Behind the Scenes: ‘Footnote’ Pre-Oscar Party

Joseph Cedar Image by Rex Weiner

By Rex Weiner February 24, 2012

Israeli-born producer Avi Lerner can’t compare the film “Footnote” to the blockbusters that he produces. “It’s a different movie,” he said of the Israeli film, which is nominated for an Academy Award in Best Foreign Language Film category. Lerner, who has produced big-budget action movies like “The Expendables” and low-budget exploitation flicks like “Crocodile 2: Death Swamp,” was among the 50 guests gathered for a pre-Oscar party for “Footnote” at a private home in Beverly Hills Thursday night.

The comic drama, about a pair of father-and-son Talmudic scholars, snagged Israel its 10th Academy Award nomination in the category and, Lerner hopes, the nation’s first win when Oscars are handed out Sunday night.

Sponsored by the Israeli Consulate and L.A.’s upcoming 26th Israel Film Festival, the festivities were hosted by Shanit Schwartz and her husband, Sam, a talent agent whose stable boasts many of film and TV’s top musical composers. Guests entering the Schwartz’s art-filled villa emerged onto a hilltop with sunset views toward the distant Channel Islands and, just across the way, the $30 million driveway (yes, driveway) that leads to the home of Sam and Shanit’s neighbor, Microsoft mogul Paul Allen.

Undaunted by the Hollywood glitz, “Footnote” writer and director Joseph Cedar told the Forward that he was pleased to be attending his second Academy Award ceremony (his first was for “Beaufort” in 2007), but expressed some anxiety; with two nominations for and four Academy submissions by Israel, perhaps his popularity meant he was not “edgy” enough. Michael Barker, co-president and co-founder of Sony Pictures Classics, the film’s US distributor, assured the filmmaker that frequent nominations were a good thing, pointing as an example to Woody Allen, a 23-time nominee (and three-time Oscar winner) in various categories. Cedar perked up when he learned that Allen was going to screen “Footnote” privately before the film’s March 9 opening in New York.

Sony Pictures Classics, which over the years has won 11 Best Foreign Language Film Oscars, is also pushing two other nominees vying with Footnote in the category, including the Iranian entry, “A Separation,” and “In Darkness,” a Polish film about the Holocaust. Barker told the Forward that he believes that “Footnote” has “crossover potential” and that Sony’s aggressive publicity campaign and screening schedule on both coasts for Academy members is a post-Awards release strategy aimed not only at winning the Oscar, but at maximizing the film’s appeal to mainstream audiences.

Also on hand were Meir Fenigstein, director of the Israel Film Festival; Consul General David Siegel, who has seen the film twice; the film’s producers David Mandil, Moshe Edery and Leon Edery; and Footnote star Shlomo Bar-Aba. Said Siegel, “Whatever is in that envelope Sunday night, Israel has already won.” Bar-Aba, who captured the Israel Film & TV Academy’s Ophir Award for Best Actor for his role as Eliezer Shkolnik, the elder Talmudic scholar in the picture, summed up the whole thing in Hebrew slang, “It’s a sha’arruriya,” scandalously too good to be true.

Rex Weiner is a Brooklyn-born, third-generation journalist who from 1992 to 1997 covered the entertainment industry as a staff reporter for Daily Variety, where his column, Lost and Found, appeared weekly. His articles have appeared in Vanity Fair, the Los Angeles Times Sunday magazine, The New Yorker, The New York Observer and LA Weekly, and he contributes regularly to Rolling Stone Italia. His screenwriting credits include “The Adventures of Ford Fairlane” (20th Century Fox), and he was one of the first writers of the TV series “Miami Vice.” He is a founding editor of High Times magazine and a co-author of The Woodstock Census (Viking, 1979), one of the key texts analyzing the impact of the ’60s generation on American society. He is currently based in Los Angeles and in the town of Todos Santos, Baja California Sur, Mexico, where his fluent Spanish and capacity for tequila come in handy. He can be reached at rexweiner@forward.com.

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