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NO BDS FOR HELEN, JUST BS
Helen Mirren Gives Shoutout To “My Tribe Of Actors’ At Jerusalem Film Festival As SAG-AFTRA Strike Hits: “Actors Are Wonderful People”

Melanie Goodfellow
Thu, July 13, 2023

Helen Mirren dedicated a Jerusalem Film Festival life-time achievement award to actors around the world on Thursday, just an hour before a looming SAG-AFTRA strike was made official.

The actress received the honorary prize ahead of the Israeli premiere of Guy Nattiv’s Golda as the festival’s opening film, in which she stars as iconic late stateswoman Golda Meir.

“I would just like to say, I am a member of a tribe and members of my tribe can be found in Germany, in Belgium, America… they are Palestinians, they are Israelis, they are Africans,” she told the 6,000-strong crowd at the outdoor opening ceremony in the shadow of Jerusalem’s Old City walls.

“They are the tribe to whom I really want to dedicate this award and that is the tribe of actors. Actors are wonderful people.”

Mirren gave a special mention to the Israeli cast members on Golda who included Lior Ashkenazi as David ‘Dado’ Elazar and Rami Heuberger as Moshe Dayan.

“I was lucky enough to work with fantastic Israeli actors on Golda. I had the greatest of times with them because immediately I felt I belonged. I was with my tribe, so thank you to my wonderful tribe of actors all over the world, in every language there is.”

Mirren had spent the morning doing promotional duties on Golda with local outlets, but interviews were wrapped by 3pm local time (5am PT).

She did not talk directly about the looming strike at a press conference in the morning or in her comments at the opening ceremony, but her appearance ended an hour before the strike was officially declared.

Other honorees on Thursday included Oliver Stone as well as Belgian directorial duo Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne. Further guests this year include directors Claire Denis and Florian Zeller who are on the jury.

The strike is expected to impact the film festival circuit as actors stop promotional and red carpet events as part of their industrial action.

With Mirren’s attendance done and dusted before the strike kicked off, disruption to the Jerusalem Film Festival will be minimal with few other big U.S. and UK acting names due to attend this year.

Mirren has long-standing ties with Israel having first visited the country in 1967 and spending a month working at the Kibbutz Ha’on at the foot of the Golan Heights.

She recounted how she had begun her stint at the kibbutz combing the grapes on the Golan Heights.

“This was just after the Six Day War so there were a few shells going off… When they realized this was a bit too dangerous for a ‘shiksa’ from London, they yanked me out of the grapevines and put me in the kitchen,” she said.

“Little did I think in that moment that one day I would be standing here in this beautiful, historic magical, difficult complex city of Jerusalem.”

Golda explores Meir’s life and legacy through the then Israeli prime minister’s controversial handling of the 1973 Yom Kippur War, in which Israel was taken by surprise by a combined joint attack by Egypt and Syria to its southern and northern borders.

Mirren’s casting as Meir sparked controversy when UK actress Maureen Lipman publicly criticized the casting of a non-Jewish actress in the role.

Israelis appear to have enthusiastically embraced Mirren in the role, but the topic came up once again in the press conference earlier on Thursday.

Mirren, who deflected a similar question at the Berlinale in February to Nattiv, spoke-up this time.

“I adhere to both camps. At the same time as believing that anyone can play anything, I also believe that sometimes the absolute right person for a role is the very person who can profoundly understand the issues involved,” she said, referring to Troy Kotsur’s performance in Coda as an example of the latter.

“I’m personally ambivalent. I’m incredibly grateful for the opportunity to inhabit Golda because it was just such an amazing place for me to be in this woman’s mind. It was an incredibly profound journey for me, and I’m very, very grateful for it but at the same time, my mind is open.”

The Jerusalem Film Festival runs from July 13 to 23.


