Wednesday, July 15, 2009

The Jerusalem Film Festival

A quick story about our trip to the J'salem Film Festival.  The JFF is taking place this week in J'salem and after many attempts at seeing various movies, Seren and I decided to pick a movie just based on timing.  We ended up seeing a French film at 415 pm yesterday called "La Fille du RER," which is based on a true story.  It tells the tale of a non-Jewish girl who falsely alleges that she was beaten up on a train for being Jewish.  The movie was a French artsy flick, so instead of being plot driven, it was character driven.  I twice asked Seren when the plot would start.  Finally it did.

The things we learned about Israeli cinema.  First, people just show up late without problems.  And old men have a nasty habit of not moving quickly and therefore blocking the sous-titres (subtitles, the flick was in French with English subtitles).  Second, Israeli cinemas have assigned seats.  It eases the hassle of many Israelis fighting over the good seats (I can only imagine the mayhem that occurs in Israel when someone tries to save a seat).  Finally, there's a smoking break because, as Rachel explained, Israelis can't go more than an hour without smoking.  Unfortunately for them, the smoking break isn't long enough for a full cigarette and they come in late.  And then the old man comes in late, and can't find his seat, and blocks the subtitles.  But, it was fine.  Fun experience.

Then we went shopping.

This morning we went to the Temple Mount (the plateau over the Kotel, where the Dome of the Rock sits).  Seren is going to write about it.

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