Film Fanatic

Infobox Film
name = Film Fanatic


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director =Shlomo Hazan
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released = 2006 (USA)
runtime = 55 min.
country = Israel
language = Hebrewwith English subtitles
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"Film Fanatic" is a 2006 documentary about Yehuda Grovais, an Israeli ultra-Orthodox Jew, who rebels against his religion to make movies. But his films are geared towards the ultra-Orthodox community, which isn't supposed to watch movies either. The documentary explores Grovais' struggle to make a good film that's also a Kosher film.

ummary

Grovais's movies suffer because the actors he finds in the ultra-orthodox community are amateurs, there's never enough funding, and the filming is choppy because it's interrupted by morning, afternoon, and night prayer. Things are also complicated by the fact that women can never appear on screen, even in the far background of a shot. The documentary looks at the clash between mainstream Western beliefs and ultra-orthodox doctrine. Grovais doesn't show women in his movies because, he says, “I'm giving my clients what they want and demand.” Grovais and his audience believe that women would be objectified if they appeared on screen.

Even though his community secretly buys his films, they are publicly criticized. Rabbis hang nasty posters that say his movies come from Satan, and his filming is interrupted by angry religious protesters.

Grovais's financier insists that Grovais must invent a new cinema that speaks not only to the ultra-orthodox, but to a universal audience. His financier understand that as long as his scripts depict all gentiles as stupid drunkards and every religious person as holy, Grovais is going to have a hard time finding funding. When this conflict reaches a head, Grovais must decide what he is willing to compromise and how he will he adapt.

Reception

References

*cite news
last =FriarYid
first =
title =SF Jewish Film Festival: "Film Fanatic"
publisher = Oy Bay! world press
date =August 1 2007
url =http://oybay.wordpress.com/2007/08/01/sf-jewish-film-festival-film-fanatic/
accessdate = July 28

ee also

*ultra-Orthodox
* [http://news.ufl.edu/2006/11/27/hasidic-jews Hasidic and Haredi Jewish population growth]
*Hasidim and Mitnagdim
*Mashgiach Ruchani
*Orthodox Judaism
*Posek
*Rebbe
*Relationships between Jewish religious movementsOther films about Israel society:
*"Say Amen"
*"Women for Sale"
*"The Land of the Settlers"

External links

* [http://sfjff.org/festival_2007/film/481/ San Francisco Jewish Film Festival]
* [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nDxbYQ7VKH0 "Film Fanatic" trailer on YouTube]
* [http://audience.withoutabox.com/films/film_fanatic Without a Box review]