Helen Mirren visits Jerusalem for new film 'Golda,' says she is inspired by anti-government protests






 Helen Mirren arrives at the world premiere of "Shazam! Fury of the Gods" on Tuesday, March 14, 2023, at the Regency Village Theatre in Los Angeles. Helen Mirren, who plays Israel’s first female prime minister in her latest film, says she has been inspired by the widespread protests against the country’s current prime minister. Mirren plays the late Golda Meir during the 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states in “Golda.” 
(Photo by Richard Shotwell/Invision/AP, File)

JULIA FRANKEL
Updated Thu, July 13, 2023 

JERUSALEM (AP) — Helen Mirren, who plays Israel's first female prime minister in her latest film, says she has been inspired by the widespread protests underway against the country's current premier, Benjamin Netanyahu.

Mirren, who portrays the late Golda Meir during the 1973 war between Israel and a coalition of Arab states in “Golda,” is visiting an Israel similarly beset by crisis as mass demonstrations take place against Netanyahu's plan to overhaul the country's judicial system.

Mirren told a news conference before the opening of the Jerusalem Film Festival that she is inspired by the protests.

“I’m personally very moved and excited when you see these huge demonstrations,” she said. “I think it’s a pivotal moment in Israeli history.”

Netanyahu's coalition government, which took office in December, is the most hard-line ultranationalist and ultra-Orthodox in Israel’s 75-year history.

For over six months, hundreds of thousands of people have taken to the streets to protest the proposed judicial overhaul. Netanyahu's allies say the plan is needed to rein in the powers of an unelected judiciary. His opponents say it is a thinly veiled power grab that will destroy the country's fragile system of checks and balances.

Mirren contrasted the leadership of Meir — who often served coffee to her military advisers as they convened in her kitchen to discuss strategy — with that of Netanyahu, who has a reputation for being aloof and out of touch with everyday Israelis.

“She had immense power, but she was perfectly happy to toddle around in the kitchen, making everyone coffee and being the grandmother,” Mirren said. “It’s a very different attitude toward power — from the male, Netanyahu type of power to the Golda Meir kitchen power.”

Mirren's visit also comes at a time when Netanyahu's government is moving to deepen its hold on the West Bank. His government has approved plans for thousands of homes in West Bank settlements, and tensions with the Palestinians are rising.

Over 150 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli fire this year in the occupied West Bank, and Palestinian attacks targeting Israelis have killed at least 25 people. Israel says most of the Palestinians who were killed were militants, though stone-throwers and people uninvolved in violence have also been among the dead.

Some of Netanyahu's allies are West Bank settler leaders who have sought to deny the national aspirations of Palestinians, a sentiment which Meir famously expressed in 1969.

“There was no such thing as Palestinians,” Meir said in an interview with the Sunday Times. Israel's far-right Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich echoed Meir recently, stating, “there is no such thing as a Palestinian people."

Lior Ashkenazi, the Israeli actor who plays the head of the Israeli army in the film, said he thought Meir would support efforts to annex the West Bank.

“Even though she was a socialist,” Ashkenazi said, “I think she would definitely support the settlers.”


The film, directed by Guy Nattiv and written by Nicholas Martin, focuses on Meir’s leadership during the 1973 Mideast war, when a coalition of Arab states led by Egypt and Syria launched an attack on Israel on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Jewish calendar.

Under the leadership of Meir and Israeli military officials, Israel emerged victorious from the war, its forces standing within 70 miles (120 kilometers) of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. The war’s outcome laid the groundwork for a peace agreement between Israel and Egypt.

But Israel suffered heavy losses during the war, and Meir was criticized for the government's lack of preparation and refusing to act on intelligence indicating an attack was imminent. Meir resigned the following year, and the national trauma in the wake of the war set off a process that would bring the right-wing Likud party, which Netanyahu currently leads, to power in 1977.

Mirren, a British-born actor, has won both Oscar and Emmy awards for performances ranging from Queen Elizabeth II in “The Queen,” and Sofia Tolstoy in “The Last Station."




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