Consolation

Colour, HD CAM
Israel, 2010, 50 min
WP – World premiere
Section: Forum of Independents

Synopsis

A day in the life of a 77-year-old woman named Nechama is tenderly captured on film. She wakes up with the feeling that she’ll be dead by evening. Her husband Menachem refuses to take her seriously, reflecting the fact that they have become somewhat estranged. But Nechama heeds her internal voice and tries to gather her family around her in order to say goodbye. But the only one to come is her adult granddaughter Neta who becomes an important part of her grandmother’s last day. Nechama longs to renew the feeling of human closeness which long ago left her. Will the catharsis and consolation arrive that Nechama so badly needs? In under an hour, director Edit Sheratzki succeeded in unfolding a discrete human drama devoid of sentimentality that touches on fundamental questions of human life (love and death). The fine performances by the three main characters in this intimate drama are embellished with sporadic but distinctive music and with sensitive camerawork that uses close-ups to study Nechama’s and Menachem’s furrowed faces, as well as the home that surrounds them.

About the director

Edit Sheratzki (b. 1976, Haifa, Israel) lives in Tel Aviv and graduated in film and communications from Tel-Aviv University. After a four-year stint as a journalist she moved on to filmmaking. In addition to directing shorts and documentaries, she teaches a high school film course. Her directing career began with the documentary Every Day Life (2005), followed by two short movies for which she also wrote the script: Jalla Europa (2006) and Sweet & Low (2007); the first screened at festivals in Munich and Jerusalem. The sensitive, intimate drama Nechama is her medium-length debut.