Elkabets, Ronit

Ronit Elkabets was born in 1964 in Beersheba in a family of repatriates from Morocco, in which she was the first of four children ^[8] and her only daughter ^[9] . Some time later, she and her family moved to the north of Israel, in Kiryat Yam ^[10] . In the family, from childhood, she learned, in addition to Hebrew, Arabic and French ^[8] .

Ronit’s striking appearance - snow-white skin and shiny black hair - led her to become a model career ^[8] , and at the end of her military service, she was going to enroll in a leading local school of fashion design, but at that time she was invited to audition - how she initially believed for a commercial. It turned out, however, that this was an attempt at a feature film, and as a result, in 1990, the first picture with the participation of Elkabets - “Intended” appeared on the screen, where she played a modern witch capable of lighting a fire by willpower. In 1994, the role in the film " Evil Eye " ("Schur"), telling about a Moroccan family practicing a special religion that includes elements of white magic ^[10] , brought Elkabets the first prize in her career at the Israeli Film Academy (later called “Ophir”) as the best performer of the main female role ^[8] .

In 1997, Elkabets went to Paris to study in the studio of the avant-garde troupe under the direction of Ariana Mnushkina ^[11] ; during her studies, she earned a living as a waitress, but in 2001 she appeared on French cinema screens, playing one of the main roles in the comedy “Controlled Origin” (in the USA the tape was at the box office as “Made in France”). In the same year, she won the second “Ophir” for her career - for the main role in the film Dover Kosashvili ^[9] “ Late Marriage ”, where she played a divorced single mother, whose romance with a doctoral student is at risk due to the fact that his parents insist for him on a traditional religious marriage ^[8] . The film, traditionally launched in a single room for Israeli paintings, caused such a stir in the country that next week it was already in a dozen cinemas, and in total 150 thousand viewers watched it in Israel ^[11] . The film also received high marks outside of Israel, once in the Un Certain Regard program at the Cannes Film Festival . In 2004, the award of the Cannes Film Festival " Golden Camera " was received by the film Keren Edayi with the participation of Ronit Elkabets " My Treasure "; in this tape, Elkabets plays an aging prostitute trying to raise her daughter ^[8] .

2004 was also marked by the release of the movie “ And Take Your Wife, ” in which Ronit Elkabets not only played the role of Vivian Amsalem, but also acted as a screenwriter (writing the script in three weeks ^[11] ) and the director along with her younger brother Shlomi . This picture was the first in the trilogy, the second and third films of which - “ Seven Days ” (“Shiva”) and “ Get ” - were released in 2008 and 2014, respectively. The basis of the family history, Amsalem, Ronit and Shlomi laid the story of the unhappy marriage of his own mother - a hairdresser married to a deeply religious employee of the postal department ^[10] . The film “And Take Your Wife” won the audience award at the Venice Film Festival ^[9] , and Ronit was nominated for three Ophir awards - as a director, screenwriter and supporting actor ^[12] . This year, she did not manage to get any of them, but in 2007 she won her third “Ophir” as the leading woman in the film “ Visit of the orchestra ”; in this picture, she plays a lonely Israeli woman, the owner of a diner ^[8] , who has a romantic relationship with an Egyptian who accidentally fell into the Israeli outback ^[9] . The tape received eight Ophir awards and was nominated by an Oscar from Israel ^[8] .

After the second film of the Vivian Amsal trilogy, “Seven Days”, which takes place against the backdrop of mourning for a deceased relative ^[9] , Ronit Elkabets was again nominated for three Ophir prizes and again did not receive a single one. However, the film itself received the main prize of the Jerusalem International Film Festival ^[12] . “Seven Days” strengthened its popularity in France ^[11] , and at the turn of the first and second decades of the 21st century, Elcabets starred in a number of French films, including “ Daughter of the Metro Line ” Andre Teschine (where Catherine Deneuve and Michel Blanc ^{[ 10]} ) and “ Dust and Blood ” by Fanny Ardan ^[9] . In 2010, she won the Channel Award in the field of cinema ^[12] .

In March 2014, Elkabets was promoted to the Knights of the Order of the Legion of Honor ^[13] . In 2014, the final film of the trilogy Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetsev - “Get” was released. The heroine of the trilogy, married to almost a child, who gave birth to her husband and raised four children, in this tape fights for her freedom, and his action is completely held in a movable court. A special screening of the film was organized in the Knesset in order to demonstrate the injustice of the religious divorce process to Israeli lawmakers. However, “Get” is not directly polemic, and Vivian’s husband, who refuses to give her a divorce, is not a villain, but an unhappy person who has almost nothing left in his life, which, however, does not prevent him from fully utilizing the shortcomings of the Jewish law system to to tie his wife to himself ^[9] . This tape was the most successful in the creative career of Ronit Elkabets: she won the main prize of the Jerusalem Film Festival ^[12] and the Ophir Prize as the film of the year in Israel, a number of awards at other film festivals, was nominated for an Oscar and Golden Globe ^{[8 ]} . Ronit herself received a nomination for a prize in the film from the Asia-Pacific Academy of Cinema ^[12] .

