A Pre-Premiere Screening of the Israeli Film "My Beloved Daughter"

Sigalit Ben Hayoun, head of the Tel Aviv University Alumni Organization, gave opening remarks in which she thanked the alumni for their support in these days of war for scholarships to students serving in the IDF reserves.

The event opened with a short lecture by Dr. Sharon Laor-Sirak, a curator and researcher of Islamic and Near Eastern cultures, an alumna of Tel Aviv University Faculty of the Art.

Dr. Sharon Laor-Sirak

At the end of the film screening, a discussion was held with: 

• Eitan Green - the film director and screenwriter, a former student of at Tel Aviv University Faculty of the Arts, and adjunct full professor (emeritus) at the university

• Yael Shuv - writer and film critic, alumna of both the Humanities and Arts faculties at Tel Aviv University

From the left: Sigalit Ben Hayoun, Eitan Green and Dr. Sharon Laor-Sirak

The film tells the story of Shimon (who is played by another alumnus of Tel Aviv University Faculty of the Arts—Sasson Gabai), a widower in his 70s who goes to Paris to visit his childhood friend Nissim. During his visit, he stays with his only daughter, Alma, who lives there with her baby boy, and her husband who is working on his doctorate at the Sorbonne, and finds himself amid a major crisis in her life and marriage.
 

Eitan Green had this to say about the film:

"His (Shimon) tortured daughter whose pain no one understands leads him to a place he has been afraid of—to a love that was hidden in his heart and which he now dares to express and realize.

 

And perhaps we find here our inability to understand, fully understand, the other. To be the other. Any other. Because at the core of our differences of opinion between us and our environment, family, or friends, we find that what we are actually asking from those we disagree with is to be us. But the other cannot be us any more than we can be the other. This is hard to accept but important to understand, and sometimes it can even make things easier for us."

Eitan Green

"My Beloved Daughter" is Eitan Green's eighth film, and according to him:

"When I came to make it, I thought that I would benefit from the experience I gained from my previous films and that the work would perhaps be easier. Well, it turns out that this is not the case and that making a film is always a difficult job, and that every film is actually a first film with a new story, new actors, new filming locations, a new crew, and so on. Everything is new. And here I am, again, a rookie, even if a little older. Older but obligated to have a young man's audacity to start a new film. There is no age or experience for filmmaking but only a strong desire which must organize itself with discipline to make a film. And so if someone thinks that a seasoned director has any advantage in this craft, he is wrong. Every time he makes his first film—and that is The beauty of it: here comes back the audacity, the blessed carelessness, and necessary stupidity, which some may call inspiration, to take on such an effort as the making of a film; a journey that is justified only by its end and the choice to make it and films in general."

Among the alumni who participated were:

• Dori Manor - David LUBINSKI Group Owner and Chairman, who attended with his wife Liat and daughter Odalia—a first-year student at Tel Aviv University Faculty of Engineering, who also serves these days in reserve

• Tehila Yanai - Co-Founder and CEO of BDI and Eyal Yanai

• Dr. Orit Stein-Reisner - Director of Reot Rehabilitation Hospital and Dr. Avishai Reisner

• CPA Ehud Rassabi – Manager and politician

• Adi Gura - Partner in Braverman Gallery

And many more.

Tel Aviv University Alumni Organization - A World-Changing Community