{"id":1900,"date":"2020-09-15T20:21:30","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T20:21:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ilanmoskovitch.com\/?page_id=1900"},"modified":"2020-10-03T15:36:24","modified_gmt":"2020-10-03T15:36:24","slug":"holy-air","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/ilanmoskovitch.com\/?page_id=1900","title":{"rendered":"Holy Air"},"content":{"rendered":"

Holy Air <\/span><\/h1>\n

Adam ( Shady Srour) is thoroughly in love with his wife Lamia (La\u00ebtitia E\u00efdo), but that doesn\u2019t make him a successful businessman. He needs money now more than ever as they\u2019re experiencing a difficult pregnancy while his father is gravely ill. Adding the small daily misfortunes he encounters as an Arab Christian in Nazareth means Adam could really use a big break. He finds one where he least expects it: on the biblical hilltop Mount Precipice. He embarks on his latest, riskiest business venture: bottling the holy air and selling it to the city\u2019s tourists.<\/p>\n

A colorful snapshot of modern-day Nazareth,\u00a0Holy Air<\/em>\u00a0examines the complicated emotions that go into living as a modern, progressive family on the world\u2019s most spiritual ground. All around swirls the challenging social crosscurrents that Adam will need to navigate to get his idea off the ground: Catholic capitalists, Jewish bureaucrats, Muslim gangsters. Srour and E\u00efdo deliver remarkable and unflinching performances in this endearing comedy on spirituality, ideology, and survival\u2014and which of the three must be sacrificed to preserve the others.<\/p>\n

CAST & CREDITS<\/h2>\n
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DIRECTOR<\/div>\n
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Shady Srour<\/p>\n

PRODUCER<\/div>\n
Ilan Moskovitch, Shady Srour<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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SCREENWRITER<\/div>\n
Shady Srour<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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CINEMATOGRAPHER<\/div>\n
Daniel Miller<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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EDITOR<\/div>\n
Naaman Bishara<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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COMPOSER<\/div>\n
Habib Shehadeh Hanna<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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PRODUCTION DESIGN<\/div>\n
Miguel Merkin<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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COSTUME DESIGN<\/div>\n
Naim Kasem<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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SOUND<\/div>\n
Raja Dubayah<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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CAST<\/div>\n
Shady Srour, La\u00ebtitia E\u00efdo, Shmulik Calderon, Tareq Copti, Dalia Okal, Bian Anteer<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>
<\/div><\/div>

\"\"<\/h1>\n

\u2018Holy Air\u2019: Film Review | Tribeca 2017<\/h1>\n

5:15 PM PDT 4\/20\/2017\u00a0<\/span>by\u00a0Sheri Linden<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

Courtesy of Daniel Miller<\/p>\n

In his second feature, Israel-based filmmaker Shady Srour plays a father-to-be who hatches a product idea aimed at religious tourists.<\/h2>\n

Adult growing pains, regional politics and the business of religion all figure in\u00a0Holy Air<\/em>, a winningly satiric comedy that\u2019s as tenderhearted as it is sly. Writer-director Shady\u00a0Srour<\/span>\u00a0has a soulful sad-sack quality as his film\u2019s central character, Adam, a Christian Arab Israeli who\u2019s not quite ready for fatherhood or for the painful fading of his ailing father. As he tries to find his entrepreneurial calling, he lights upon the idea to bottle the title item and hawk it to Israel\u2019s\u00a0tchotchke-collecting<\/span>\u00a0tourists. With its light dramatic touch and assured visual style, the feature should have a busy itinerary after its world premiere at\u00a0Tribeca<\/span>.<\/p>\n

Srour<\/span>\u00a0bookends the movie with traffic jams, several years apart. They both take place in Nazareth, a predominantly Arab region of Israel, as does most of the thoughtful, engaging film. The action opens to the din of honking horns as an enervated Adam, stuck behind the wheel of his immobile car, watches his spunky wife, Lamia (French-Lebanese actress\u00a0Laetitia<\/span>\u00a0Eido<\/span>), take a pregnancy test beside him in the front seat. The positive results don\u2019t exactly make him jump for joy.<\/p>\n

Unlike Lamia, a social worker and advocate who speaks on local TV about female sexuality with fervent, male-crew-flustering directness, Adam is floundering. He feels no connection to the business he started with his go-getter partner,\u00a0Mahmoud<\/span>\u00a0(Byan<\/span>\u00a0Anteer<\/span>), who has long since abandoned the leftist ideals of their student days. Without telling his wife or parents, Adam quits his job in pursuit of more fulfilling ventures, and inspiration soon strikes, somewhat paradoxically for this reluctant dad-to-be, when he overhears the spiel of holy-site\u00a0tour-meister<\/span>\u00a0Roberto (Shmulik<\/span>\u00a0Calderon) about Gabriel\u2019s annunciation to Mary. Adam casts aside his nonstarter of an idea for inspirational toilet paper and gets busy climbing the rocky slope of Mount Precipice, where he \u201cfills\u201d handcrafted bottles from his father\u2019s shuttered workshop with the blessed air.<\/p>\n

