Berlin-Jerusalem

Berlin-Jerusalem (Hebrew: ברלין ירושלים, tr. Berlin Yerushalayim) is an 89-minute 1989 British-Dutch-French-Israeli-Italian English-, French-, German-, and Hebrew-language independent underground dramatic historical experimental art film directed by Amos Gitai.

Synopsis
The film tells the story of two women in the 1930s. The first, Else Lasker-Schüler (Lisa Kreuzer), a German expressionist poet, observes the rise of Nazism in Berlin before leaving for Jerusalem. The second, the Russian Manya Shochat (Rivka Neumann), called Tania in the film, settles in a community in Israel.

Production
The film was produced by Marek Rozenbaum, includes the artistic contributions of Pina Bausch and was inspired by the paintings of George Grosz, was financed by the Italian public television, Nederlandse Omroep Stichting, La Sept, Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport’s UK Government Investments’s Channel Four Television Corporation’s Film4 Productions, the Centre national du cinéma et de l’image animée, and Le Volcan, was distributed by Facets Multi-Media, was shot by Henri Alekan and Nurith Aviv, was edited by Marco Melani, Antoine Bonfanti, Michel Klochendler, and Luc Barnier, was cast by Levia Hon, and also stars inter alia Markus Stockhausen (who also composed the score together with Simon Stockhausen), Vernon Dobtcheff, Veronica Lazăr, Bernard Eisenschitz, Yossi Graber, Juliano Mer-Khamis, Mark Ivanir, Keren Mor, Ori Levy, and Ohad Shahar.

Reception
The film was screened at the 46th Venice International Film Festival during September 1989 (where it won several awards and was nominated for the Golden Lion), at the 1990 International Istanbul Film Festival/!f İstanbul Uluslararası Bağımsız Filmler Festivali (where it also won several awards) and International Film Festival Rotterdam, at the British Film Institute’s 1989 BFI London Film Festival, at the 1989 Toronto International Film Festival on 13 September 1989, at the 42nd Berlin International Film Festival on 22 February 1992, and at the 1998 São Paulo International Film Festival. The journalist Daniel Warth has opined that “although the film is minimalistic, it is nonetheless ravishing.” The film was released in Israel, where it was released to the general public by Nurith Shani’s Shani Films and the Tel Aviv Cinematheque on 7 December 1990 (the film was released on 14 March 1990 in France and on 13 December 1991 in the Netherlands), together with Esther (1986) as part of a DVD boxset in 2005.