviad shoots police and media) some 20 years earlier. with a good deal of restraint, never exploiting Aviad’s film is a work of fiction but with real the harrowing subject matter, but allowing the facts and incidents worked into the story - the moving story of two women dealing with a long characters are imagined, though the rapist, repressed trauma be told in an engrossing and who raped 16 women and girls in Tel Aviv in emotive manner. 1977-78, is real, and two vocal testimonies of actual victims of the rapist are interlaced into * * * the film. Reserved television editor Nira (Dodina) comes across Lily (Elkabetz), a left-wing activist, while covering an event, and realises that she knows her from attending the line-up to identify the rapist some 20 years earlier. Both are strong, independent, women but at the same time both are haunted by what happened in their past. Nira, mild-mannered and living with her young daughter, becomes obsessed with looking back to the rapes and what happened to the rapist and gently inserts herself into Lily’s life.

11 A review by Uri Klein, Haaretz | 23 December 2011

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/ is at all possible to handle such an event, and well-worth-seeing-1.403195 Nira is the same. Each of these two different women deal with Well worth seeing their inability to deal in different ways, which Michal Aviad’s impressive ‘Invisible,’ with in the course of this smart and decent film outstanding performances by Evgenia Dodina by Aviad, will blend together into a united and Ronit Elkabetz, is different from other films path, which will contain the tensions and the about rape. inherent contradictions of their psychology, The conscious and existential status of two consciousness and humanity. Israeli women lies at the center of ‘Invisible’ (‘Lo The two women present an image that is right Roim Alaich’), the first nondocumentary film for them but which exposes and at the same by the director Michal Aviad, who has created time conceals what is happening within them. several laudable documentaries, including Nira seems to be more open, more direct in ‘The Women Next Door,’ ‘Ever Shot Anyone?’ her contact with her surroundings; but she has and ‘Jenny and Jenny.’ I define ‘Invisible’ as never married and apparently did not want to a nondocumentary film and not as a feature marry, either. It is Nira, through her contact film since it doesn’t only walk the line between with Lily, who drives the plot of the film, which feature cinema and documentary cinema, but derives in part from Nira’s realization that she is fashioned from a documentary sensitivity. remembers too little of what happened when Throughout ‘Invisible,’ I felt I was watching a she was raped and does not know enough feature film that was directed as a documentary about what happened in the subsequent film. Aviad and Tal Omer, who wrote the investigation; all of which means that she has screenplay with her, did well to choose a name not dealt with the event that has, to a certain that carries meaning in the feature context of degree, shaped her life. the film, but also touches on the act of seeing, Lily seems to be more dragged in Nira’s wake, perception, interpretation and understanding. but in the case of these two women, who experienced rape, being dragged is a physical Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina in ‘Invisible’ action no less than Nira’s activeness. Aviad, This is the story of Nira (Evgenia Dodina), a who is using actors in a film for the first time, researcher and film editor, who in the course of and who demonstrates an impressive ability preparing an article about left-wing activists in to work with them, was wise to give the role the territories meets Lily (Ronit Elkabetz), who of the more introverted woman to Elkabetz, seems familiar to her. She then recollects that, an actress who usually expresses intense in the late 70s, she saw Lily following a police strength, and not to Dodina, with her softer, lineup that was conducted for the victims of a more delicate look. The work of both actresses rapist who was being sought in Israel (whom is outstanding, precise and convincing. the media had nicknamed ‘the polite rapist’ or There is a genuine sense of connection ‘the elegant rapist’). between them, and it becomes heartrending Nira, a single parent to an 11-year-old girl, and emotional as the film develops. This makes contact with Lily, the mother of a soldier connection to some degree atones for several and a slightly older daughter; her marriage to limitations in the screenplay, which come to the Amnon (Gil Frank) is in crisis. Lily is disinclined fore toward the film’s end. Nevertheless, in a to share Nira’s attempt to revisit the past. Lily is very good scene that appears near the end, a woman who is at once strong and wounded. Nira and Lily are photocopying a big pile of Aside from her political activity, she works as a documents related to their case, while behind movement instructor. She has never properly them a gang of men gathers, waiting to use the dealt with what happened in her own past, if it copier. There is nothing violent or aggressive in

