MY FATHER, MY LORD
aka HOFSHAT KAITS

Year: 2007
USA: Kino International
UK: Artificial Eye
Cast: Nitsam Bar, Assi Dayan, Ilan Griff, Sharon Hacohen, Michal Rubin
Director: David Volach
Country: Israel
Language: Hebrew (English subtitles)
USA: 78 mins
UK: 73 mins
UK Certificate: PG contains mild distress
USA Release Date: 16 May 2008
UK Release Date: 26 December 2009 (Limited Release)
US Distributor
UK Distributor

Synopsis

Winner of the Top Prize at the 2007 Tribeca Festival and Best Director at the Taormina Festival.

Anchored with his wife and son in the orthodox Haredic community of Jerusalem, Rabbi Abraham devotes his life to the study of Torah and Jewish Law. His son Menahem is of an age where he absorbs the world around him as a place of wonder. He does not resist but follows listlessly as his father leads him along the straight and narrow path that must be pursued by men of faith. But Abraham's guidance can count for only so much in the scheme of the universe. On a summer vacation to the Dead Sea, his faith is put to the test.

David Volach's first film, MY FATHER, MY LORD (Israel, 2006), was conceived as a thematic dialogue with Krzysztof Kieslowski's Decalogue 1 framed as a variation on the story of Abraham and Isaac. The film depicts a man, devoted to a life of study and worship, who hopes to impart his faith to a young son. It is a journey to the innermost world of the believer as he comes face to face with the still silence of God.

From the director

Volach comments: IN MY FATHER, MY LORD, I wanted to demonstrate the foundations of atheistic excitement, which are ingrained in us since childhood - the natural curiosity through which life is observed; the encountering of events as they are, without a self-imposed meaning; emotions accessed directly, devoid of hierarchic discipline - a world view full of wonder."

"Furthermore, through the film I wanted to convey the perplexity of religious belief and the like- the larger-than-life ideologies - as clumsy and lacking in mental and human authenticity. I wished to cast doubt upon the emotional reliability of anything that binds us via the unholy trinity of Authority, Discipline and Meaning."