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Project Detail

Riva

Synopsis

Riva is the portrait of a woman, Riva Ben Eliezer, now ninety years old. How do you look at the life of someone who has lived through so much? I would look at her hands, wrinkled and old, and think, these are the hands that did all those things, that were communist in Palestine, that were imprisoned and tortured, that bore children and a great and terrible war, that lived in Siberia, that taught kindergarten, that wrote books. These hands, no other, did this, and this is what they look like now. This is what time and life has done to my grandmother's hands.
 
But the film is more than that. It is more than a portrait of a woman who lived through extraordinary times, who was a Jew in a place and time when there was nothing and nowhere worse to be. It is the portrait of a whole life, not just the sections that have the most drama. It is the portrait of her now - for now contains all her past, somehow, in her hands and in her face. In her voice and especially in her laugh.
 
It is a private film made for the public. The use of hand processed images, with their patina of blotches and scratches, creats a space for Riva to exist, where the presentation of her ninety-year-old body is not intrusive but respectful. It is a private film also because it was made in private, just me and her, so our relationship becomes a part of it.
 
It is not my intention with this film to deify Riva. Just to show her, as I see her, because it is important to see the lives of others, lives that have been deeply lived, as Riva's has.

Details

Year
2004
Type of film
Shorts
Running time
13 mins
Format
16mm, Kodak
Director
Tamara Tracz
Producer
Tamara Tracz
Editor
Tamara Tracz
Screenwriter
Tamara Tracz
Director of Photography
Tamara Tracz
Sound
Tamara Tracz
Principal cast
Riva Ben Eliezer

Genre

Experimental Woman Director Drama

Categories

Fiction Documentary

Production Status

Complete

Production Company

Edible Thistle

107 Shakespeare Walk
London
N16 8TB
UK

T +44 (0)20 7923 7828

tamtracz@aol.com

Sales Company

Edible Thistle

107 Shakespeare Walk
London
N16 8TB
UK

T +44 (0)20 7923 7828

tamtracz@aol.com

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