Full Description
The witty, sexy and politically savvy Israeli night-time TV drama FLORENTENE, clearly the audience favorite of last year’s Festival, is back by popular demand. Five new installments continue the story of friendship, love and lust set in the bohemian neighborhood of Florentene, in South Tel Aviv, a haven for Israeli 20-somethings. Whether you saw the first shows or not, these charismatic, well-drawn characters will draw you in.
Having shared the shock of Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin’s assassination, the young heroes continue to evolve. Tuti, who was having an affair with her downstairs neighbor, Russian émigré Sasha, has to deal with the arrival of his wife and family. Maor, after having been dumped by TV star Shira, is piecing his life back together, running a successful coffee shop and occasionally seducing beautiful customers to mask his sorrow. Tomer, who just "came out" to his family, must now negotiate his new identity and renegotiate his relationship with his flamboyant “roommate” Iggy. Kobi, having discarded his life in a religious yeshiva in Jerusalem, has second thoughts. Woven into the story are the terrorist attacks in downtown Tel Aviv and the mounting tension in the face-off between Shimon Peres and Benjamin Netanyahu. Hilarious musical numbers and a controversial on-screen kiss between two men complement expert acting, hip and delicious shooting and supersmart writing.
Filmmaker Bio(s)
Eytan Fox was born in New York City and came to Israel as a child. He grew up in Jerusalem and after serving in the Army, studied in Tel Aviv University's school of Film and Television.
His first film Time Off, a 50-minute drame about sexual identity in the Israeli Army (SF JFF), won 1990 Movie of the Year award from the Israeli Film Institute and many international prizes, among them First prize in Munich's International Student Film Festival.
His first feature film Song of the Siren (SF JFF), a romantic comedy about life in Tel Aviv during the 1991 Gulf War, was Israel's biggest box-office success in 1994.
Over the past two years, Fox has created and directed Florentene, a dramatic series for Israeli Television that examines the life of young people in urban Israel against the background of Rabin's assasination. The series won First Prize in the Televiaion category of the 1997 Jerusalem International Film Festival.
Eytan Fox is currently working on a script for his first English-speaking film, tentatively entitled 1967.
