The Hollywood Reporter's Brian Davids sat down with Ayelet Menahemi and Eleanor Sela to discuss 'Seven Blessings' in a THR Q&A powered by Vision Media.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hello, I'm Brian Davids
00:06 and welcome to the Hollywood Reporter presents a Q&A
00:09 with the filmmakers of "Seven Blessings,"
00:11 Israel's entry for a Best International Feature Film
00:13 nomination at the 96th Academy Awards.
00:17 Joining me today is director Ayelet Minah-Hami,
00:21 actor and co-writer, Eleanor Sella.
00:24 And before we discuss the film,
00:26 I think it's important to acknowledge
00:28 that we're talking at a time, a very precarious time
00:30 for the country of Israel.
00:32 So I just, I think we should start off by asking
00:35 how are the two of you doing at a time like this?
00:38 - Wow. (laughs)
00:40 Actually, we are broken. (laughs)
00:47 It was very hard to decide to come to this campaign
00:51 and to leave our families behind in Israel during the war.
00:57 I have three children and our husbands,
01:00 but we thought it's very important to come
01:06 and to show the world a film about a beautiful
01:11 and noisy complex family, like we are the Israelis,
01:17 and to show a film that has so many values of humanity
01:25 that we insist continuing, believe in it.
01:30 But it's not easy, but we had two screening in LA
01:38 and one yesterday in New York,
01:42 and the reactions to the film is so warm
01:46 and we are feeling alive again.
01:50 - Thank you for joining us today.
01:51 And I hope this is some form of a distraction,
01:54 albeit a brief one.
01:56 - Thank you for having us, yeah.
01:58 - You know, Eleanor, I want to start with you
01:59 as the co-writer, because the film centers around Marie,
02:03 who at two years old was given by her mother to her aunt,
02:08 who was infertile.
02:10 Did you have a personal connection to this custom?
02:13 Where did you discover this practice
02:15 that is more common than people might think?
02:17 - Actually, it's based on a true story of my family
02:22 and Raymond's family, that we are second cousins.
02:27 So yeah, two sisters of my grandmother gave two daughters
02:33 to the two older barren sisters.
02:39 And actually at the beginning of writing,
02:43 I knew just about one.
02:45 I didn't know that we have two stories like this
02:48 in our family because they didn't talk.
02:50 And then I called Raymond and asked her to join me
02:54 to the processing of the writing.
02:58 And she was shocked.
03:00 She asked me, "Did you know that my mother-in-law
03:03 is also a child who was given in her childhood?"
03:07 And I said, "No, I didn't know."
03:09 But then I started to realize that this is a phenomenon
03:14 and not a small story, a big story from my family.
03:20 So it was really exciting.
03:22 And after the film was released in Israel,
03:26 I was flooded with a lot of messages from women
03:32 with roots all over the world that told me
03:36 I was given also, I was given also, you know,
03:39 from Iraq, from Iran, from Italy, from Greece,
03:44 even from China and from Japan.
03:48 So it started from a private story of my family
03:53 and became a global phenomenon.
03:56 - You know, even when we were screening the film
03:59 in theaters and we had Q&A afterwards,
04:03 screenings that we were present in,
04:06 even in the audience, people will stand up and say,
04:10 "I had this in my family."
04:12 People, a few even stood up and said,
04:14 "It happened to me personally.
04:16 I was given away."
04:17 And this was really mind-blowing,
04:19 the spread of the phenomena and the way it was hushed.
04:24 - Ayelet, there's a saying that specificity is universal.
04:29 And while "Seven Blessings," that tradition is very unique,
04:32 practically everyone on the planet can relate
04:34 to those awkward and contentious family dinners.
04:37 How did you achieve those natural and authentic dynamics
04:41 within all those dinner scenes in the film?
04:44 - It all relies on casting.
04:47 And rehearsals.
04:49 And a lot of research.
04:51 And the research was really into the dynamics
04:55 and the choreography and the sensual experience
05:00 of me being in so many meals
05:06 as I was preparing to do this.
