Riva
Synopsis
Riva is the portrait of a woman, Riva Ben Eliezer, now ninety years old. How do you look at the life of someone who has lived through so much? I would look at her hands, wrinkled and old, and think, these are the hands that did all those things, that were communist in Palestine, that were imprisoned and tortured, that bore children and a great and terrible war, that lived in Siberia, that taught kindergarten, that wrote books. These hands, no other, did this, and this is what they look like now. This is what time and life has done to my grandmother's hands.
But the film is more than that. It is more than a portrait of a woman who lived through extraordinary times, who was a Jew in a place and time when there was nothing and nowhere worse to be. It is the portrait of a whole life, not just the sections that have the most drama. It is the portrait of her now - for now contains all her past, somehow, in her hands and in her face. In her voice and especially in her laugh.
It is a private film made for the public. The use of hand processed images, with their patina of blotches and scratches, creats a space for Riva to exist, where the presentation of her ninety-year-old body is not intrusive but respectful. It is a private film also because it was made in private, just me and her, so our relationship becomes a part of it.
It is not my intention with this film to deify Riva. Just to show her, as I see her, because it is important to see the lives of others, lives that have been deeply lived, as Riva's has.
Details
- Year
- 2004
- Type of film
- Shorts
- Running Time
- 13 mins
- Format
- 16mm, Kodak
- Director
- Tamara Tracz
- Producer
- Tamara Tracz
- Editor
- Tamara Tracz
- Screenwriter
- Tamara Tracz
- Director of Photography
- Tamara Tracz
- Sound
- Tamara Tracz
- Principal Cast
- Riva Ben Eliezer
Production status
Complete
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Last updated 7th September 2006
