Israeli presence at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards
An Israeli actor and director have been nominated for an APSA the highest accolade in filn in the Asia Pacific area.
Expected to attend the sixth annual award ceremony in Brisbane on November 23 are multi-award winning actress Lior Ashkenazi and director Ami Drozd whose childhood dream of coming to Australia was the inspiration for his nominated Best Children’s film “My Australia” a joint Israeli-Polish production.
My Australia
My Australia
Poland, mid-1960s, a poor neighbourhood. A single mother spends most of her time working to provide for her two sons, 10 and 14. Left to their own devices, the boys join a neighbourhood gang with neo-Nazi sympathies.
One day the gang enter a Jewish neighbourhood, assaulting several locals. Arrests are made. The mother convinces the police to release her boys, but is shocked to learn about their involvement with neo-Nazis. In seeking to protect her sons from the past, she concealed the truth: she is herself a Jew and Holocaust survivor. Her decision is to immigrate to a new country.
Lior Ashkenazi
Lior Ashkenazi, the son of Jewish immigrants from Turkey who moved to Israel in 1964, is a well-known stage, television and film actor. He studied at Beit Zvi, one of Israel’s top drama schools.
After graduating in 1994, he performed for several theatre companies, including Beit Lessin, He has been nominated for and won a number of acting awards from the Israeli Film Academy and has appeared in many television programs.
There will also be an Israeli presence in the judging jury with acclaimed actor Sasson Gabay participating.
Sasson Gabay
Born in Baghdad, Iraq, on November 24, 1947, Sasson is one of the most active, prolific and highly respected actors in Israeli cinema and theatre. A graduate of Tel Aviv University with a bachelor of fine arts in drama, he has been a regular on the stages of many Israeli theatres, both repertory and fringe, for nearly four decades. He has acted in numerous Israeli and international film productions and television dramas, ranging in theme, genre and character from commercial to abstract. Sasson’s leading role in The Band’s Visit (2006) brought him national and international acclaim, including a nomination in the 2007 APSAs for Best Performance by an Actor. He was awarded the 2007 Best Actor prize by the European Film Academy and the Israeli Film and Television Academy, and the 1991 Israeli-American Culture Fund Award. His other film credits include Made in Israel (2000) by director Ari Folman (Waltz With Bashir), Israeli hit Aviva, My Love (2006), Hello, Goodbye (2008) starring Gerard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant and the recent satirical comedy When Pigs Have Wings (2011)
The awards will take place in Brisbane on November 23.