05:09 So it was kind of an experiential research.
05:14 And I was really mapping the whole thing,
05:19 which is really chaotic.
05:23 And I wanted to maintain this chaos.
05:26 But even if you want to create chaos,
05:28 you have to plan how to do it.
05:31 So by casting non-actors,
05:34 actual family members of Eleanor and Raymond,
05:40 almost half of the cast is not professional.
05:43 But by casting them,
05:45 they knew how these things were happening in real life.
05:50 They have this every other week.
05:55 So in a way, they were mentoring
05:58 the real professional actors and actresses
06:01 how to feel, how to navigate the spaces
06:07 of these narrow locations that we had.
06:11 And then we just rehearsed mise-en-scene
06:14 and we shot it almost documentary style,
06:17 knowing that the people will always be at the same spot
06:20 because they know what they do
06:21 and they know where they are in every moment in the scene.
06:25 And once you do that, whichever angle you cover that,
06:30 you can edit because everyone is in the same place.
06:34 So this was the concept.
06:36 And we had a wonderful cameraman,
06:37 Buzz Yonatan Yakov, and he's a dancer.
06:41 - Yeah.
06:41 - And a religious Jew.
06:44 And I'm a secular Jew, but I told him,
06:50 if I would ever believe in God is when I see you,
06:55 using your camera, when I see you shoot.
06:59 - We knew where we supposed to be,
07:02 but we never knew where is Buzz.
07:05 - Where he will be.
07:07 - Yeah, he will like jumping
07:10 and it was amazing with one camera, only one camera.
07:15 - Sorry, I have to say one more thing.
07:18 Is that usually an actor or an actress
07:21 know when they are on camera
07:24 and then that's where they give their best.
07:27 But I told him from the beginning,
07:29 you're always on camera.
07:31 Just act as if you're always on camera
07:34 because you might be, you never know.
07:37 So be prepared, be there as you are,
07:40 you are always in the shot.
07:42 And that made it so real,
07:44 because even the margins of the frame were always active.
07:50 - Yeah, I wanna ask about that.
07:52 Eleanor, when you were in the middle of all this chaos
07:55 and there's conversation happening around,
07:58 surrounding the main drama,
08:00 what was everyone talking about?
08:02 Were you talking about stuff about your day
08:04 as it was already?
08:05 Did you come up with something to talk about?
08:07 What was the topic of conversation?
08:10 - Yeah, it's such a good question.
08:11 And it's the first time we had this question.
08:15 Actually, we even wrote these conversations,
08:20 those conversations we actually wrote,
08:23 because it's a film that happened in the 19th.
08:28 So-- - 19th.
08:30 - Yeah, in the 19th.
08:32 So we should know what is going on those days.
08:36 So we actually gave the actors subjects
08:41 that can be right for these times and for this family.
08:47 And everyone could choose the subjects
08:53 that he wants to speak about.
08:57 But it was all, looks like improvisation, but it wasn't.
09:02 - Yeah, like, I mean, we know that in the '90s,
09:05 the cell phones just came in.
09:08 So we said that they can explain,
09:11 try to explain to the more elderly members of the family,
09:15 what is a cell phone?
09:16 So the taxi driver says that he saw some people
09:20 that start having this in their cab,
09:22 and he's trying to explain it to the aunt and the mother
09:27 that don't understand the concept.
09:31 And this just went on and on in the background.
09:34 And it was really easy for him
09:35 once he knew what to talk about.
09:38 - Marie's family, including your character, Erit,
09:40 believe that she was better off with her aunt and uncle.
09:43 She had a tutor, she had her own room,
09:46 she had all the attention she could ever want.
09:48 Of course, we don't have Raymond here
09:50 to give her perspective on this,
09:52 but just for the two of you,
09:54 what is the rest of the family not understanding
09:57 about Marie's perspective and how hard this was for her?
10:02 - You know, they can't understand her pain.
10:07 And I can tell you,
10:13 I saw last week or two weeks ago,
10:20 because I thought about this a lot
10:23 during those horrible days.
