Out of Sight

Colour, 35 mm
Israel, 2005, 86 min
Section: Another View

About the film

In this psychological film, whose mysteries are gradually uncovered as the plot unfolds, the heroines are two girls, cousins Ya’ra and Talia, who grew up together. In fact, there is only one heroine, the blind Ya’ra; we discover in the first few shots that Talia has committed suicide, the motivation for which is unknown. Ya’ra is studying in America and is now returning home not only to attend the funeral but also to observe a seven-day period of mourning, along with the rest of the family. Stunned by the loss of the person closest to her, and also thanks to important information she acquires by chance, she begins to uncover mysterious, dark places in her reminiscences of the happy times spent with Talia and their carefree childhood. Not even painful premonitions deter her from her investigation, and in the end it is she, a blind girl, who finds the reason for the girl’s desperate act.

About the director

Daniel Syrkin (b. 1971, Moscow) studied at the Tel Aviv Film School, then worked for television, where he directed programmes of varying genre, from documentaries to comedies and drama series. The 11-minute film And Now Rachmaninov won an award at the Turin international festival in 1997; it won Best Short Feature Film in Israel a year later. Syrkin is also a film journalist, specialising in interviews with film stars (Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Sophia Loren, Angelina Jolie). The film Out of Sight is his distribution feature film debut.