Beyond the mountains and hills

Film Info

Israel 2016 | 92 min. Director: Eran Kolirin

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Beyond the mountains and hills

Synopsis

David is discharged from the army after serving for twenty-seven years. He returns to his home and his family after being distanced from them for years, and tries to find himself in his new civilian life. He believes that, like his friends who retired from the military before him, he too will find his way in some managerial position in the private sector, but he has difficulties adapting to the pace of the “new Israel”, a competitive culture obsessed with success and money. More often than not, he finds himself alone at home, watching a morning show on TV or listening to the radio. When a friend suggests working for a company that markets dietary supplements, David sees this as an opportunity to get his foot into the door of the business world and make something of himself. But this decision slowly gets him and his family entangled in the web of dark forces that rule life in Israel.

Cast & Crew

Director

Eran Kolirin
Producer

Eilon Ratzkovsky, Yossi Uzrad, Lisa Shiloach Uzrad, Guy Jacoel, Yochanan Kredo
Screenwriter

Eran Kolirin
Director of photography

Shai Goldman
Main Cast

Alon Pdut (David), Shiree Nadav-Naor (Rina), Mili Eshet (Yifat), Noam Imber (Omri)
Editor (Cut)

Arik Lahav-Leibovich
Sound Design

Avi Mizrahi
Original Score

Asher Goldschmidt
Production Design

Miguel Merkin
Costume Design

Doron Ashkenazi
Makeup

Véronique Dubray

Director's comment

BEYOND THE MOUNTAINS AND HILLS is a film about guilt, about living in the shadow of guilt — a guilt with no name or explicit reason, which rises out of the ground like fine mist.

It is a film whose heroes, like characters in a cartoon, keep walking on thin air long after they have gone over the cliff’s edge, entirely dependent on the consoling power of not knowing, of a willful blindness. It is a film about good people living in a bad reality, a reality which allows only the roles of the victim or the executioner. It is a story that tries to question the meaning of the decisions made within this reality.

I love and hate the place where I was born and live. As the years pass by, I accept this confliction as a given, neither good nor bad. This is the only reality I have. “This is the... blossomest blossom that ever could be”, said Dennis Potter in his final interview before his death. I would like, if possible, to direct a non-judgmental gaze at my reality, the terrain where I live, as it is, in the here and now — rocky hills, an uninhabited village, a home within a home (to quote an old Israeli folk song). A mall. Neon lights. A fence. I want to tell a story about the wounded, bleeding ground I live on. I want to speak about Israel.

Biography

Born in 1973, Eran Kolirin’s feature film debut as a director, THE BAND'S VISIT, won him world-wide critical acclaim and over 50 prestigious awards around the globe, among them eight Ophir Awards of the Israeli Film Academy, the Un Certain Regard Jury Coup de Coeur Award in Cannes, and the EFA'S European Discovery Award.
Eran’s first work for cinema was the screenplay for the film ZUR - HADASSIM for which he won the “Lipper Prize” for Best Script at the Jerusalem IFF 1999. In 2004, Eran Kolirin wrote and directed the TV movie THE LONG JOURNEY.
His latest feature film, THE EXCHANGE, was screened in competition at the 68th Venice IFF, and has won several awards around the globe, including the FIPRESCI Award in San Francisco, and the Best Actor Award in Haifa.

Filmography:
2012 - THE EXCHANGE
2007 - THE BAND'S VISIT