10:27 And I saw a video of a minister of our government
10:32 that came to visit the families of the kidnap.
10:41 And they told him the same text of Marie from the film,
10:48 like we wrote it.
10:52 They say, "Go down on your knees
10:55 and ask for our forgiveness."
10:59 And it was really unbelievable for me.
11:02 I thought even in such a horrible situation,
11:07 all what people need is that you will acknowledge their pain.
11:13 And this is the thing that the family can't do.
11:19 Why it's so hard for us to say, "I'm sorry."
11:23 Why it's so hard for us to see the other's one pain.
11:28 And there is so much suffer in the world
11:32 because we can't see the other's pain.
11:36 And I think this is the real reason
11:41 they can't understand her.
11:44 And also, I think Marie thought she came
11:49 to ask for forgiveness,
11:52 but actually because of her huge pain,
11:57 she's looking for revenge.
12:01 And I thought about this also those days
12:06 because before the war, I couldn't understand this thing
12:11 that you are so in painful that you want a revenge.
12:15 But now it's sad, but now I can even understand this.
12:21 I don't want to understand this, but this is how it is.
12:26 - Ayelet, there are multiple languages spoken in this film.
12:31 How did you keep those organized on the day?
12:34 Did you have multiple script supervisors or coordinators
12:38 to kind of keep it all correct from each perspective
12:41 or from each language?
12:43 How did you account for that?
12:44 - Well, the concept was in the screenplay
12:47 from the beginning.
12:48 So we knew, first of all, that there's no way around it
12:53 and people will have to be coached
12:57 because Moroccan Jewish language is not exactly prevailing
13:02 in even in Moroccan people who are originally coming
13:07 from Moroccan Jewish descent.
13:09 And since there are not so many, or let me say this way,
13:18 I didn't want the casting process to be limited
13:21 by the ability of an actor and an actress
13:26 to speak French or Jewish Moroccan.
13:31 So we just decided to go for coaches
13:35 and to translate to phonetic Hebrew everything
13:40 and to during this one month of pre-production
13:44 or even we started before that
13:46 because like Gracia and Hannah are above 70 years old
13:51 and they need more time and they said they need more time.
13:56 So it was a very rigorous process
14:00 to teach them phonetically French and Arabic.
14:04 And it was, they did it amazingly, really.
14:10 But we worked on it really hard.
14:14 - Sorry, I wanted to say that.
14:16 No, you can tell, I wanted to say something else.
14:22 Oh, okay, it's a two good stories, but okay.
14:25 No, it's not a story.
14:27 I just wanted to mention that Tiki Dayan,
14:30 the ones who plays Hannah's role,
14:35 she's an Syrian Jewish, she's from a Syrian Jewish family
14:44 and Gracia Rivka Bachar, she's from an Egypt Jewish family.
14:49 So the new Arabic, but it's a different Arabic
14:53 and it was so confusing and everything was so,
14:56 it was really interesting to see how in their age
15:02 they are learning and put aside their language,
15:07 the language that they were born with it.
15:10 - You know, Marie hasn't seen her family in 10 years.
15:14 Do the three of you come up with a backstory
15:17 to fill those missing years?
15:19 - She did. - Yeah, of course.
15:20 - Raymond did. - Yeah.
15:22 - Raymond mapped all of Marie's biography
15:27 from the start through the missing years until the present.
15:33 And she did it beautifully.
15:35 - Now, Eleanor, you have two powerful bedroom scenes
15:38 back to back in this film.
15:40 You start off with Marie, you're bonding,
15:43 you're having a good time, you're laughing.
15:45 And then that turns into an argument.
15:48 Marie leaves the room and then Irit's husband comes in
15:54 for a very reluctant and emotional sex scene.
15:58 So can the two of you just talk about filming those scenes
16:03 back to back, they probably weren't actually shot
16:04 back to back, but can you just tell me about the filming
16:07 of those two very, very emotional scenes?
16:10 - The first scene is actually one shot.