With his facility for language, not to mention a consumer-friendly price point \u2014 \u201cOnly one euro!\u201d \u2014 Adam finds his light-as-air answer to holy water selling like\u00a0hotcakes<\/span>, to the point where the local crime boss tries to squeeze him for protection money. Anticipating a surge in business during the pope\u2019s upcoming visit, he sets out to forge a coalition with Nazareth\u2019s Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders.<\/p>\n

The idea of \u201cselling air\u201d is bitter shorthand among Israel\u2019s Arab minority, a wry description of the lengths to which they must go to earn a living when the political structure affords them few opportunities.\u00a0Srour<\/span>\u00a0opts for a droll, deadpan absurdity to make his points. In his spare, elegantly structured screenplay, the most explicit discussion of culture and identity politics in Israel arrives in the form of an argument between two Tel Aviv doctors, in a comic scene that also happens to deal frankly with abortion.<\/p>\n

The humor in\u00a0Holy Air\u00a0<\/em>is inseparable from its poignancy, and every element of the film expresses that interconnection, from the performances to the spirited, melancholy-laced score by\u00a0Habib<\/span>\u00a0Shehadeh<\/span>\u00a0Hanna. There\u2019s a quest for balance, and a sense of being caught between uncontrollable forces, in the characters\u2019 predicaments: Lamia\u2019s obstetrician (a terrifically funny\u00a0Yussuf<\/span>\u00a0Abu-Warda<\/span>) announces a 50-50 prognosis for the fetus; the\u00a0oncologists<\/span>\u00a0treating Adam\u2019s father, George, offer a similar calculation.<\/p>\n

Played by\u00a0Tarek<\/span>\u00a0Copty<\/span>\u00a0(The Band\u2019s Visit<\/em>), George is an old man with a beautiful face and a poet\u2019s soul, and he burns brighter as a character the frailer he grows physically. In a fine example of\u00a0Srour\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0knack for infusing action with feeling, Adam and Lamia join forces with Adam\u2019s mother,\u00a0Widad<\/span>\u00a0(Dalia<\/span>\u00a0Okal<\/span>), to silence George\u2019s squeaky hospital bed, using cooking oil from\u00a0Widad\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0kitchen.<\/p>\n

In this sequence and throughout the film,\u00a0Srour<\/span>\u00a0and cinematographer Daniel Miller favor fixed frames and symmetrical compositions. But they also have a feel for intimate exchanges and the ebb and flow in bustling streets and squares. Whatever the setting, and whether or not the air around the players is holy,\u00a0Srour\u2019s<\/span>\u00a0subtly crafted film unfolds as a memorable and confidently imagined human comedy.<\/p>\n

Production companies: Tree M Productions, Cinema Virgin
\nCast: Shady\u00a0Srour<\/span>,\u00a0Laetitia<\/span>\u00a0Eido<\/span>,\u00a0Shmulik<\/span>\u00a0Calderon,\u00a0Tarek<\/span>\u00a0Copty<\/span>,\u00a0Dalia<\/span>\u00a0Okal<\/span>,\u00a0Byan<\/span>\u00a0Anteer<\/span>,\u00a0Yussuf<\/span>\u00a0Abu-Warda<\/span>
\nDirector-screenwriter: Shady\u00a0Srour<\/span>
\nProducers:\u00a0Ilan<\/span>\u00a0Moskovitch<\/span>, Shady\u00a0Srour<\/span>
\nExecutive producer: Laura\u00a0Hawa<\/span>
\nDirector of photography: Daniel Miller
\nProduction designer: Miguel\u00a0Merkin<\/span>
\nCostume designer:\u00a0Naim<\/span>\u00a0Qasim<\/span>
\nEditor:\u00a0Naaman<\/span>\u00a0Bishara<\/span>
\nComposer:\u00a0Habib<\/span>\u00a0Shehadeh<\/span>\u00a0Hanna
\nSound designer: Raja\u00a0Dubayah<\/span>
\nCasting:\u00a0Ilan<\/span>\u00a0Moskovitch<\/span>
\nVenue:\u00a0Tribeca<\/span>\u00a0Film Festival (International Narrative Competition)
\nSales: New Europe Film Sales<\/em><\/p>\n

80 minutes<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div>