13.1.2016
Confessions of a Human Resources Manager
Cambridge 21.1.2016
Good evening and welcome to all,
My message to you tonight will take the form of a monologue in three
acts entitled, “Confessions of a Human Resources Manager.”
First Act
I'm 63-and-a-half years old, and this is my very first time in Cambridge.
Over the coming 7 weeks, Sam Spiegel alumni - men and women in their
thirties - will come here to experience being with you. And to experience
the Cambridge lawn. I am quite excited. Thank you.
Our gratitude goes to Dr. Yaron Peleg and Dr. Tali Artman-Partock for
choosing to spotlight the Sam Spiegel Film School’s panorama of alumni
who have influenced Israeli culture.
Cambridge lawn is 700 years old…. Our lawn is 25. Quite a pictorial
backdrop for a tribute!
Thank you, Yaron and Tali, for the pleasant dialogue which made this all
happen.
Greetings to the Chairman of the Board of the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel
School, Mr. Asaf Vitman. (Asaf, please stand.) We thank you for your
trust and your hard work on our behalf.
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A special thanks to Adam Spiegel and the Sam Spiegel Foundation. And
to Judge Raya Dreben, Sam Spiegel's niece (Raya, would you please
stand?) who came here especially from Boston for this event. Coming
from New York, we thank Michael Freedman, Sam's grandson (Michael,
would you please stand?).
Thank you, the Spiegel family, not only for your ongoing financial
support for the school, but especially for your trust, and for the
additional assistance you’ve provided in moments of crisis that we faced,
and will face. But mainly for the ever-adventurous, contradictory,
fearless, inspiring character of Sam Spiegel.
Thanks to Kate Bernstein and M&C Trust for sponsoring tonight’s
Opening Session. Kate is the daughter of Lord Alex Bernstein, former
chairman of Granada Television. Alex is a Cambridge alumni and became
one of the mainstays of the Sam Spiegel School in its first decade, via the
Jerusalem Foundation.
In 1990, one year after the school opened, Alex suggested that I visit the
National Film School in Beaconsfield, generously offering to cover the
cost of the trip. Thus Alex opened the door for us to this prominent
school.
Colin Young, the National’s founding director, welcomed me warmly.
After several hours of discussion, I reminded him that 15 years earlier in
1975, I was rejected to the school, but no hard feelings. He turned pale
and asked: "How did it happen?" and went on checking the school
records for days…
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I told him: "Don’t fret about this, Colin. It’s the way of the world. But
some day, ten years from now when I walk the streets of Tel Aviv,
outstanding Israeli filmmakers will stop me and say: "You didn't accept
me!"
(Colin, would you please stand?)
A few years ago I met Joseph Cedar, one of Israel's most prolific and
internationally acclaimed filmmakers.
Cedar wasn’t accepted to Sam Spiegel in 1990. Years later, the rejection
effect was still there. He asked me: "Renen, are you aware of the fact
that you are a Gate Keeper?"
"Joseph," it took me a while to reply, "I see myself differently, as a Gate
Opener. As a matter of fact…I see myself as the Human Resources
Manager for teachers, staff, and students in the service of the Israeli
Cinema."
"This is very ambitious and very pretentious," insisted Cedar, who is a
religious man. "What questions do you ask yourself every day?"
"Two, every day," I replied, "Why the school?” and “Why me?"
Which brings me now to proudly screen "Why?"- a 5-minute short by
graduate Nadav Lapid, produced by students of the Sam Spiegel School.
Nadav made this film after his second full length feature "The
Kindergarten Teacher" which he developed at the Sam Spiegel
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International Film Lab, under the mentorship of Welsh script editor Clare
Downs. (Clare, would you please stand?)
"Why?" is screened in dozens of festivals around the world before "The
Kindergarten Teacher," which has been named by the New York Times as
"one the ten best 10 films of 2015."
Nadav Lapid will be here, in Cambridge, on February 11 and will talk
about the evolution of his consciousness as a story teller, by creating
short films.
Let's watch "Why"?- Nadav's Rosebud.
Second Act
I am a Yom Kippur War veteran. I was 21 in 1973. A Pencil-Pushing
soldier. War correspondent. I wrote about the heroes of the war in the
crucial battle of "The Valley of Tears." ‫עמק הבכא‬
After an extra year of mandatory army service and endless stories about
war heroes, the wounded, bereavement and battle fatigue, I was
released from the army with a kind of battle fatigue myself. I shared it
with many of my generation. This war was our "Pearl Harbor." We came
to the stark realization that we have no one to trust: no statesmen,
politicians, or generals. I was walking in the streets of Tel Aviv with the
rage of De Niro in "Mean Streets." OK, not exactly so…
I wasn’t accepted to the National, as you know.
