He is a chameleon actor of film, stage and small screen. Whether playing Egyptian band leader, Lt. Col.Tawfiq Zacharya (“The Band’s Visit”); the scheming often comedic, Nuchem in “Shtisel” and“Kugel”); undercover Mossad agent, The Owl (“Tehran”) or the heart-of-gold everyman, Sassi in “Bliss” (Hemda),Sasson Gabay totally inhabits all his characters.
Shemi Zarhin one of Israel’s most vital writer-directors and novelists, delicately guides us through “Bliss” the sweet, sometimes heart -wrenching family saga. Sassi (Sasson Gabay) and his younger wife, Effi an aquatic therapist, (Asi Levi,) are both working gruelling multiple jobs to help his gambling addicted son who has absconded to Brussels to avoid criminal creditors.
When casting for “Bliss” the two lead actors and director had worked together before in the 2006 film, “Aviva, My Love” and so their on-screen chemistry was already established. “Shemi said ‘the frame of you and Asi together – I yearn for it again’”, Gabay relates. “He actually approached me eight years before we shot it with the script. It was shot before October 7th and I fell in love with it,” Gabay explains. It’s so rare that you see a script about older people – they’re not celebrities or young- just their daily struggle of life,” he adds.
In English the word bliss means absolute happiness but “Hemda” the title of the film in Hebrew, means deep yearning and desire. So if “Bliss” is the end result and “Hemda” is the journey, I asked Gabay which was more important to him?
“It sounds beautiful, the way you put it,” he says. “Sassi in the film says ‘what’s left in life if you can’t yearn for something you don’t have or desire or fantasize about?’”
“Well bliss is intangible – it can last for seconds and slip out of your fingers. But the yearning is the journey and this film is about the journey of this couple to maintain a big and beautiful life even with all its obstacles. So for me, the journey is more important.”
Asi Levi and Sasson Gabay in a scene from “Bliss” photo by Vered Adir
One of the incessant themes in “Bliss” is guilt, how it disrupts the family dynamic especially when it involves children: “Guilt is one of the major emotions that people live with one way or another and each one of us experiences how guilt is born in their soul,” Gabay explains. “Some of us can overcome the psychological knot but in Jewish society it’s difficult and even more so in Israeli society. To generalize, I think it’s gone too far. I think you have to let kids know we are there for them if they need us but it doesn’t mean you have to pay their debts (as in “Bliss”) Also, why did the character of Effi take all this upon her shoulders?It was because of love. It’s just not right that my grandson (played by the charming Maor Levi,) “feels guilty over the responsibilities of his father.”
It’s food that often brings the whole family together – of course we’re Jewish!
“Shemi always has food scenes in his films and even some of his books have recipes. In fact, Shemi is a wonderful cook so before the shoot, he made a workshop and we spent about three hours making dumplings!” Gabay laughs. “I love to read about food and eat. In the scene where we are preparing the dumplings, it’s like a tango dance and tells everything about Sassi and Effi’s love without words. They are like two musical instruments playing together.”
With his deeply expressive face and fluency in six languages, Gabay’s versatility ensures he is in constant demand. “Of course we like to be popular and loved, it’s part of our business, but my aim when I work is to do things I appreciate, that I love to do and the audience can relate to,” he explains.
“And by the way, I came back to my young audience recently because I just finished three weeks of three shows a day of the musical “PeterPan” at The Opera House in Tel Aviv and I played Captain Hook, a role I originally played 38-years-ago. I loved it because I was allowed to improvise unlike in films where you have to be very precise.”
“And, I have another scoop for you. We are going to film another season of “Kugel” next year!”
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
If the Joe Shuster Award -winning comic book artist, graphic novelist, art director, editor and publisher, Ken Steacy ever retires (unlikely,) he could be a stand-up comedian!
I’m laughing so hard at his anecdotes and his faster than a speeding bullet storytelling as he jumps around his 50 -plus -year career, it’s hard to get my interview questions out.
Steacy’s ancestry could be a graphic novel: As an Air ForceBrat who moved from Germany all over the world, his father, Lt. Colonel C.W Steacy was a fighter pilot who served in the RCAF/CAF during WWII and the Cold War. Two uncles on his mother’s side Clifford and Hubert Challis, were tail-gunners in Wellington bombers during the first thousand plane raid over Europe.