12 the scene, but its design raises a sensation of in the context of a feature film that also uses abstract threat that serves as a conclusion of documentary devices. Most of the time she sorts to what has happened in the entire film. succeeds in producing respectable and impressive results from this lofty aspiration. Innerness exposed Many films have been made that deal with rape. ‘Invisible’ is not a film about rape. It does Most are films that protest the establishment’s contain didactic aspects that relate to the attitude toward rape victims. Some portray police attitude to the acts of rape that are the rape, while others do not. Aviad’s film documented. It quotes from statements by the differs from them in that it does not aspire to psychologist who treated the victims and also be a manifesto, but rather a testimony of the from statements by judges insensitive to the contemporary moment that is built on the basis victims’ emotions, and their statements succeed of its past. in shocking us. But as much as possible, the Compliments also go to cinematographer Guy film endeavors to tone down its didactic side. Raz, whose work is well-matched to Aviad’s Its purpose is to look closely at the innerness vision. He shoots Tel Aviv, the location in which of the film’s two heroines and translate their the film takes place, mainly at night, without innerness into cinematic observation coming prettifying the place. Through the lens of his from without. In other words, Aviad tries to do camera, it becomes an urban set that is familiar practically the hardest thing of all – shining and ordinary, but at the same time conceals a light on reality such that its innerness is behind its almost-symbolic facade something revealed to the viewers. caged and threatening. Good documentary films do this, and with ‘Invisible’ Aviad tries to apply this technique * * *

An extensive interview with Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina on their work on ‘Invisible’ 11 November 2011

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/ caught by the face of one of the activists, Lily. israeli-film-on-sex-assault-victims-sheds-light- It seems to Nira that she has seen that face on-what-is-oft-kept-out-of-sight-1.395012 before. And then she remembers when and where it was: 20 years ago, at a police station, Israeli film on sex assault victims sheds when she was coming out of a police lineup in light on what is oft kept out of sight which she identified the man who raped her. That’s the opening scene of ‘Invisible,’ a film Michal Aviad’s new film, ‘Invisible’ brings written and directed by Michal Aviad, which together two of the country’s leading actors, won the best film award at this year’s Haifa Ronit Elkabetz and Evgenia Dodina; they talk International Film Festival. It is now showing here about sexual violence, feminism, cinema in Israeli cinemas and will be screened on and repression. Saturday at the International Women’s Film By Tsafi Saar Festival in Rehovot (which runs until Sunday). The film had its first screening at this year’s Nira, a documentary filmmaker, films a group Berlin International Film Festival, where it won of human rights workers going to the West a jury prize. Bank to protect Palestinians from settlers who Aside from the important topic it deals with, the prevent them from harvesting their olive trees film brings together two of the most outstanding under the auspices of Israel Defense Forces actors working in Israel today: Evgenia Dodina troops. Back in the editing room, her eye is and Ronit Elkabetz. Dodina, who won the best

