The Hidden Fountain – The World of Miriam Chalfi

  • 100'
  • Israel
  • 2019

Few know that Raquel Chalfi, one of Israel's most outstanding modern poets, is also a founding figure of the nation's avant-garde cinema. In fact, when she started in the late 1960s, Chalfi was more or less on her own in that area, and eyed with suspicious curiosity by an industry-fixated establishment. Over the decades, usually on her own and invariably taking many years over each work, she created some of the most unusual films ever made in Israel: eerie surrealist feminist phantasmagorias, simultaneously seductive and dangerous.

At first glance, her first feature documentary The Hidden Fountain is unlike any of these, being a portrait of her famed yet reclusive mother, sculptor Miriam Chalfi. It took Raquel more than a quarter century of persuasion, seduction and insistence until Miriam felt able to reveal something of herself in front of the camera. In the process, Chalfi reveals a lot of herself as well.

Also see Talk: The Tyger Burns

Director
Raquel Chalfi
Country of production
Israel
Year
2019
Festival Edition
IFFR 2020
Length
100'
Medium
DCP
Original title
HaMa'ayan haNistar
Language
Hebrew
Producer
Raquel Chalfi
Sales
Costanza Film Distribution
Screenplay
Raquel Chalfi
Cinematography
Raquel Chalfi, Jorge Gurvich, Avital Merkler, Daniel Tadmon Chalfi
Editor
Raquel Chalfi
Director
Raquel Chalfi
Country of production
Israel
Year
2019
Festival Edition
IFFR 2020
Length
100'
Medium
DCP
Original title
HaMa'ayan haNistar
Language
Hebrew
Producer
Raquel Chalfi
Sales
Costanza Film Distribution
Screenplay
Raquel Chalfi
Cinematography
Raquel Chalfi, Jorge Gurvich, Avital Merkler, Daniel Tadmon Chalfi
Editor
Raquel Chalfi