I studied four years in the Film Department of Tel Aviv University.
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One of my classmates was a Yom Kippur War hero.
Now he was wheelchair-bound. And yet, he insisted on being a
production manager “on location” for some of the class's films in the
desert, atop the mountains. He did everything on crutches, against all
odds. Motivated only by his sheer will power. We watched him in action,
amazed.
In our last year of study, a man came to the class. He was the head of
the Israel Film Service, a governmental arm for "soft" propaganda films.
He was the human resources manager of documentary cinema. Our
teachers had no respect for him, yet, he was the gate keeper.
My classmate, the hero of our class productions, sat diagonally on my
left side. He rose slowly on his crutches and asked: "We want to make
films. Would you kindly tell me how we can fit in within your
organization?"
I will never forget his astonishment: "To fit in?! To work for this human
resources manager of the Israeli cinema!?" You!? At the age of 25!?"
At the end of June 1989 while I was in New York, Ruth Cheshin, the
president of the Jerusalem Foundation phoned to summon me
immediately to a meeting in Jerusalem. There she proposed that I
establish a new film school in Jerusalem. The political reality was clear to
me: there were two film schools in the Tel Aviv vicinity: the Tel Aviv
University Film Department and the National School outside of Tel Aviv,
which had been closed following a student rebellion. The Minister of
Education and the legendary mayor of Jerusalem Teddy Kollek had
agreed to allot matching funds to open a new school in Jerusalem.
A sharp feeling of urgency pervaded that meeting in her office. "We
want you to open the school, and we will back you fully. In one term…"
- "Which term?" I asked.
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"To open the school in 4 months, even though we have the Jewish
Holidays in between, and an Intifada and no Palestinians labourers to
build the facilities. I know that this is almost impossible, but that is the
final deadline. Full stop.”
Teddy Kollek then came onto the phone on “speaker.”
"Why in 4 months, Mr. Mayor? Everywhere else in the world it takes at
least 18 months to plan a project of these dimensions. "
"If it doesn’t open in October, it will never happen!" the mayor replied
impatiently.
"Why? Why?" I asked.
Teddy was already furious. "Young man, you don’t understand shit about
Israeli politics. Jerusalem in the nation's capital, but the loudspeaker is in
Tel Aviv. If we don't open immediately, they will trigger the Tel Aviv
media and take the school from us! Make it happen!"
"But opening a school in 4 months sets us wide open to making so many
mistakes," I argued.
"Young man," Teddy completely lost his patience. "With one hand you
will build the school, and with your other hand, use a fire extinguisher!"
I said "yes" to Ruth Cheshin. On the way back to Tel Aviv, I understood
that there was indeed a vacuum. The Israeli cinema had lost its
audiences - the popular audience, the mainstream, the art house. No
one in the world wanted to screen Israeli films.
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There was a genuine need for a new school in Jerusalem whose
graduates don't have to "fit in", but to create a new dialogue with the
audiences.
Pause.
OK, How to do it?
I will quote three insightful and inspirational phrases:
Orson Wells: "What is your Rosebud?"
Hitchcock: "The role of the director is not only to work with the
scriptwriter, the cinematographer, the actors, editor, composer etc. The
director's role is to direct the audience."
The Rolling Stones: "I can't get no satisfaction - Cause I try."
In the school's first three years, the following questions were formulated
and implemented to ask of each and every student, about any project, in
any format, again and again:
Is the film you wish to make relevant? Is it original? Has its story been
told? Are you the only one who can tell the story? Do you have an
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obligation to tell it? Is it relevant to your own inner world and to your
personal taste? Is it relevant to your audience? To which audience?
With what artistic means will you reach this audience? Will its meaning
traverse countries and cultures?
The brilliant answers to these questions were presented in the students’
cinematic texts. The school's first 40 debut and graduation films all came
out at once. They were the cover stories of every national newspaper
and raked in awards across the board in all festivals and competitions for
short films in Israel in 1993.
By 1996, the MoMA held a tribute to the school.
“The Sam Spiegel School," wrote curator Larry Kardish, "is sending
Israeli cinema in a new and exciting direction; its spirit is crossing
borders, and its films are a most welcome presence invigorating the
international scene”.
I’m delighted to now screen for you "Mushkie", a new 12-minute debut
film. The director, Aleeza Chanowitz, who also plays the lead role, grew
up in an Orthodox Jewish family in Brooklyn. She immigrated to Israel a
year before starting her studies at Sam Spiegel. The film has been
selected to compete in the Berlin Festival Short Competition to be held
in 3 weeks.
