Michale Boganim 
Interview by David Reinharc
I just ask you about a movie you just turn on the Jews of Odessa while you are in Israel, when a controversy about Jews from Katif Gousch we want to banish from their own earth.
Exile Is your opinion - as in your film - the theme of the Jewish people, whom he continues to decline the different variations ...?
Boganim Michale: I think that `we can not possibly compare the` Russian exile of the Jews to the Jews of Gush Katif. I would say that Jews don `Russians had no choice. Staying in Russia `s state was a virulent anti-Semitism, poor economic conditions, political instability. For them to come to Israel or the USA, it `was primarily a matter of life or death, it was necessary that they may save their skin. In Jewish history, exile has often been linked to the impossibility for Jews to remain in a country. It was rarely an option but a necessity.
David Reinharc: The film revolves around the Odessa, a mythical city, the cradle of yiddischkeit.
In this film, I see not only the nostalgia of the city from which arose the modern Jewish genius but also the "nostalgia for nostalgia," as if Odessites exiles living in Ashdod were the "last men" ...
MB: Odessa exudes a poetic charge nostalgic and very strong. It is a city that has indeed inspired many Jewish writers: Isaac Babel, Bialik, Sholem Alekheim ... But also non-Jewish writers as Pushkin. All these books are of course are a valuable source for me. The film traces the journey of Odessites who left their city and who left moved to New York and Israel. Odessa but remains firmly rooted in their minds, starting, they magnified. Say it is a nostalgic film about nostalgia. Nostalgia is in the film as an inner music, an introspection. And the characters I filmed are the last to be in this nostalgia. Children do not know this painful feeling. This is their chance. In this sense, it is unnecessary to parentage.
David Reinharc: Between the "already" of Odessa - a fictional town that no longer exists - and the "not yet" America and Israel - Ashdod is filmed as a non-place, a site for new immigrants - Does your characters do not they float in-between, a world in suspense, who delights of "not now"?
MB: There are several time in this film and theoretically Odessa is history of these people, and that Israel or New York are part of this, even the future. But in reality Odessa is present everywhere. My characters have transported their city as elsewhere. And Odessa is much more alive and real in Little Odessa that even in Odessa. There is the inner world in which these people live and the outside: their host cities in which they live as foreigners see tourists. In this sense they are living between two worlds.
There's this scene where some characters will visit Manathan tourist bus while it has been almost 30 years they live in New York. In Ashdod, we see a grandmother who has recreated his apartment in a museum to the glory of Odessa. It is connected to the Russian radio station that provides information about Moscow or the Ukraine and when her daughter comes to see her (she is already Israel), it does not understand the popularity of his grandmother to Odessa. There is a break between generations.
David Reinharc: Scarcely are they about to set foot in Israel or America that your characters are caught by the desire to go look elsewhere if they are ...
Waiting for the promised land never stops.
you think the Jews did not they put their suitcases in Israel?
MB, It is the great paradox of the film, the Russians arrive in Israel and felt more than ever in exile. Imagine, they `d come Odessa and they are sent directly to Ashdod, Ber Sheva, all these development towns, near the desert. It `s a big shock for them culturally. They leave a great nation-Russia-up to the Middle East.
They have nothing in common with this tiny country called Israel. They don `t have nothing in common with other communities. It also
yad `violence and hatred among the vast Moroccans, Ethiopians and Russians. It `s what a character says: I arrived in a country where I thought everybody was Jewish brothers and I see that Moroccans` s not like the Russians, the Russians don `t like it ... The Ethiopians disillusionment is stronger in Israel: for the expectation is higher.
Moreover, there is a new phenomenon today: 100 000 Russians who settled in Israel are divided.
And then, as `very rightly said an American critic, my characters are in a situation of` exilestentialisme . A permanent state of `exile. The diaspora continues even in Israel, but in another form.
David Reinharc: Russian Jews are, "says a character, Jews in Russia and Russians in Israel.
But this feeling of strangeness he does not end with the generation sabra, Jews in Israel?
MB: Yes `s why Odessites which I have filmed are the last men. In Odessa, the Jews are gone for most and small children of Odessites be Americans in the U.S., Israelis in Israel. The generations of post have already been integrated. Those I chose to shoot them are still uprooted from their land of childhood. It is painful and almost hopeless.
David Reinharc: Michel Gurfinkiel just released a beautiful book, "The Romance of Odessa" (Editions du Rocher).
How your approach differs Does his?
MB: The film is a poetic `s Odessa. The book traces Michel Gufinkiel brilliantly the history of `Odessa. It `s a book that explains the facts, Then my convene film direction.
`C is a more impressionistic approach, but also more intimate, more sensitive.
David Reinharc: Israeli cinema is experiencing a craze and has imposed outside its borders as a film rich, creative and high quality.
You even have known the experience of exile, the film does give you that sense of belonging? You define yourself as an Israeli filmmaker?
MB: I am, indeed, born Israel and this film is a co-production with Israel, it is considered an Israeli film and me as a filmmaker in Israel. Now the reality is more complex. I navigate between multiple identities, multiple locations, multiple memories, multiple languages ... Like the characters in my film.
cinema just gives me no sense of belonging, but rather a way for me to be in several places. I travel a lot with my films. I submitted my film in Israel, but also in New York, Buenos Aires, Toronto, Moscow
... And the rich film, is that it does not reduce, there is a window on the world.
What, for now, your projects?
MB: Other films abroad is the only thing that is certain!
interview published in Israel Magazine (Special Edition 6th grade)