He was hooked on comics as a child mesmerized by illustrations of Rupert the Bear and The Adventures of Tintin, that his parents would read to him a bedtime. “When I was already drawing at eleven-years-old, I had this epiphany,” says the man who is still a boy at heart. “I read nothing but Marvel Comics and I thought, ‘wait a minute – my Dad is a fighter pilot, that’s a job and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby draw comics and that’s a job – so why not me?’” “Luckily I was blessed with parents who never tried to dissuade me from my path,” Steacy reminisces.
“In 1974, at the age of 19, I went to New York and banged on Stan Lee’s door at Marvel Comics and demanded a job. Now that’s chutzpah,” relates Steacy. “They offered me work as an inker of other people’s work but comics back then were an assembly line. I was a show-off and wanted to do it all so I went back to school at Sheridan College, where by coincidence, I met my wonderful wife Joan and we’ve been together ever since.”
“You know, comics in the late ‘50s and ‘60s were dumb. It was Stan Lee who said “‘lets make Spiderman have problems and flaws like he can’t get a date.’”
Steacy has chronicled the exploits of Astro Boy,Iron Man, Star Wars, Harry Potter and many more. He also collaborated on a graphic novel with Margaret Atwood, entitled WAR BEARS, that has been optioned as a series. After moving from Toronto to Victoria, he and his wife Joan, an award-winning visual story-teller in her own right, created and taught the Comics & Graphic Novels programme at Camosun College.
I asked Steacy how he came to create the posters for VIJFF? “When Joan & I came to Victoria, we just couldn’t find a decent deli. Someone said to go to the JCC because they have fantastic blintzes. There we met friends who told me about the Victoria International Jewish Film Festival and said they need a new poster. Since then I think I’ve done nine.”
Victoria will have a chance to meet Ken Steacy in person onSunday, September 27th at 2:00 pm at the JCC Blintz Bash when he will be speaking and signing his VIJFF posters and probably eating blintzes! For ticket reservations: https://blintzbash2026.eventive.org/welcome
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
Director/Writer Steven Pressman Photo: courtesy Steven Pressman
Director, producer and writer (the latter with Lisa Stark,) Steve Pressman and I are laughing when I admit that his Doc, Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie, is so full of bizarre, uncanny coincidences, that audiences will be amazed!
“I can tell you from the outset, that having been making films about little known Jewish stories, mostly rooted in the American experience, I never in my wildest imagination would think I’d wind up making a film about Woody Guthrie,” Pressman enthuses. Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls: Another Side of Woody Guthrie opens the 12th annual Victoria International Jewish Film Festival on Saturday, October 10th.
How did a Protestant Okie folk balladeer from Dust Bowl roots of the 1930’s – the same singer who wrote This Land Is Your Land – also compose a Chanukah song, embrace Jewish traditions and culture, and have a close relationship with his Jewish mother-in-law who wrote music and stories in Yiddish?
“I first came across a Woody Guthrie exhibition at the Morgan Library & Museum in Manhattan four years ago,” relates the San Francisco-based Pressman. “There I saw his guitar and other artifacts and his original lyrics to a Chanukah song and thought ‘what on earth does Woody Guthrie have to do with Chanukah?’ At the time, I was working on another project but filed that information away but enough to plant that tiny little seed of an idea. I must confess, I didn’t know a lot about Woody then, mostly that he wrote This Land Is Your Land and was Arlo’s Dad.”
Woody Guthrie performs for the Jewish Welfare Board U.S.O. Club Photo: courtesy Woody Guthrie Publications
Fast forward two years and Pressman discovered that Nora, Guthrie‘s daughter, had put together a one-woman-show about Jewish elements in Woody’s life. “I found an email for her and her daughter and asked them if they would be interested in pursuing this project. Fortunately for me, Arlo (Alice’s Restaurant,) also came onboard when I emphasized that the film would be about his grandmother, Aliza Greenblatt as much as Woody.”
