Lebanon’s director surprised to receive award in Venice

Samuel Maoz, the writer and director of Lebanon, the winner of the Venice Film Festival’s top award, is still in something of a state of shock.

Samuel Maoz [Sheldon Kirshner photo]

The critical acclaim his first feature film garnered in Italy was totally unexpected, he disclosed in an interview during the Toronto International Film Festival, where Lebanon was also screened.

A 47-year-old filmmaker from Tel Aviv, he was clearly blindsided by its success.

He was, first of all, surprised that Lebanon – which unfolds primarily in an Israeli tank in the first harrowing hours of the 1982 war in Lebanon – was accepted by the Venice festival.

Still more, he was surprised that it won the Golden Lion award. “This, for  me, was the big prize, a special moment,” he said.

After the first screening, he choked up. “I had lost my tears, but when the crowd applauded, tears came into my eyes,” said Maoz.

In capturing the Golden Lion, he beat out a director from Iran, whose Islamic government defames Israel and opposes its very existence.

Nonetheless, the Iranian agreed to pose for a photograph with Maoz, and this pleased him to no end.

Apart from being shocked by Lebanon’s reception at Venice, Maoz was  taken aback by the ease with which he was able to raise funds – $1.5 million in U.S. currency – to shoot it.

“I guess investors liked the script,” said Maoz, who previously worked as a production designer in film and television and directed documentaries, a TV series and plays.

As well, Maoz was pleasantly surprised by some audience reaction.

In Venice, a woman hardly disposed toward Israel complimented him and admitted that the film had changed her fundamental perception of Israel.

In Toronto, a Syrian and a Palestinian hugged him, saying they could empathize with the death of Israeli soldiers on the battlefield.

Lebanon combines fact with fiction.

The tank they manned entered not one but several hostile Lebanese villages and got as far as Beirut.

Shmulik, the gunner in the tank, is based on Maoz himself.

The seedy member of the Phalange – the pro-Israel Lebanese Christian militia –  who pops into the tank is not a figment of his imagination. In real life, he reeked of alcohol and was not trustworthy. Indeed, he led the Israelis into an ambush near Beirut in which Maoz’s World War II vintage Patton was surrounded by 11 Syrian tanks.

Some of the Syrian tankists, armed with knives, left their tank and tried to kill the Israelis.

“It was horrible. I thought I was going to die.”

Much to his relief, the Syrians could not open the hatch and fled after an Israeli jet roared toward them.

Lebanon, which was scheduled to open in Israel at the end of September, was filmed in 33 days, with interior scenes shot in  a Tel Aviv studio and exterior ones near Kfar Sava.

It was a difficult shoot, he said. “It was very hard to do. The actors were in an extreme situation, in fire and smoke.”

Maoz had no political views about the war in Lebanon when it broke out. “I was just a kid,” he said.

But in retrospect, he thinks it evolved into a quagmire. “It was our Vietnam. Lebanon was nothing but trouble.”

To his satisfaction, Lebanon has  been bought by distributors in several European countries.

Distributors in North America have been eager to buy it, too.

Emboldened by its success, Maoz has begun writing the script for his second film.

“I’m very hungry to make more films, and I’m sure I’ll make my next one very soon. I’m full of adrenalin.”

He cannot as yet discuss its theme, but says it is not on the Arab-Israeli conflict.

Asked his opinion of the so-called Toronto Declaration, signed by critics of Israel who opposed the festival’s City to City program focusing on Tel Aviv, Maoz said, “I didn’t agree with it. Filmmakers are supposed to be above these things. It was a mistake, that’s for sure.”