Banner year for the Israeli Film Industry

Half of these productions drew 30,000 viewers or more. Income from ticket sales is estimated between 9 and 10 million USD. Compare these figures to 1998 when sales of locally produced movies drew less than half of one percent of total tickets sold and a real revolution is in the making. Not only that, close to 100 international film festivals presented Israeli films among them Caan (where "Or" (Light) by Keren Yedaia won a major prize), Venice and Berlin. So what happened after some forty years of film industry: the most important factor is that money "happened". During the last three years by law a substantial part of the royalties paid to the government by the different TV franchisees was channeled into the local film
industry: Consequently the number of productions grew dramatically. At the same time the quality of the means of production that the producers could afford also improved.
When some $20 million were poured to productions every year and it came on top of the productions made for the different TV channels which by law are obligated to certain amount of local productions than the industry seems to have come of age.
However there seems to be more at play here: why for example did not the theater sector achieve such quality results (though it succeeded in quantities) after many- and more- years of substantial subsidies by the government? The answer seems to be found in the fact that in the film industry the money was channeled to and utilized by the creators where in the
theater the money was used by the theaters to reduce the ticket price for the consumer. Thus while the price of a cinema ticket in Tel Aviv resembles other cultural centers ($8) the average net income per ticket sold in the theater is between 10 and 12 USD at best 20% of the price in other centers.
Theaters started to compete for numbers of visitors which grew to incredible numbers because of the cheap ticket but they also went to a low common denominator in choosing repertoire. The repertoire subsidized theaters drove the commercial theaters out of business and took their place and then effectively killed the peripheral theaters. Therefore ideas to decrease the cost of tickets to locally produced movies should probably be discarded. Competition for the consumer against the foreign produced ones even those who are star studded and were produced with high budgets is the best motivation to excel. Improved and more investment marketing in the local market were a helping factor as well.
The fact that some 16 film schools exist in Israel and several successful cinemateques has probably had its effect too. The questions which confront the industry and the funds that handle its financing on behalf of the government is how to continue the momentum. As a first step, continued government financing, in the neighborhood of $12 Mil. USD for each of the next five years was assured. As is customary in Israel politics are never far away.In a surprise move and inspite of his success, the Minister for Education Culture and Sports Mrs. Limor Livnat, did not renew the appointment of the Eli Zohar as head of the Film Council. Instead she appointed a close friend and former minister and Mayor Roni Milo to the position. Though the industry was opposed to the move it is not perceived as an effort by the Ministry to dictate anything to the industry but rather making sure that the credit is given where credit is due at least where the minister thinks it's due.

An article by Ronnie Dissentshik, correspondent, Tel Aviv