As it turned out, Woody’s second wife, Marjorie (Mazia) Greenblatt, an accomplished modern dancer in New York City and assistant to renowned choreographer, Martha Graham, happened to meet Woody Guthrie there. It was love at first sight even though they were both married to other people. She got pregnant with Woody’s baby and a year later they divorced their respective spouses and married.
“Woody and Aliza Greenblatt, his mother-in-law, were kindred spirits,” says Pressman. “Aliza came from a small shtetl in what is now Ukraine and Woody from a small town in Oklahoma. But they both embodied people who faced discrimination and poverty and left their homes. Woody empathized with those people through his music and became the voice of the common man.”
Dust Bowls and Jewish Souls is a treasure trove of surprising anecdotes. For example, the time a dusty young man(“but wearing nice boots”) knocks on Woody Guthrie’s door. Teenage Nora Guthrie is annoyed because she was watching American Bandstand and had to answer the door which she quickly closes. The young man knocks insistently and this time Arlo answers and invites him inside. It’s Bob Dylan! As an adult, Nora goes to the Tanglewood Music Festival to hear famed violinist, Itzhak Perlman perform. She is astounded to hear him play one of Bubby Greenblatt’s compositions.
I asked Pressman if he was a consultant to the film A Complete Unknown, Dylan’s biopicthat showcased his and Pete Seeger’s admiration for Woody Guthrie interpreted so believably by Timothée Chalamet.
“Actually, I didn’t even know that Woody would be a part of that film,” Pressman admits. “ I only have a mild criticism of it. What bothered me was when Woody was in the film towards the end of his life, and it never mentions that he was dying from Huntington’s Disease. When Dylan shows up in the film it’s 1961. Woody could barely talk by then. I never really understood that.”
Arlo Guthrie
Photo: courtesy PerlePress Productions
There’s a delightful Canadian connection to Woody Guthrie’s musical career: The Canadian folk group, The Travellers changed the lyrics to Guthrie’s famous tune, This Land is Your Land, This Land is My Land to Canadian locations and it’s become almost a second anthem in our country. “ When my film premiered in Toronto at the TJFF this year, unbeknownst to me, they had invited Jerry Gray, the original member of The Travellers,” explains Pressman. “It was such a treat to meet him and he actually led the audience singing the Canadian version, of course. He’s still going strong at 93-years-old!”
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
Director and co-writer of Bad Shabbos, Daniel Robbins. Photo courtesy: Photon Films
Two Jews walk into a New York bar… Oops, no, I meant two Jews are walking down a Manhattan street and from out of nowhere a body, hurtling through the air drops at their feet. So begins the farcical comedy, Bad Shabbosstarring matriarch, Kyra Sedgwick (yes, she’s even Jewish in real life,) a host of recognizable character actors and rapper, Method Man (not Jewish in real life.)
This eclectic group has come together at a Shabbat dinner arranged to meet the prospective Catholic parents of the bride-to-be who has converted to Judaism. Mayhem is on the menu.
Co-writer and director, Daniel Robbins speaking from New York’s Upper West Side, is waxing poetic about his favourite comedic influences: “Oh my God, Christopher Guest is inspirational in general especially for our previous mockumentary, Citizen Weiner but I’d say Mel Brooks, Woody Allan and a combination of the greats growing up. For Bad Shabbos we wanted something that was modern and current with a lot of energy like My Big Fat Greek Wedding and Meet the Parents,” heexplains.
And, you don’t have to be Jewish to appreciate the satirical humour, according to Daniel. While the classic 1967 romantic dramedy, Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner was set against the turbulent ‘60s, and starred the late Sidney Poitier and Katherine Hepburn, it focused on liberal parents confronting an interracial marriage. The comedic Meet the Parents revolved around class distinctions amid embarrassing encounters. Bad Shabbos tackles issues surrounding the conversion of the bride ( played by Meghan Leathers) and her conservative Catholic parents with an unexpected twist of fate. “We tested the film with a mixed audience and it went on to win the Audience Award at Tribeca. At the Cordillera International Film Festival at Reno, Nevada there were almost no Jews and it won the Audience Choice and Grand Jury Award there. Even if you’re not Jewish, the audience can relate to the family dynamics” he adds.