13 actor award at Haifa for her performance, plays Dodina is very friendly and warm, wishing good Nira, a single mom. Elkabetz plays Lily, a wife luck to a young waiter who tells her excitedly and mother of two. Both women have spent that he has begun to study acting. Elkabetz the past 20 years repressing what happened to is a little pale, her hair gathered up, her smile them: They were among the victims of a serial captivating. At the start of the interview, she rapist who was dubbed ‘the polite rapist.’ looks for a comfortable sitting position. This is Aviad’s first feature film (she previously How did the collaboration go? made the documentaries ‘Ever Shot Anyone?’, Dodina says with a grin: “I always consider ‘Jenny and Jenny,’ ‘Heart of the Country’ and myself a total-immersion person when I work, ‘For My Children,’ among others), and in it she but when I saw Ronit, I said that my ‘total’ combines a fictional narrative – the personal evidently hasn’t been born yet. She’s still a stories of Nira and Lily – with the real-life case kindergartener: There’s something about Ronit of a serial rapist who raped 16 women in the that sweeps you into the work. Tel Aviv area between 1976 and 1978. He got “My work method has always been slightly his nickname because he would try to ‘persuade’ different. I take my time, slowly stew, and then his victims to cooperate, used a condom and, after when I understand that I’ve built some kind of raping them, would offer them a cab ride home. base, I go for it and that’s that, see nothing Aviad, who cowrote the screenplay with Tal else. But Ronit first of all reports for duty; she Omer, integrates documentary materials into knows that she has to be there, put everything the stories, including filmed testimony by real- aside, and then out of this she begins to move life victims that appeared in the media at the inward, to look for details and delve. time and newspaper clippings from the period. “From the start, from the moment I saw her, I The cinematic tools she uses also address this realized that this is her and, for every reaction of combination, which lends a riveting aspect to hers, I needed to respond to it. Because Ronit her excellent film. is this larger-than-life figure, it isn’t difficult – In separate interviews, Elkabetz and Dodina when you’ve got such a colorful and rich figure discuss the months-long work process that in front of you – to connect with it, to become its preceded the actual filming. This entailed opposite.” Still, Dodina adds, “it was clear to us studying the subject, conversations with that these are not two film roles; it is one role rape victims and psychologists, and lengthy for two actors, but it is a single human being. meetings and conversations with Aviad. ‘We There was complete support for each other. I lived together,’ is how Dodina puts it; ‘it was a soon found myself calling Ronit Lily.” quest, a process of soul-searching,’ Elkabetz says. Elkabetz, for her part, says: “I just work the Dodina, who was born in Belarus, immigrated way I work,” and emphasizes the importance to Israel in 1990 and became a star of the of connecting with a partner: “The moment we Gesher Theater before crossing to Habima in are eye-to-eye, we’re either there or we’re not.” 2007. She’s appeared in such films as ‘Adam Both of them, Dodina and Elkabetz, speak of Resurrected,’ ‘Those were Nights,’ ‘Saint Clara’ love and respect for each other that came out and ‘Nina’s Tragedies.’ She is married and has of working together. a daughter. Elkabetz has appeared in ‘Late Marriage,’ ‘Or’ The rust on the knife (‘My Treasure’) and ‘The Band’s Visit.’ She also Every fifth woman in the world is raped, declares wrote and directed, together with her brother a slide at the end of the film, quoting UN data. Shlomi, the films ‘To Take a Wife’ and ‘7 Days.’ To this may be added that every third woman She got married a little over a year ago, and is is sexually assaulted during her lifetime, and pregnant with her first child. Both actors have every woman suffers sexual harassment. won many awards at home and abroad, and “I’ve been in several situations where I went are the same age: 47. Dodina was born just through emotional rape,” Dodina says, “and two weeks after Elkabetz, in late 1964. it takes a long time to get over that, too. You

