Israeli director Amos Gitai asks in his next project: “Why War?”

Courtesy of Taormina Film Festival

In conversation with diversity At the Taormina Film Festival, acclaimed Israeli director Amos Gitai spoke about his next feature film after his Berlinale entry “Shikun,” which is titled “Why War?”

Gitai explained: “Why people make war is the subject of my next film. It is the dialogue between Einstein and Freud in 1931. Albert Einstein was asked by the League of Nations to choose an intellectual to ask a question to. And he chose Sigmund Freud. And he asked him a question in two words, which was: ‘Why war?’ There is an exchange of letters between the two in which Einstein gives his interpretation of Freud’s answer, and that is the basis of my next project.”

According to a post on the Elefant Films website, the screenplay for “Why War?” was written by Marie-Josée Sanselme and the film is being produced by Alex Iordachescu. The cast includes Irène Jacob, Mathieu Amalric, Bahira Ablassi, Keren Mor, Yael Abecassis, Pini Mittelman, Menache Noy, Minas Qarawany and Micha Lescot.

diversity speaks to Gitai as news arrives of a deadly Israeli attack on the Khan Younis refugee camp, which – at the time of writing – is confirmed to have killed over 90 people. Is there a new sense of urgency?

“We have to stick to the truth and ask very deep questions. All my projects around Rabin’s assassination have been investigations into it,” Gitai said. “Of course, the ongoing tragedy runs parallel to our film, but art does not change reality. I disagree with Michael Moore. I do not believe that a militant film will change the world. Art leaves traces of a memory.”

Gitai placed the current conflict in a larger context.

“When Picasso painted ‘Guernica’ in 1937 after the bombing of the Basque village by the Luftwaffe, Picasso lost the duel between Franco and Picasso. Franco remained in power for 30 years. But if you ask anyone today, what is Guernica? It’s Picasso’s painting. So we work in the hope that in the long term we will change reality, but that doesn’t happen immediately. Good cinema doesn’t change things immediately. It doesn’t change governments. I mean, Michael wanted to help Hillary Clinton win with a film!”

His film “Shikun” is a loose adaptation of Eugene Ionesco’s “Rhinoceros”, is set in an Israeli social housing project and stars Irene Jacob. Gitai sees this process as part of the film’s raison d’être: “The great achievement of ‘Shikun’ was that I was able to bring Israeli, Palestinian and Iranian musicians together on stage in Berlin. In this way we showed that if we create a stage for dialogue and stand up against the forces that want war, destruction and killing, we will not succeed: we will remain friends.”

Gitai sharply criticizes the regime of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: “The illusion that Netanyahu and his gang have instilled in quite a few Israelis that they will win through the power of power alone is a crazy idea,” he says.

“First of all, they will not win. Besides, there is nothing to win except death. What do they think they will win? And the Jews must be smarter than they are. Violence will not solve the problem.

“When I went to Washington with Yitzhak Rabin, I remember what he told me about Gaza. He said: we cannot withdraw unilaterally. We must ensure that 26,000 Palestinian workers and officials receive their salaries: they need water, they need electricity, even oxygen in the hospital. So if you really want peace, you have to talk to the other person. Today, this is not unilateral, even in the face of the brutality of Hamas’ actions on October 7, which killed kibbutzniks who were for peace and saved children in Gaza.

“So what is the point? Who believes that what they have done or what is happening now in Gaza will bring any solution? We are speaking here in the heart of Europe, but even the clever Europeans managed to burn down the entire continent twice no less than 100 years ago. Ten million people lost their lives in the process, and so they came to the simple conclusion that maybe they can disagree.”

“Shikun” was completed before the October 7 attacks and the Israeli military response in Gaza. Does he see the film and his approach differently today? Appropriately, since we are speaking in Sicily, Gitai finds inspiration in the work of Italian neorealist Roberto Rossellini.

“When (Roberto Rossellini) made ‘Germany: Year Zero,’ he was the only filmmaker who wasn’t making those stupid American or British comedies about tanks racing through Germany, and he shows Germany committing suicide itself. That film is a masterpiece.

“The great films I’ve seen in my life begin when the screening is over. Then you say to yourself, okay, what was this person actually trying to tell you, and you have to reconstruct it and figure it out. So on a dark day like today, your question is legitimate, but what else can we do? I’m not going to re-edit the film.”