Spinning Platters continues its coverage of the 59th San Francisco International Film Festival, which continues through this Thursday, May 5th. You still have plenty of time to get in a few screenings! More information and tickets are available here.
Here we spotlight another three features and the Golden Gate Persistence of Vision award!
Mountain
(Israel/Denmark, 2015, 83 min, GGA: New Directors)
Mountain is a touching yet ultimately unsettling character study of an Orthodox Jewish woman living with her husband and four children on the Mount of Olives, an ancient Jewish cemetery and religious locale for Judeo-Christian faiths. Shani Klein gives a powerfully restrained performance as Zvia, a woman caught between family, tradition, and desire and the ramifications of choosing one over the others. The Mt. of Olives plays a crucial role as well, steeped in Jewish tradition and history, yet it serves as a constant reminder of loss and becomes a discrete location for nighttime prostitution. Director Yaelle Kayam patiently studies the effects of this symbolic location on its inhabitants, and utilizing a focus on Zvia manages to convey the deepest internal struggles of Orthodoxy in an ever-changing world.
There are no more screenings of Mountain.
