04.02.05 DocAviv: Holy Land, Here I Come... Again

I am soooooo excited. I'll be leaving in a couple days to head back to Israel for the offical festival premiere of Jericho's Echo. Those of you who have been following the film's progress and holding my hand in some way for the past two years (thank you! thank you! thank you!) know that this is like coming full circle for the project. We shot the film in Tel Aviv, and I can think of no better place for its international coming out party than DocAviv, the Tel Aviv International Documentary Festival.

If you scroll down you'll see that we're also coming full circle with this here blog. It was originally used to document my first shooting trip to Israel, and now it's gonna follow the film on all of its wild travels. I am psyched to look back on it myself and remember, as I am seeing the guys in all the Israeli punk bands anew, what it was like when we first met!
It is going to be so crazy...some of them were only 15 when I shot the film and I have been looking at their 15-year-old faces for 2 years during editing. Suddenly, I'm gonna go back and they will all be 2 years older and have facial hair and shit! There is a big difference between 15 and 17 or 18 and 20--espeically in Israel.

The screenings in Tel Aviv will be the first time any of the bands are seeing the film. I CAN'T WAIT to see their reactions and hear what they have to say about it all. I am just so excited to see them all anyway, and to meet the bands that Steve interviewed for the first time (I interviewed most of the bands myself, but when I sent Steve back to get some more footage for me, he got some really crucial pieces of the puzzle, like HaPussy shel Lussy and Lital) . I feel like I know them so well...but really I only know a 2-year-old snapshot of them, and they have never even met me!

So--thanks for coming along for the ride. It should be AN ADVENTURE!

Pic from the San Francisco Sneak Preview Screening