Third Act
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After the retrospective at the MoMA, our school formulated a new
concept: the Triangle School, consisting of 3 tracks. For directors who
are focused on making their short film, for scriptwriters who are dealing
with short films, full-length films and television series, and
entrepreneurial producers. The future decision-makers.
In 2008, the school initiated the Jerusalem Film and Television Fund, the
first such municipal fund in Israel. Up to that time, fewer than 5 percent
of all Israeli films and television series were shot in Jerusalem. In 2015:
28 percent!
In 2011, the school established a new international platform for fulllength feature films by launching the Sam Spiegel International Film
Lab. This Lab supports annually 12 directors/writers in developing their
scripts. Along with their producers, the Film Lab promotes the projects’
production feasibility. 23 of the projects born and nurtured in our Lab
have subsequently been shot from the Ivory Coast to Montevideo.
In 2015, the Sam Spiegel Lab's alumnus Hungarian director Lazslo Nemes
won the Cannes Grand Prix, and last week the Golden Globe Award for his
debut feature "Son of Saul."
In 2015, the school defined itself as "the Extra Mile School." The mile is the
hard core action - the school's activities for its students. The extra mile is
what the school does for its graduates. Over the past 2 years, the school has
begun to offer platforms for graduates to make short and full-length feature
films.
The crowning jewel of this activity is the Sam Spiegel First Feature Fund:
$100,000 each year, with no strings attached, for a selected first feature film
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by a graduate. In 2015, a stellar international jury chose a graduate who had
made a mediocre debut film, who didn’t do a graduation film since his script
wasn’t good enough. After he completed his studies, this student excelled as
a sound designer.
The school gave him a second chance. A chance to make a TIKKUN. In
essence, the second chance is being offered to both the graduate and to the
School, for everyone’s benefit.
Currently in 2016, the School is conducting a dialogue with 160 students and
60 graduate students.
Epilogue
I was 37 years old when I was given the mission to found and direct the
Sam Spiegel School.
Today, I'm the elder among film school directors worldwide. The only
one who "survived" 26 years in this complex job as human resources
manager in the field of Film Education.
A year ago, at our gala 25th Anniversary celebration, I tried to determine
the two extremes of my scope of action.
First, I asked myself "What is my worst nightmare?"
My nightmare is to get a phone call at 3 AM that one, two, even three
students have been severely injured or killed in a car crash. It happened
when they were exhausted, worn out, driving back from the set in their
battered old rundown cars…
The situation is so fragile. They are on location 364 days a year, every
day except Yom Kippur.
It is so not in my hands, and not always in theirs.
At the other extreme, I've asked myself "What makes me happy?"
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At which moments does my heart expand to grow wider than my
ribcage? At which concrete, actual moments does it happen?
That was so much easier….
I quickly defined and selected 10 of these pure, blissful moments, out of
a range of so many others.
The most ultimate moment is when you set eyes on the virginal material
of a film, of a cinematic text-to-be. A rough cut. And you say to yourself:
a director is born! A producer is born! A cinematographer is born! An
editor is born! Before your very eyes, a filmmaker is born!
This doesn’t happen every day or every night… It happens maybe once
or twice, rarely three times a year. I'm always harsh with myself and
with those who surround me.
Yet in 2015, when we celebrated the school’s 25th year, this happened to
me 6 times in different classes.
When I saw the rough cut of "Mushki", which you just watched, I had a
moment of joy. This special non-kosher, redheaded student, with her
unique voice, in her debut film. She will become an international
filmmaker.
When I saw the rough cut of "The Mute's House" of a fresh graduate,
Tamar Kay, who is with us tonight, I experienced another moment of
sheer joy.
I want to thank you Colin, post factum, for not accepting me to the
National. If I had been accepted, I might be an English filmmaker today
with only the remnants of an Israeli accent…. And I wouldn’t be standing
here now.
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Last and special thanks go to my daughter Gaya, a student of jazz singing
in New York, who came here especially for tonight, during her semester
break.
I want to tell you, Gaya, that I cherish forever the day when you were
born. More than any other memorable day or event of my life. And that
includes my ID number, my soldier number, the wars, the films, the
school. I will always cherish you. I love you. You are my pride and joy.
In a moment, we shall watch "The Mute's House", which received the
school’s Most Outstanding Film Award of 2015 and went on to win the
Special Jury Prize of IDFA in Amsterdam – the Olympic Games of
documentary cinema.
Apropos to the Olympic Games, Tamar Kay's mentor for this film was
David Ofek, a graduate of the school's first graduating class, who will be
here in Cambridge on March 3rd.
So you see, the graduates and the students are in an ongoing dialog
between themselves. Graduates are passing the torch to the next
generation of filmmakers, who will continue the tradition. I can
peacefully retire now….
Darkness. Fading.
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