20 years after his assassination, Yitzhak Rabin himself tells his dramatic life story in RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS, a film by Erez Laufer, that is set for release in the U.S. by Menemsha Films.
Winner – Best Documentary at the Haifa International Film Festival 2015, RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS will open at the Lincoln Plaza Cinema in New York and Laemmle Royal and Town Center 5 in Los Angeles, as well as in South Florida, on May 6th. A national release will follow.
RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS is an “autobiography” of sorts, the story is told entirely in Rabin’s own voice. Through a combination of rare archival footage, home movies and private letters, his personal and professional dramas unfold before the viewer’s eyes – from his childhood as the son of a labor leader before the founding of the State of Israel, through a change of viewpoint that turned him from a farmer into an army man who stood at some of the most critical junctures in Israeli history. Through a brilliant diplomatic career as Israeli Ambassador to the United States and his entry into the Israeli political arena, and through his later years during which he served as Prime Minister, opposition leader, Minister of Defense and Prime Minister once more, in which he made moves that enraged a large portion of the public, until the horrific moment when his political career and life were suddenly brought to an end.
RABIN IN HIS OWN WORDS brings the man – flesh and blood – back to life, if only momentarily. The film relays the personal and political life of the man and the myth – as he lived it. Like any good protagonist, his narrative is well rounded: sacrifice, heroism, hubris, humor and heartache. Yitzhak Rabin was a complex, contradictory character: honest, innocent and timid while forceful, determined and resilient; a loyal friend who spent much of his time in solitude; blessed with a sense of resolve paralleled only by the doubt that shadowed it; calm and collected like a dormant volcano bound to erupt one day; courteous and contained, he was a gentleman with the fiery temperament of a red-head.
The film combines rare archives that, since they were originally broadcasted 40 years ago, have not been seen or heard, a private 8 mm mostly shot by Rabin, a super 8 mm of Rabin in color in 1948 shot by American couple visiting Israel, and private letters to his sister his father and to his wife Leah.
The director Erez Laufer is the co-Editor of two Oscar nominees for Best Documentary: Chris Hegedus and D. A. Pennebaker’s The War Room (1993) and Laura Poitras’ My Country My Country (2006) His own film Mike Brant, Laisse-moi t’aimer won the 2002 Israeli Academy Award for Best Documentary, and had its international premiere at the Directors Fortnight, Cannes Film Festival 2003.
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