16:15 So it was like, it's a scene of six and a half minutes,
16:21 right, and in one shot, it was, but you know,
16:26 Raymond and I have such a strong relationship
16:31 because of the writing together.
16:34 So it like happened naturally.
16:39 And the other scene of the bed, it was, you know,
16:46 I wrote this scene and then when I came to this scene,
16:53 when I write, I don't think about myself as an actress.
16:57 I'm so, you know, writing for me, it's really a holy stuff.
17:02 I can't think about anything else.
17:05 And then when I got the text as an actress, I said,
17:08 "Oh my God, what did you think?
17:10 What are you going to do now?"
17:13 And, but we had intimate,
17:18 - Coordinator.
17:23 - Yeah.
17:24 - Intimacy coordinator.
17:26 - Yeah, and it was very good for me, very good.
17:29 And it was very respectful process.
17:34 - I just wanted to add that it was shot back to back
17:41 because we were a very low budget film
17:45 and that was the location, the bedroom.
17:49 So we shot a day of back to back scenes.
17:52 And the intimacy coordination concept in Israel
18:00 has just started.
18:02 There's not much of it happening.
18:05 There's mainly one person who got, you know,
18:10 (speaking in foreign language)
18:17 No, I got the certificate to do this.
18:20 So, and the actor that plays Iris' husband
18:27 he didn't understand what she wants from him.
18:30 He didn't, he didn't know what was the need for all this
18:35 because it's kind of a, you know, macho, cynical person
18:40 and amazing actor, but he didn't think he needed it.
18:44 And it was amazing how they both gave in
18:47 to the process of intimacy coordination, which is so new.
18:54 And it was so helpful.
18:58 It really helped it to become a special scene.
19:02 - You know, in one screening in Israel,
19:06 in the end of a religious woman came to me
19:11 and just give me a hug and say, thank you for this scene.
19:16 And-- - And she was religious.
19:19 - Yeah, she was religious.
19:20 And it's, I asked her, is it okay for you?
19:25 And she said, no, it was really hard for us to see this.
19:28 We are not supposed to see this,
19:31 but I want to thank you about this scene
19:33 because I think every woman has been once in such situation.
19:38 And I really wanted to show that sometimes you can,
19:46 you can find the love in your house.
19:51 You don't need to look it for, with another man or,
19:56 and you just need a new perspective of your husband
20:01 and you can choice what you are,
20:07 you can choose what you are thinking about your husband
20:10 or what you, you can choose what you feel.
20:13 If you just believe you have the right to love, you know?
20:18 And Irit didn't think she has the right to love
20:23 until she saw Mari.
20:26 - I want to add something about the one-shot scene
20:29 between the sisters, if I may.
20:31 We didn't know it was gonna be one shot,
20:36 but when we did the rehearsal, all the rehearsals were,
20:42 I mean, the one-on-one scenes,
20:45 rehearsals were done mostly in my house.
20:47 So they got into my husband and mine, the bed we sleep in.
20:52 - Yeah, I asked her, "Do you really want us
20:58 to get into your bed and do the rehearsals?"
21:01 She said, "Yes, yes, I want to feel authentic."
21:03 - And then they do the scene and I shoot it with my iPhone
21:08 and it just goes on and on.
21:11 They were, they perfected it by then because they wrote it
21:15 and they rewrote it so, so long
21:17 and they're very, very professional actresses.
21:21 So they learned everything.
21:23 They were really, it was just a such a free flowing
21:28 back and forth, so with such a documentary feel
21:33 that by the time it ended,
21:36 just the first take that I did of the rehearsal,
21:39 I knew for sure that this has to be one shot.
21:44 And actually, if you compare this first rehearsal
21:47 from the iPhone to the scene as it is in the movie,
21:52 apart from being shot by this master of camera,
22:00 it was quite similar.
22:03 - Well, Ayelet and Eleanor,
22:04 congratulations on "Seven Blessings"
22:06 and thank you for joining "The Hollywood Reporter Presents."
22:09 (upbeat music)
22:12 (upbeat music)