14 say to yourself in those moments, ‘God, why set. To the point where I remembered the rust didn’t they invent pills for this?’ When you have on the box cutter that he held to my throat. It’s a headache, you can take a painkiller. There precisely these denials. When we sat down and are no pills for that.” began talking with Ronit, I even remembered She debates whether to relate a story from her the shirt I had been wearing. And that was at past and eventually decides to share: “I was the age of 16.” nearly raped at 16. It got to the point where my Elkabetz: “This is a delicate subject for all of us. bra was already undone, and at the last minute For me it is in the places where I experience - somebody passed by and saved me. and I do experience - persecution and fear, in “I was accepted at that time to an acting dark places with strange men, whether it’s in school in Moscow and I was the happiest elevators or taxis driving down dark side roads person in the world. I came to my city, to my I don’t know. I am afraid, and I don’t know parents in Belarus, to get my things. I packed where it comes from. the suitcase, because I have a plane to catch “There isn’t one woman who has not had bad the next morning at six o’clock. I’m going to experiences,” she stresses, “it wasn’t hard Moscow to make my lifetime dream come true, to root around. And it has nothing to do with and a girlfriend of mine and I went for a walk in the position of power you have or with your a field near the house. advanced age.” “And then, in broad daylight, someone passes by there who lives in the house across the way; Silent until death I remember him as a boy, he was always a punk, A number of Israeli films have dealt with the I know the whole area, all the criminals. I didn’t subject of rape. They have depicted rape hang around with these sorts. And he walks scenes, many of these explicit – from Menahem next to us, picking mushrooms. He started Golan’s “The Highway Queen” (1971), through talking to us. We turned back; he turned back Yaky Yosha’s “Dead End Street” (1982), to after us. I wasn’t suspicious for even a second. Avishai Sivan’s “The Wanderer” (2010). Ze’ev And I don’t think the word ‘rape’ was even in Revach’s 1987 film “Bouba” (aka “On the my vocabulary at that time. Fringe”) went so far as to include an all-nude “And slowly it grew dark, and then suddenly rape scene. The film scholar Ella Shohat also he began to turn violent, and we wanted to mentions films that portray sexual violence, or leave and he wouldn’t let us. And then he took fantasies of it, that the female character appears out a box cutter, and this is very hazy in my to be enjoying, including “My Michael” (1976, mind, and I only remember the moment when based on the Amos Oz novel), “The Vulture” he’d already begun to undo my bra, and then (1981) and “Forced Testimony” (1984). I heard a voice: ‘What’s going on here?’ Turns Michal Aviad has made a completely different out that my girlfriend had managed somehow film. It does not contain any rape scene; it deals to escape, some man was passing by and she with the long-term effects of rape. As Elkabetz brought him to us. The other guy got scared, notes, the cinema has dealt very little with the and we began to run. And we ran for a long time posttraumatic fallout from sexual violence in in the dark, ran, ran, and it was only when I got its various guises. Regarding her motive for home that I suddenly realized that the whole participating in ‘Invisible,’ Elkabetz says, “I time I was running, my shirt, my bra, everything wanted the sad tale of so many women to be was open and I didn’t even notice. The next accessible to the general public. I wanted to day I got on the plane and didn’t remember this, have my voice heard in this matter, to advocate on didn’t even want to talk about it.” its behalf in a medium I am familiar with – film.” Like the characters in the film... Aviad’s film takes a different, courageous and Dodina: “It never interested me. I didn’t even wise approach, Elkabetz adds. “It is without recollect details. Everything I am telling you, I all the shtick that other films dealing with this remembered in the course of working on the topic cynically resort to. This film sought to

