Films you should't miss

Yesterday I met a Djinn. It is not a surprise, as I'm looking for them more and more: Men and Women who share my sardonical sense of humor, my cynical view of the world, my sense of wonder and amazement when experiencing art, when seeing a spider build a web, when having sex.

My grandfather was part Djinn, and a lot of it was passed on to my father. Gabriel Garcia Marquez is a Djinn, so is Hossein Alizadeh. Many greek Rembetika singers and southern Italian tambourine players are Djinns, but so are some of the Kurdish smugglers on the Iran-Iraq border. Obama might be a Djinn, I'm not sure yet, but who is definately a Djinn is the Israeli filmmaker Avi Mograbi.

This year IDFA showed his film Z32, which is about the confession of a Israeli soldier who killed 2 unarmed Palestinian policemen and is looking to be forgiven, but his finest work is probably "Avenge But One of My Two Eyes". Here's a scene from the film. The lyrics from the song that the extreme right winged rock band sings are from the story of Samson in the Old Testament. The filmmaker states that Samson is the first suicide terrorist in recorded history, and finds ir ironic that the Israelis see him as a hero.



The director, Avi Mograbi, didn't go to the first Lebanese war in 1982. As a conscientious objector he spent 1 month in jail. Who did go to war is the filmmaker Ari Folman. Now, more than 25 years after his experiences Folman has turned his past into an amazing film, Waltz with Bashir.



Check out either or both films, Waltz with Bashir is still shown in cinemas in the Netherlands.