Directors of tomorrow

Established in California in 1996, the Angelus Student Film Festival promotes the work of student filmmakers, particularly those who have created works that promote tolerance, diversity and other worthwhile pursuits.

The festival makes its way to Prague this week, opening with a screening of a feature-length documentary, To Die in Jerusalem, Friday evening at Světozor. On Monday, there will be an evening of short films shown at the Municipal Library in Old Town.

Hilla Medalia's To Die in Jerusalem sadly remains topical. Inspired by a story that made the cover of Newsweek in 2002, Medalia went to Israel to discover all that she could on two young women who died in a suicide bombing: Rachel Levy, an innocent victim, and Ayat Al-Akhras, the bomber.

The story of the two young women contains within it all the tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, while also offering hope that some positive change, however small, might be possible.

Rachel Levy and Ayat Al-Akhras could have been cousins. Both were 17-year-old women looking forward to furthering their education. Geographically, they grew up very close together, though Levy certainly enjoyed a freedom that Al-Akhras could only imagine.

The most telling aspect of the story came in the aftermath of their deaths. Not only were Levy and Al-Akhras contemporaries, but they looked and dressed similarly - to the point where the initial police investigation thought both dead women were Palestinian suicide bombers.

Medalia's film covers all of this territory, but To Die in Jerusalem focuses on two other women: the dead girls' mothers. Rachel's mother, Avigail, has never recovered from her daughter's death, and has devoted the past few years to trying to understand how the tragedy was set in motion. Toward that end, she sought out the mother of her daughter's killer, Um Samir Al-Akhras, who responded to Avigail's overtures.

Medalia's film does not offer any solutions for the problems in the region, as few exist presently (and the film was obviously made before the latest upheaval in Gaza). But in getting to the heart of two mothers' anguish, Medalia makes a potent statement for our shared humanity - one that even death recognizes on occasion.

The evening of short films Monday, March 9, runs the gamut of fictional films to animation. Two films in this series have been racking up awards and film festival showings all over the world.

Harun Mehmedinovic's In the Name of the Son has been hailed from the Telluride Film Festival to the festival in Shanghai. It's the story of a Bosnian émigré in the United States who is suddenly approached by someone from his war-torn past - a man on the other side of the fight who saved his life.

Justin Lerner's The Replacement Child is enjoying as much attention and screen time as Mehmedinovic's film. Lerner's short work is another story of two men, though, this time, the action is set in a benighted rural America. A troubled young man must come to the aid of a school friend, whose parents will not seek needed medical attention for him because of religious beliefs.

Other films making up the evening will be Australian Anna McGrath's Small Change and an award-winning piece of French animation, Quidam dégomme (A Sheep on the Roof), by Rémy Schaepman.

Attending this last night of the Angelus festival will be famed Polish director Krzysztof Zanussi (The Year of the Quiet Sun, Imperativ), which should help give this small but important festival of student films the wider attention it deserves.

Steffen Silvis can be reached at
ssilvis@praguepost.com