15 remain clean, and demanded great listening. The rape they underwent affects each of the It is not easy to watch, and nor was it easy to characters differently, and this is just one decipher: How do you deal with and convey a example of the script’s complexity, sensitivity posttraumatic experience from your own daily and wisdom. Compared to Nira, Dodina life? The character essentially undergoes the says, Lily rebuilt her life; she is rehabilitated rape of her body, her spirit and soul throughout – seemingly, “and she is in even greater denial 20 years of repression. It was necessary to than me.” find ways of expression and to understand how to get there; how to get the viewer to Indifference to pain listen, understand and open up. That was the Elkabetz, in addition to her artistic endeavors, challenge. also serves as president of the Mizrahi feminist “It was important to me,” Elkabetz continues, movement Ahoti – For Women in Israel. Her “that the film, in its own way, will arouse films have often dealt with patriarchy and the a conversation that goes beyond another ways in which women contend with it. Dodina, headline in the newspaper, that you flick through by contrast, says she is not a feminist. “I and immediately forget. Women are abused believe in the independence of women, but I twice: After the terrible thing that was done to am more of a believer in the independence of them, they have to expose, reexperience and the personality in general. When it comes to testify. And after all that, cases are frequently relations between a man and a woman, there I dismissed ‘for lack of evidence’ or ‘lack of want to be a woman, to have a man beside me interest to the public’ or because strings were and to feel the most womanly in the world.” pulled. And there are also those who ask, The discourse on gender power relations does ‘Why did it take her 20 years to complain? not speak to her. In the context of the film’s plot, she What made her suddenly wake up?’ There is speaks of “man’s indifference in general to pain.” immediate public judgment, and it is deterring As a female actor haven’t you felt, for example, and problematic. It leads to regression. And a with certain directors that... woman who sees that this is what happens ... “It’s a man who’s taking control of me because keeps mum. That is what Lily does. She would I’m a woman?” rather cease, remain silent until death.” Yes, precisely. The character that Elkabetz plays appears “No. It is perhaps a power struggle, a battle of to have everything going for her. “She built personality versus personality.” a household, a family, romantic partnership, When asked to comment on the still-prevalent she works, she’s an activist, but everything in phenomenon of blaming the victim, and the her life is ruined in every respect,” Elkabetz shame that women who have been raped feel, relates. “Outwardly she has it all, but inside is Dodina says, “Do you know how many women emptiness. It is very important to her to keep came up to me when we were still in Berlin with the rickety boat from rocking; anything but the film? Do you know how much that opened? dealing with the truth, anything but returning to Just at the theater where I work there were the scene of the crime. After all, most women several who came to me and told me, ‘Do you who have been raped do not talk about it. The know that I went through that? But then we dramatic movement in the film is internal, slow, were ashamed to complain.’” of a cerebral nature, whereas inside everything Elkabetz deems ‘Invisible’ a feminist film – “it is boiling, oozing.” was made by a well-known feminis” – but Dodina adds that there are “a thousand and says that this is beside the point: “Who cares one influences on people’s lives after the whether it’s feminist? I am less drawn to labels, fact. My character is unaware of this, but it per se. It deals with a difficult and painful issue, has completely neutered her sexually. And on behalf of which we must fight.” More than sometimes the opposite occurs – women start labels, she says, what interests her and matters to go crazy sexually.” to her is the work.

16 As for her role in Ahoti, she says, “it comes from happens in bed: It’s very intimate, and it takes home. I was raised on Arabic language and a great deal of wisdom and sensitivity to reach culture, I have a love of Arabic culture. Mizrahi a result. Michal has amazing sensitivity. I had women go through a trajectory, each one with complete faith in her. Sometimes she would say her life’s circumstances. My connection to Ahoti something to me about a scene, and I would stems from admiration for what the women in wind up coming up with something else, also this movement are doing for women in Israel. right, and she knew how to appreciate that.” They open doors, work in the field. I’d like to be To the same question Elkabetz replies: “It more active.” depends on who and what you are. The Another fascinating aspect of Aviad’s film is encounter with the creator is what does it. I the proximity in which it places the issue of will say this: With women you’re dealing with women’s rights over their bodies to another feminine issues, and the woman is at the battle for human rights. In one of the early center of the piece.” scenes, when Lily is trying to persuade soldiers The past year has seen a record number of to prevent the rioting settlers from harming the films by female directors in Israel: Eight feature Palestinian olive harvesters, one of them yells, films were made here by women, compared to “C’mon, get her laid so she’ll calm down.” That some three per year until now. But Elkabetz is the moment when Nira recollects how she points out that women are still a minority in this knows Lily. field. Recently, female directors demanded Elkabetz: “Just as there is little talk about that local film foundations alter the composition the ramifications of the occupation for Israeli of funding committees to reflect gender parity, society and culture, so there is no talk about with the aim of preventing bias when selecting the effects of the rape pattern on society. films that receive financial awards. Herein lies Michal’s need for the analogy that The first screening of ‘Invisible’ at the Berlin is made in the film. Film Festival brought contrasting reactions from “It is a precise move,” she adds. “Lily finds the two actors, who watched the film together. release for her tortured soul by helping those “An actor who watches for the first time a film whom she sees as victims. It is an outlet for that he is in, you can’t ask him what he thinks, her rage.” because he sees nothing but himself,” Dodina says. “He sees his mistakes, his angles, the Youthful diary outfit that isn’t sitting right, a wrinkle, everything Elkabetz is a film director in her own right, and except the film.” Elkabetz, on the other hand, has also appeared in films by women directors, says: “I watch the work as a whole and do not among them Keren Yedaya (‘Or’ and ‘Jaffa’); regret a thing.” French actor Fanny Ardant (on her directorial “The following day we were flying out,” Dodina debut, ‘Ashes and Blood’); and Brigitte Sy adds, “and we’d already arrived at the airport (“in the film ‘Les mains libres,’ which I hope when suddenly Ronit says, ‘We look good in the will reach screens here soon,” she says). For movie, too, right? He shot us well,’” referring to Dodina, however, ‘Invisible’ is the first time she cinematographer Guy Raz. It is impossible to has worked with a female director in a film. disagree. How is it different? Elkabetz says that, while she gives herself over “It’s different first of all in terms of the energies,” to a film while making it, “the moment shooting Dodina says. “Because the energies between is finished, I erase it all.” The busy actor and a man and a woman are always different from director, soon to give birth, says it took her those between a woman and a woman. But in two years “to say good-bye to the storm” of an the end it doesn’t matter that much, because incessant workload. When asked about her what counts is talent and being sensitive to the imminent late motherhood - whether she had actor you’re working with. I compare the work always known it would come; whether she had process between an actor and a director to what planned it – she answers with a smile: “I didn’t