“Actually, someone asked me ‘why didn’t you make the non-Jewish parents, Italian in the film?’” “I said no because they get along too well. Too many similarities like a strong matriarch and emphasis on food!” Daniel laughs.
(l-r) Method Man,Theo Taplitz, Meghan Leathers, John Bass and Kyra Sedgwick. Photo courtesy: Photon Films
Kyra Sedgwick’s participation was a big boon to the film. “I wish I could say that we kidnapped actor, Kevin Bacon (her spouse) but that didn’t do it,” Daniel explains. “We sent the script to her agent and she read it and thought, ‘this guy may not be that experienced but it’s a great piece of writing’ and she trusted us, which is so nice.”
“We used a real Upper West Side apartment for the shoot and the tenants were walking back and forth all day long,” Daniel recalls. “Method Man, who in real life is a very famous rapper and plays the doorman so brilliantly in the film, would open and close the doors all day and even received packages from deliveries and no one recognized him. They just thought the building had a new doorman!”
I asked Daniel if any parts of the film were based on his own family. “There’s an elderly woman who walks through the lobby past the doorman with these big sunglasses on. My grandmother, who passed away just before shooting, was that type of woman – a big personality- so that was kind of an homage to her.”
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
(l-r) co-writer Rutu Modan, actress Rivka Michaeli and co-writer/director Dana Modan. Photo: Yaron Scharf
From her 14th floor apartment terrace in Tel Aviv, actress, comedian and TV talk show host, Rivka Michaeli is giving me a panoramic tour of the vibrant city that never sleeps. It’s late at night when we speak but the 87-year- old venerated celebrity is as sharp and funny as ever.
“The Property actually started as a graphic novel written in 2013 by award-winning comics writer, Rutu Modan and I read it ten years ago. Because my parents were in Israel, I had no personal connection to Poland and the diaspora. It’s really Rutu and her sister Dana’s story. They co-wrote the screenplay together and Dana directed the film,” Rivka explains. “Coincidentally, I’ve known Dana from a very early age as she was in kindergarten with my daughter.”
The film is inspired by the sisters’ father and his true-life encounters living in Warsaw prior to WWII. The plot revolves around a grandmother (played by Rivka) and her granddaughter Mika (actress Sharon Strimban) who travel to Poland to try to reclaim the deed to an apartment building owned by their family and confiscated by the Nazis. Several twists of fate and a lot of bureaucracy ensure a surprising and somewhat mysterious adventure.
“I had to learn Polish for my lines and I worked with two teachers and although I thought I knew the lines, when the camera was on me I’d say the first line then forget the second one. I always had someone to practice with but still I had to polish my Polish!” Rivka laughs. She reminisces about her co-star, Polish actor Andrzej Seweryn (but without giving away spoilers.) “When we went into a restaurant together everyone was looking at him because he’s a very famous actor in Poland and Europe. It was so nice to know I was with a star and we always got a good table!”
Victoria sculptor and niece of actress Rivka Michaeli, Tanya Bub. Photo: Tanya Bub
“All the indoor segments of the film were shot in Tbilisi, Georgia and all the outside shots were filmed in Warsaw so I opened a door in Tbilisi and I was suddenly in Warsaw,” she laughs. “I felt very good in Georgia because my father came from there and I know a few words.”
In a fascinating coincidence, Rivka is the aunt of Victoria driftwood, wire and paper sculptor, Tanya Bub. “I was in Victoria about 10 years ago and met with her and my sister-in-law, Ronit. I have two little birds Tanya made. It’s a beautiful city,” Rivka exclaims. “And more recently, we all met from three continents in Madrid for a Passover seder.”
Rivka has no plans to slow down. In fact, the day of our late night interview she relates a busy schedule currently performing in two different shows. “One is a travelling musical comedy from Metula to Eilat called Naomi and Norma and I play a tough old lady.” The other is a musical homage to her late artistic partner, the veteran actor, singer and winner of the Israel Prize for theatre, Yossi Banai.
“You know, what makes The Property so compelling is the combination of sadness and humour. That’s what makes it human.” Rifka affirms.
