EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW: ARI FOLMAN

Ari Folman interview now available

By John Esther

As part of Cineaste's cover story on the film, Waltz with Bashir, I interviewed the writer-director of the animated documentary, Ari Folman.

One of the best films of 2008, Waltz with Bashir explores his time in the Israel Defence Forces and the 1982 invasion of South Lebanon

The film was a huge favorite for the Oscar in the Best Foreign Language Film category, but somewhat surprisingly, lost to Japan's Departures, a good, but obviously inferior film about a man faced with death as a matter of business. Of course, one only need look at the reactionary picks of this year's winners -- Slumdog Millionaire, Vicky Cristina Barcelona, The Reader -- to see why a film about family love, loss and death would endear itself to the conservative AMPAS members more than a film which suggests the Israeli government and military were behind the mass murder of innocents. Indeed, "Who will have won when the soldiers have gone from the lebanon."

(Although Waltz with Bashir was not nominated in the Best Documentary category, it is also better than the Oscar winner, Man on Wire.)

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