'Foxtrot' director to speak at English screenings in Jerusalem and Tel Aviv

Samuel Maoz, award-winning director of the most talked-about Israeli movie of the year, will answer questions from Times of Israel readers at English-subtitled screenings

Times of Israel readers are invited to exclusive screenings of the multi-Ophir Award-winning movie “Foxtrot,” with English subtitles, in the company of director Samuel Maoz, who will answer questions after the film.

Foxtrot won the coveted Silver Lion at the Venice Film Festival and eight of the Israeli Film Academy’s Ophir Awards, including Best Picture. The film is now Israel’s candidate for the 2018 Oscars.

“Brilliantly constructed with a visual audacity that serves the subject rather than the other way around, this is award-winning filmmaking on a fearless level,” said Variety. “His boldness pays off in ways that make one reach for superlatives.”

“A compelling family tragedy played out in three acts; a nightmarish triptych of loss, waste and grief that is nonetheless arranged with such visionary boldness that it dares us to look away,” said the Guardian.

“An insider’s anguished, passionate, perceptive production — so powerfully resonant, for Israelis, indeed, as to make watching parts of it a veritable ordeal,” wrote Times of Israel founding editor David Horovitz.

But the film has also attracted controversy and criticism. Culture Minister Miri Regev called it “self-flagellation and cooperation with the anti-Israel narrative.”

“It’s outrageous that Israeli artists contribute to the incitement of the young generation against the most moral army in the world by spreading lies in the guise of art,” said Regev.

Responding to Regev’s comments, Maoz told reporters in Venice that no society can flourish when “critics are considered to be traitors… If I criticize the place I live, I do it because I worry. I do it because I want to protect it. I do it from love.”

Here’s your chance to come and see the movie and ask Maoz yourself.