Aruba International Film Festival

Bruno Chatelin: Giuseppe I have just screened Ensemble by Mohamed Fekrane as part of the Tolerance day film program, this is a great idea, how did it start?

Giuseppe Cocciarelli: I received two months ago an email from this group of filmmakers in Tel Aviv where Palestinians and Israeli worked together on the same subject and made the film called “The coffee project”.

"Coffee – Between Reality and Imagination" is a cinematic collaboration between young Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers, who together created a series of short films, all dealing with the project title – coffee. Coffee takes part in our cultural identity, it is shared by all individuals in terms of our daily routine and pastes different people together, no matter who they are. Eight films were produced - two documentaries and two fiction films by Palestinian filmmakers, and four fiction films by Israeli filmmakers. Each of the films gives a personal and courageous point of view on the reality in which we live in. The productions were made in creative freedom and with mixed crews of Israelis and Palestinians… I fell in love with that concept.
To me, like most Italians (and Europeans) we are very close to this subject, more than in the States probably. Here in Aruba we live together with different religions and absolutely no problem with it but I thought this was important.
So I called the israelian producer to find more about it, and when we agreed he said he would come with one of the actors who was from Palestine.
These guys are young, fun and nice they represent the future, a future I like.
The first night they arrived in Aruba, hotels were fully booked and they accepted to share a room, which I find great.
Then we all started to research for films around the theme of Tolerance and we decided to link them with the Tolerance day in Aruba, yesterday the government installed a statue of Anne Frank with the prime minister and all officials from the different religions attending…and today we are showing 4 films The Invocation by Emmanuel Itier, Ensemble by Mohamed Fekrane, La Rafle by Rose Bosch with jean Reno and the coffee project by Directed by: Gergely Fonyo, Eti Tsico, Aya Somech, Gazi Abu Baker, Murad Nassar, Eitan Sarid, Maysaloun Hamoud, Elite Zexer

These were shown in our theatres june 12 and 13 with Q&A

Bruno Chatelin I am so happy with the reception, I introduced the movie to tell the true story of this Imam who saved thousands of young jews during WW, in Paris in 1942. I immediately felt the audience connected to the theme and the story, they applauded before the movie  The Q&A which took place after was improvised but felt even warmer, it seems many people in the audience were jews, and asked me when the movie would play next since they thought their family should see it…
I loved the experience thank you Giuseppe.

(Giuseppe Cioccarelli (right) with Kim Cattrall and Claudio Masenza)