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
(l-r) Director, Ken Scott, Roland Perez and Jonathan Cohen Photo courtesy Roland Perez
Speaking from Paris, author, lawyer and grandpèreto newborn grandson Aleph, Roland Perez is exuberant. He’s describing the “crazy adventure” of how the film, Once Upon My Mother based upon his life story,came to fruition.
When a friend of Roland gave his book manuscript for My Mother, God and Sylvie Vartan to the French film, production and distribution company Gaumont just before its publication, it set in motion a series of serendipitous events.
“Gaumont called me the very next day for a meeting and said to me ‘trust us, we want to option your book and make a fantastic movie like the one we produced inspired by Canadian singer, Celine Dion because her mother is like the mother in your book!’” Roland relates. “At the beginning they looked for a French director, but everyone was busy. They happened to go to a film festival in France where Canadian director, Ken Scott was receiving a prize and Gaumont told him he must do this film. Ken said he had to go back to Canada but asked them to send the book to his agent. But the day after, he caught Covid and couldn’t fly back so he was stuck in France and read the manuscript while convalescing. He said immediately, ‘I want to make this movie!’”
Set in 1960s France, the story revolves around a Jewish immigrant family living in the suburbs of Paris. Roland, the youngest is born with a clubfoot. His mother Esther, played by the sensational Algerian French actress, Leïla Bekhti, is told by doctors that her child will never walk.
That edict was like flashing a red flag in front of a bull. Esther refuses to accept his disability and does everything in her power to ensure Roland lives a normal life to the point of deluding herself. Her obsession with his well- being lingers into his adulthood and becomes a suffocating embrace.
“You know my mother lived in a different reality because as the youngest of six I had to be exactly like the other children. But she needed this unrealistic expectation in order to fight for me,” Roland confides. “I had three operations and a splint attached to a corset for 18 months,” he continues. “And frankly, I liked the attention, I liked to crawl like a baby on the floor in the apartment, I was happy like that.”
“So all I did all day long was watch television and my older sister was fascinated by a famous French singer and actress, Sylvie Vartan. (hence the title of the book.) She became my idol and ironically I met her when I was an adult and we became friends.”
The casting for the role of Esther was a no-brainer: “We all, all, all including Ken Scott, wanted Leïla Bekhti because she is from Algeria and my mother was from Morocco and you know if you saw a photo of my mother when she was young, the resemblance was incredible,” says Roland who was the consultant on the film. “But after a few weeks of no response and her agent didn’t even read the script to convince her, we thought we’d have to look for someone else. Meantime Leïla invited another actor for dinner and the manuscript was sitting on the table. He said ‘at least read the first page and see.’ So she went into another room and came out and said ‘I’m reading the role of my life!’”
“She in turn told a friend of hers ‘to read the script’ and that was Jonathan Cohen who ended up playing me as an adult,” laughs Roland. The delightful and compelling little boy, Naim Naji, who portrays Roland as a child had never acted before.
Roland, who is a lawyer specializing in intellectual property and in practice with his daughter, Ludivine, has written a third book that has already been optioned for a film. Once Upon My Motherhas been sold to 55 countries including Israel. “We asked Canada to submit the film for Oscar consideration but unfortunately, we just found out that it wasn’t chosen,” he confirms.
“You know, he adds, “I think this film is very inspirational on so many levels and you wouldn’t believe all the people who have since written to me who have a child with a clubfoot.”
Laura Goldstein was an arts and sports publicist in Toronto for 30 years, and writes for national magazines and newspapers. She moved to Vancouver and then Victoria to avoid shovelling snow. http://lauragoldsteinwriter.com
He was hooked on comics as a child mesmerized by illustrations of Rupert the Bear and The Adventures of Tintin, that his parents would read to him a bedtime. “When I was already drawing at eleven-years-old, I had this epiphany,” says the man who is still a boy at heart. “I read nothing but Marvel Comics and I thought, ‘wait a minute – my Dad is a fighter pilot, that’s a job and Stan Lee and Jack Kirby draw comics and that’s a job – so why not me?’” “Luckily I was blessed with parents who never tried to dissuade me from my path,” Steacy reminisces.
Steacy has chronicled the exploits of Astro Boy, Iron Man, Star Wars, 
