ScreenFish

where faith and film are intertwined

Dani Menkin

On the Map – Hoops and Hope

?Finally the Jewish teams are kicking ass.?

Can a sports team be the catalyst that not only unites a nation but also gives it a sense of the nation?s place in the world? On the Map asks us to consider the role the Israeli basketball team Macabbi Tel Aviv had in showing the world what Israel was capable of.

MK MOSHE DAYAN SHAKING HANDS WITH MACABBI TEL AVIV BASKETBALL PLAYER MOTTI AROESTI, AS AULCI PERRY & MIKY BERKOVITZ LOOK ON
MK MOSHE DAYAN SHAKING HANDS WITH MACABBI TEL AVIV BASKETBALL PLAYER MOTTI AROESTI, AS AULCI PERRY & MIKY BERKOVITZ LOOK ON

For those of us who think mainly of the NBA if we think of basketball at all, we may not recognize just how international the game has become. Popularity of the game grew rapidly in Europe after World War II and?soon there was a European Championship that was dominated by Italy, Spain, and the Soviet Union. Israel could never make it past the first round. In the 1960s an American player, Tal Brody, passed up an NBA career (he was drafted #12 overall) to play for Macabbi Tel Aviv. Soon other American?s followed. In 1977 everything came together and the team made a run for the championship. The story of that season is told by the members of the team and others (including NBA star Bill Walton and former NBA Commission David Stern) along with archival footage of some of the games.

Some history is needed to understand the context of this team?s story. The world watched in horror as Israeli athletes were killed by terrorists at the 1972 Munich Olympics. In 1973 Israel faced the Yom Kippur War. A hijacked airliner led to the Entebbe raid in 1976. Forty years ago Israel was struggling with survival. When Macabbi Tel Aviv had a chance for a good showing in the championship, it became something other than war for the nation to rally around. That is not to say there weren?t political implications. When Macabbi was scheduled to play the Soviet Red Army team, the Soviets at first refused because they had no diplomatic relations with Israel. The game was finally played at a neutral site in a small town in Belgium. That game in particular is given attention not just because the Soviets were such a good team, but also because this was a period of Soviet oppression of Jews. The game took on a touch of geopolitical ramifications. It was after that game that Tal Brody said that it had put Israel ?on the map?, not just in sports but in everything.

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The American equivalent of this story is probably the US gold medal in ice hockey that took place just the year before this story (and also involved beating the Soviets). To be fair, Americans are used to being the best in sports. We take pride in being at or near the top in Olympic medals. Still, for a country that is struggling not just in sports but for its very survival, a victory such as Macabbi Tel Aviv provided can give a new sense of pride and new hope of what the future can hold. It is a reminder that sometimes sports are not just something we can watch and enjoy. Sometimes those games can speak to us emotionally and even spiritually.

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Photos courtesy of Hey Jude Productions

Is That You? -Dreams and Regrets

?Everyone has a path that leads them to wherever they need to go. All you can know is if you were brave or scared in your life.?

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Dreams and regrets are at the heart of Is That You?, an Israeli film set in the U.S. After losing his job as a projectionist in Israel, Ronnie (Alon Aboutboul) comes to the U.S. to try to find Rachel, his girlfriend from forty years ago. Her birthday is near, and when they were young they had promised that no matter what, for her sixtieth birthday, they would be together. But he really has no idea where she is. Putting a few clues together, he sets off in a rental car to find her. When the car breaks down he meets Myla (Naruna Kaplan de Macedo) a young filmmaker making The Road Not Taken, a documentary about people?s regrets in life. She wants to interview Ronnie and hearing his story offers to go with him on the journey.

Ronnie and Myla are very much a yin-yang couple: old/young, male/female, cynical/dreamer. When Ronnie learns of her dreams of being a documentarian, he points out that you can?t really make a living doing that. Myla says she believes dreams should shape our realities, not the other way around. Yet their differences make them a perfect couple for their travel and the search for fulfillment of dreams.

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Along the road, they meet a wide range of people whom Myla films as they talk about their biggest regret. The film-within-a-film provides a chance to reflect on the connection between dreams and regrets. Some of those documentary interviews are serious, some frivolous, but they set the stage for Ronnie?s seeking to undo the big regret in his life, and for Myla to face the real reason behind her film about regrets. Perhaps one of the gifts this film has to offer is that as we watch we may wonder what we would say if Myla were to ask us about our biggest regret.

In the end we know that life is filled with dreams and regrets. Ronnie has lived with his regret for decades and now seeks to see if his dream can be restored. Myla wants to push her dream so she won?t have regrets (yet she fears that regret has already become a heavy weight in her life). Each of the thousands of roads and paths we journey along in life will carry the possibility of regret. Perhaps the way to finding happiness is never giving way to regret?just as Ronnie never gives up on the possibility that his regret may be overcome.

Photos courtesy of Hey Jude Productions