Capital’s film festival to screen digitally restored classic

With recent headlines touting warmer relations between Israel and Egypt, it’s the perfect week to screen the late Rafi Bukai’s digitally restored “Avanti Popolo.”

The 1986 film tells the darkly comic tale of two Egyptian soldiers stranded in the Sinai Desert after the Six Day War in 1967, now within Israel’s new borders, and their journey home to the Suez Canal.

Marking 30 years since the film’s original release, the digital restoration will be screened for the first time at the Jerusalem Film Festival on July 12, with cast and crew in attendance including the film’s lead actor Salim Dau and Bukai’s widow Mayan.

According to Dau, Bukai’s “Avanti Popolo” was the first time an Arab character — two, in this film — were the heroes of an Israeli movie.

“Avanti Popolo,” Italian for red flag, was originally Bukai’s graduate film when he was a student at Tel Aviv University. It became a feature film that is still studied in local film schools.

“It’s an undated movie,” said Ruth Diskin, whose firm, Diskin Films, helped find the funding for the restoration. “It’s really timely, at least in our neck of the woods.”

Diskin is also responsible for the Shagrir Collection, a website dedicated to the famed Israeli producer who produced “Avanti Popolo” as well as another 600 films, news pieces and television series.

https://vimeo.com/164233117

The Cinematheque holds Shagrir’s entire collection, but Diskin Films is handling the website made in his memory, making his work available on the English and Hebrew website for free, for the public.

“That was his request that he made a year before his death,” said Diskin. “No other filmmaker has a site like this.”

Shagrir died in February 2015.

The Cinematheque decides which films to restore for the festival each year. Until now, the only available copy of “Avanti Popolo” was a 16mm negative print, which required a lengthy and costly restoration process, said Diskin. This is the first time it’s being screened.

“Avanti Popolo,” Tuesday, July 12, 6 p.m., Cinematheque 1.