Israeli Filmmaker Ran Tal on Berlinale Documentary ‘1341 Frames of Love and War’

variety.com:

Leo Barraclough International Features EditorAhead of Sunday’s world premiere of documentary “1341 Frames of Love and War,” which plays in Berlinale Special, Variety spoke to Israeli writer/director Ran Tal about the film and its subject, Israeli war photographer Micha Bar-Am.In some ways “Frames” continues Tal’s interest in Israeli history evident in his previous work, “What If?

Ehud Barak on War and Peace,” which centered on the former prime minister of Israel. Bar-Am was born in Berlin in 1930, but grew up in what became Israel, and across a five decade-long career as a photographer he documented many of the major episodes – in particular the wars – in the life of the young country, founded in 1948. “I wanted to do two films: one about a player in history […] and the second one should be about the witness,” Tal says.

The filmmaker got in touch with Bar-Am, who showed him his archive of more than half a million negatives, stored in his basement in Tel Aviv. “It was clear to me immediately that I wanted to spend a lot of time in this basement,” Tal says. “It took me three years to assemble the film.” Bar-Am and his wife Orna were “very friendly and honest, and opened their hearts, their house and the archive for me, but it took time to build this kind of trust, because I set as one of my conditions that: I want open [access to the] archive and I want to use any image I want.

You don’t get to see the film until the end. You need to trust me,” Tal says. The film is almost entirely composed of the photographs that Bar-Am took over his career, and is accompanied by the conversations Tal had with the couple about the photographs and their recollection of the events and their feelings about them.