17 plan. I knew.” The director, Michal Aviad, presents two When Dodina – mother to a daughter in the protagonists who are strong, active women film as in real life – is asked about raising a − one a political activist who comes to the daughter in a world in which women are defense of victims of oppression; the other a subject to violence, she replies: “I prefer not to filmmaker. Twenty years after they were raped, think about undesirable things that will happen. these two women meet by chance and come to Because I believe in the power of words and terms with what happened to them, after years thoughts.” of repressing the attack. Elkabetz says that, despite everything, “you The change in the way that rape is perceived have to stay optimistic.” − socially and legally − is one of the feminist Dodina has been busy with rehearsals for movement’s most impressive accomplishments. an adaptation of Giulio Scarnicci and Renzo At least until the 1970s, a woman who Tarabusi’s play ‘Caviar ou lentilles,’ directed by complained that she had been raped ‏(if she and now playing at Habima. even complained‏) was met with a great deal In a past interview she said she is drawn to of suspicion, and even suspected of being a writing. “There was a period when I thought liar. The onus was on her to prove that she had about it,” she says now, “and then I ran into a not wanted sexual relations, and from a legal problem. Even though Hebrew is not my mother standpoint she had to prove that she fought tongue, it is much easier for me to express my the rapist with all her might. Her sexual history thoughts in Hebrew. In Russian I keep getting or the clothes that she was wearing were also stuck every few sentences, searching for the considered relevant. The rape of a woman by right way to define something.” her husband was not considered rape at all. And before you immigrated to Israel at the age The feminist movement successfully showed of 25 you didn’t know Hebrew? that this approach was nothing other than “No. Absolutely none. A lot of times I think in blaming the victim for the crime. In most Western Hebrew. And I also find myself starting to speak countries, rape came to be recognized as in Russian and then switching to Hebrew. But violence, and phenomena that prevent a rape writing in Hebrew is a lot harder for me [than victim from fighting back were acknowledged: speaking].” for example, fear for her life or freezing − a What did you want to write? not uncommon response to such an assault. It “I don’t know. I used to write, I used to keep a was further understood that rape is not sex, but diary, and I think that... wow!” rather a violent act whose purpose is to gain Suddenly she grabs her head. “Do you know control, subservience and humiliation. when I stopped writing in the diary?” The picture has indeed changed, but not When? sufficiently. Among the public − and sometimes “I didn’t remember this. I stopped writing the even in the courts − you can still find opinions diary when I got on the plane after that incident. such as “With a miniskirt and cleavage like that I still wrote something on the plane, and that she was really asking for it,” or “Why was she was it, I think. I didn’t remember that at all. Yes, walking alone at night?” In the media as well, the details are coming back to me. I remember there are problematic and baseless references that on the plane I still wrote something, I left to rape being an act that contains eroticism. it and that was it. Suddenly, from then on I had In Aviad’s film, when Nira goes to the police in no time to write in a diary. Had none, and that an attempt to locate her case file and find out was it.” what happened, she is met by the much older investigator ‏(Rami Baruch‏) − who in his youth As long as he was polite... had been the one to take down her complaint − ‘Invisible’ shows that attitudes toward rape with the words, “Ah, I remember you, you were victims still have a long way to go. pretty.” ‘Invisible’ is a quintessentially feminist film. Later, as Nira and Lily peruse newspaper

