Thumbs-up for Israeli director in Shanghai for documentary 'The Other City'
Israeli director Livi Kessel didn't know if her debut documentary "The Other City" would work outside of Israel, until audiences gave her "a big surprise" at its recent international premiere and following screenings in Shanghai.
Israeli director Livi Kessel didn't know if her debut documentary "The Other City" would work outside of Israel, until audiences gave her "a big surprise" at its recent international premiere and following screenings in Shanghai.
"The Other City" follows five young artists, including Kessel, through life's difficulties as they build up an art scene in Haifa.
"It's the other city other than Jerusalem or Tel Aviv, and it is also the other city, an art city, within the city of Haifa," explained the director, who was a photography student when she started filming her artist friends back in 2007.
"It was very exciting to see audience members in Shanghai, many of them students, to be so interested in the film and in making personal documentaries. They are very curious, open and warm."
"The Other City" held its international debut as part of the recent Shanghai International Film Festival. Shanghai and Haifa, which signed a twin-city treaty in 1993, are celebrating the 30th anniversary this year.
Kessel considers her film "not an easy story," since each one of the five artists encounter challenges in many different ways.
"It could be depressing for some people, while others say it's hopeful," she told Shanghai Daily.
"Looking back, I think it has hope. We managed to stay artists. That's not an easy thing. None of us gave up."
She almost did, at the age of 33.
"I was thinking about opening a vegetarian restaurant," she recalled the days of working as a wedding photographer after having a baby.
"It was depressing. I didn't know what I was doing."
Kessel decided to keep doing art because "people who are successful have been doing what they're doing for many years, including artists."
She looked back on what she had been doing for many years.
"I was shooting my friends since 2007," she recalled. "I didn't plan on doing a documentary at the beginning when I was a student. But I saw this very interesting documentary when I was very depressed at the time, and wanted to make one as well."
It took another five years to continue shooting and editing.
Now she is already working on a second documentary about obsessive relationships, and specifically about men killing wives and girlfriends.
"I'm using a personal story and academic research to reveal traits and timeline of such behavior so that women and their friends will spot it and get out of such relationships," she explained.
"You see a rise in such murder cases because women are often killed when they try to leave. For earlier generations, they may just have stayed in such terrible relations. But we have more power and are more independence now, so more women try to leave."