In 2015, Ronit Elkabets often appeared in public in different wigs, and at the Golden Globes ceremony , with a hedgehog haircut. She did not focus on this, but the fact that she had cancer was not a secret. Elkabets died in April 2016, she left her husband, architect Avner Yashar, and three-year-old twin children ^[8] . She was buried in the Tel Aviv cemetery of Kiryat Shaul. Her last appearance on the screens was the role of the Prime Minister of France in the anti-utopian mini-series “ Trepalium ” ^[9] .

The acting work of Ronit Elkabets was highly praised by film critics. In 2008, a New York Times columnist called her “Israeli Meryl Streep ” ^[8] , and later in the same newspaper she was compared to Maria Callas and Anna Magnani ^[10] ; in France, she was seen as the successor to Fanny Ardant ^[10] , and in the French newspaper Le Monde, after the release of the “Seven Days” screens, she compared her intense, shocking game with the play of Gina Rowlands in “ Woman Under the Influence ” ^[11] .

The obituary in the Variety magazine notes the ability of Elkabets to transform, merging with the character thanks to which she played such different roles as a growing daughter, a prostitute in My Treasure, a narcissistic mother indifferent to her family’s problems, in the 2009 film Jaffa, and the lonely owner of the cafe in the “Visit of the orchestra” ^[8] . The Jerusalem Post newspaper emphasized her ability to attract the attention of the viewer - this ability went so far as Elkabets appeared in the frame, as if they had not looked at anyone else, even if her character in this scene was not the main one ^[9] . French Culture Minister Audrey Azoulay called Elcabets one of the most brilliant figures in Israeli cinema ^[14] , and critic Charles Tesson, one of the organizers of the Cannes Film Festival, was one of the main reasons for the wealth of Israeli cinema in recent years; New York Times columnist Manola Dargis, after the release of Get, called her the real Oscar nominee for Best Actress ^[10] . Israeli President Shimon Peres called Elkabets after her death “the outstanding cultural ambassador of the State of Israel” ^[8] .

Roles

Screenwriter

• 1994 - Scar
• 2004 - And take a wife
• 2008 - Seven days
• 2004 - Get

Director

• 2004 - And take a wife
• 2008 - Seven days
• 2004 - Get

Awards and nominations are mainly given according to IMDb ^[12] .

Awards

• 1994 - Prize of the Israeli Academy of Cinema in the nomination "The main female role" ("Evil Eye") ^[15]
• 2001 - Prize of the Israeli Academy of Cinema (“Ophir”) in the nomination “Main female role” (“Late marriage”)
• 2001 - prize in the nomination "Best Actress" of the International Film Festival in Thessaloniki ("Late Marriage")
• 2002 - prize in the nomination "Best Actress" of the Buenos Aires International Independent Film Festival ("Late Marriage")
• 2004 - Isvema Prize and Audience Award of the Venice Film Festival (“And Take Your Wife”, together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2005 - FIPRESCI award of the International Women's Film Festival “Flying Broom” in Ankara (“And Take Your Wife”, together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2005 - prize in the nomination "Best Actress" of the Mons International Festival of Films about Love ("My Treasure", together with Dana Ivgi )
• 2007 - “Ophir” in the nomination “Main female role” (“ Visit of the orchestra ”)
• 2007 - prize in the nomination "Best Actress" of the Jerusalem International Film Festival ("Visit of the orchestra")
• 2008 - Volgin Prize of the Jerusalem International Film Festival ("Seven Days", together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2010 - Prix France Culture Cinéma
• 2014 - “Ophir” in the nomination “Film of the Year” (“Get”, together with Shlomi Elkabets) ^[15]
• 2014 - Hajj Prize of the Jerusalem International Film Festival (“Get”, together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2014 - “Silver Hugo” in the “Best Screenplay” nomination at the Chicago International Film Festival (“Get”, together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2014 - Grand Prix of the Film Festival “Movies from the South” in Oslo (“Get”, together with Shlomi Elkabets)
• 2015 - Honorary Doctor of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem ^[16]

Nominations

• 2004 - Prize of the Israeli Academy of Cinema ("Ophir" in the nomination "Female Role in the Supporting Role" ("And Take Your Wife")
• 2008 - “Ophir” in the nominations “Main female role”, “Best screenplay” and “Best direction” (“Seven days”)
• 2010 - “Ophir” in the nomination “Main female role” (“Flood”)
• 2014 - “Ophir” in the nominations “Main female role”, “Best screenplay” and “Best direction” (“Get”)
• 2014 - Nomination for the prize of the Asia-Pacific Academy of Cinema in the nomination "Main female role" ("Get")