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Nina's Tragedies (Ha'asonot Shei Nina) Israel
' [Winner of 11 Israeli Academy Awards] Nina's Tragedies is that rare film which achieves a lusciously paradoxical 'happy-sad' state, making us laugh and cry at the same time. Writer-director Savi Gabizon unfurls a melancholic romp through the range of human emotion and experience that effortlessly transports its eccentric characters from the most mundane to the most profound moments in a single scene, all the while juggling ideas of fate and randomness, gravitas and serendipity.
'Through the eyes of Nadav, a sensitive teenage boy Oedipally smitten with his beautiful Aunt Nina, we scrutinize the unpredictable machinations of adults as they stumble through excruciating loss, mind-blowing sex, bizarre coincidence, mortal illness, and even birth. At times, everyone disappoints Nadav, but in Gabizon's expansive universe, there is plenty of room for human fallibility, oddity, and diversity. Anything goes'Hassids dance in the streets with yuppies, Azerbaijani immigrants study sleep disorders, army officers write poetry, teenagers fantasise about their adulterous aunts, and a strange man wanders naked in the streets... [In Nina's Tragedies] Gabizon gets at something uncannily real. And this raw truth, this emotional nakedness, is deeply refreshing.' -sundance Film Festival
D/S Savi Gabizon P Anat Assoulin, Savi Gabizon WS Moviehouse L Hebrew w/English subtitles TD 35mm/Col/2003/106mins
Savi Gabizon was born in Haifa, Israel. Films include: Shuroo (1991), Love Sick (1995).