Picture of the movie The star © DR
The Star, or the urgency of overcoming all that lies between us
With his latest feature film Ha'berech (Ahed's Knee) nominated for the Palme d’or, Israeli director Nadav Lapid's The Star, a short shot during the pandemic, is also being screened as a Special Screening. Made on a budget, the film tells the tale of a woman determined to be kissed by the star of her dreams.
What was the inspiration for The Star?
During the pandemic, an Israeli television channel reached out to eight of the country's directors and asked them to produce a short looking at life in these most unusual of times, a period in which we found ourselves distanced from everything that makes us feel alive. I decided to film the people around me: my partner Naama Preis, who is an actor, Tom Mercier, the lead in Synonyms who played my leading man, and my son Noah, who was one and a half at the time.
What technical equipment did you use to shoot it?
I shot the film in just over a day with a skeleton crew: a head cameraman and a sound engineer. We had no lighting available, and just a budget camera. Paradoxically, the film achieved an incredible level of freedom, and that's naturally linked to the conditions in which it was made. I'm very proud of it. All we had was a camera, the actors’ bodies, and music. Nothing else. This state of complete isolation was a source of boundless, borderless freedom.
What were you hoping to show?
The Star explores the character of a woman living through the pandemic, in an anxious, worried, fearful world, who has just one desire at a time when everything has been put on hold: to kiss the man she sees as the world's greatest star – on the lips. This is a film about living the joy and sadness of a given moment to the max, despite everything that stands between us. It’s an existential celebration on a miniature scale.