18 clippings from the period, they recall that is still profoundly infected with misogyny. investigators classified the rape victims into Sentences that are meted out to rapists have “very attractive,” “not that attractive,” and so also remained too lenient. A bank robber, for forth. The script, in a non-sloganeering manner example, is likely to sit in prison for many that is inherent to the story, thus manages to more years than a rapist, a fact that is truly demonstrate that many of the old attitudes still incomprehensible and attests to the hierarchy fester today. of values in the society we live in. And then, Incidentally, the expression “the polite rapist” of course, there is Moshe Katsav. Thirty years ‏(“ha’anas ha’menumas” in Hebrew‏) is likewise ago he probably would not have been indicted problematic, appearing as it does to lessen the and convicted, and now he has. So, yes, there horror of his actions − he was polite after all! And has been change, but it is really not enough. the rhyme, too, hints at some jocularity, perhaps, ‘Invisible’ reflects this well, and will likely also on the part of the police investigators or reporters contribute to this social discourse. who coined it at the time in the 1970s. Here Aviad removes the kid gloves. The film * * * mentions that the rapist in question had his sentence commuted: He was initially sentenced to 30 years in prison but his sentence was shortened substantially − in a ruling by Supreme Court Justice Aharon Barak, as the characters in the film point out − and he wound up serving 10 years. That’s 10 years for committing 16 rapes, including one of a 13-year-old girl. Nine months after he was released, in 1989, he was suspected of two molestations. A superb scene, in which Nira and Lily tell each other what they would do to the rapist − and also to the gynecologist who told Lily, upon hearing she’d been raped, “So that’s what you girls call it nowadays when you have sex?” − if he were to fall into their hands, is one of the powerful high points of the film. The acts of rape to which Aviad’s film refers are of the “stranger in the bushes” category − an unknown assailant who jumps a woman in the dark and rapes her. Today we know that only a minority of rapes come under this heading. Most rapes are perpetrated by someone the woman knows, whether it’s so-called date rape or within the family, or in some other situation. Nevertheless, even today rape victims ask that their faces be blurred in interviews, as though the shame were theirs instead of the rapist’s, which is a reflection on society’s attitude. Of the few women who have come forward in recent years with their faces and names openly displayed, some were treated to despicable disbelief and vilification, which goes to show the degree to which our society

19 SEQUESCES La revue de cinema, Montreal

23 For more reviews & interviews:

An interview with Michal Aviad on the Hindu paper: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-national/tp-karnataka/ article2736794.ece» \l «.TvK7v_NBLz4.gmail

An interview with Michal Aviad on the Deccan Herald: http://www.deccanherald.com/content/214531/there-lot-film-clubs-here. html

http://www.screendaily.com/reports/features/2011s-hits-and-rising- stars/5036026.article

www.berliner-zeitung.de/archiv/zwei-frauen-behaupten-sich-in-der- israelischen-macho-welt---lo-roim-alaich--laesst-die-panzerung- einer-traumatischen-erinnerung-aufbrechen-das-doppelte- unrecht,10810590,10771762.html

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