 "Photo: Blues by the Beach")
Good evening. We interrupt this broadcast to bring you breaking news. A suicide bomb attack in Tel Aviv tonight has…
Close your eyes. What do you see when you think of Israel? Do you see the wounded and panicked in the streets from CNN or BBC newscasts? People shouting in mobs? Do you picture young people paralyzed with grief and pain?
Now, picture this: a live music bar called Mike's Place next to the beach in Tel Aviv. Imagine waitress Dominique Hass weaving through a packed crowd dancing to the blues band and passing pints of Guinness to the laughing people seated at patio tables.
The bar's good vibe and its characters open the award-winning documentary Blues by the Beach, directed by Joshua Faudem. The film premiered in Montreal at the Paramount Cinemaplex on Ste. Catherine St. last Thursday and was presented by Hillel.
Leaving the cold of France behind for what she saw as an opportunity in Tel Aviv, Hass is one of several people American producer Jack Baxter began filming after discovering Mike's Place. Baxter enlisted the talents of filmmaker Joshua Faudem and his Czech-born girlfriend Pavla Fleischer to document a side of the Middle East that isn't normally seen on the news. They all agreed not to manipulate the audience but to focus on the characters and the liveliness of the bar.
In an interview from his hotel room, Faudem remembers Baxter's initial reaction to Mike's Place, "This is a guy who reads The Washington Post and The New York Times every day, and he's totally shocked by what he sees [in Israel]. He never thought he'd come to Israel and walk on the beach with a beer, talk with people speaking English and who listen to Muddy Waters."
As bartender 'U.K. Dave' says in the film, "There are no politics, no religion, none of that at the bar."
The documentary's sunny beginning is overshadowed by the events that took place on April 30, 2003. While the crew was filming an open-jam session at Mike's, a suicide bomber hit the entrance of the bar. Confusion and tragedy ensued and 50 people were injured. Dominique Hass, along with Yanni Weiss and Ran Baron, two musicians having a cigarette outside, were killed.
Faudem and Fleischer kept the camera rolling and an entirely different film was born. What followed became a very personal meditation on the effects of terror, its aftermath and the hope of moving on.
"This film is a big eye-opener for people who are non-Jewish or have never been to Israel." Faudem said.
"There's not one character in the film [who], after the bombing, talks about revenge, who talks about getting back at the Palestinians, and I think that's remarkable," he said.
Only a week after the bombing, on Yom Haatzmaut, Israel's Independence Day, the bar reopened. Mike's Place is still open today and every year opens its doors on April 30 to enable family and friends to continue making their peace with the incident.
Faudem and Fleischer chronicled the bar's reopening, and also the disintegration of their own relationship. A few months into the editing process, Fleischer left the project and returned to Europe.
Born in Detroit, Michigan, Faudem went to film school in Prague. Having traveled all over the world, he considers Israel his home. When he returned to Israel in 2003, the mood in the country was bleak.
"It was not the same Israel I had left in 1998," he said. "The second intifada was in full swing. The economic, political and social situation was very bad. Everything was a mess and I just came back to start my film career."
After two and a half years of editing, Faudem and the editors finished a final version. He is making the festival rounds and hopes to see the film distributed within a few months. He had been in talks with HBO but he refused to make the film "more political" as they wanted.
The audience's reaction at the Paramount theatre was overwhelmingly positive. Ryan Schwartz, of Hillel Montreal, said of the film, "When you look at the poster, you may think of terrorism, but watching the film, that's not what it's about. It's a celebration of the people of Israel and their resilience, and also tolerance."
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