- Israel, Land of series , unpublished documentary by Olivier Joyard, is broadcast this Thursday at 11 p.m. following the event series Our Boys on Canal +.
- The director wonders how such a small State can be so fertile in terms of audiovisual creation with so few means and experience.
- This nourishing and captivating documentary explores the paradoxes and complexity of a country that sells 1 in 4 series abroad.
On August 30, 2019, Benyamin Netanyahu, then in the middle of an electoral campaign, accuses in a message on Facebook Our Boys, the series by Hagai Levi which recounts the tragic events that led, in the summer of 2014, to the Gaza war, to "dirty" Israel. The Israeli Prime Minister also calls for a boycott of Channel 12, which co-produces the fiction with HBO. The broadcast of this event series this Thursday at 9:05 pm on Canal + will be followed by a captivating documentary. At 11 p.m., Israel, Land of series, signed Olivier Joyard, plunges into Tel Aviv at the heart of the abundant Israeli fiction factory. Without Israel, no Homeland , I n Treatment, or Euphoria . How can such a small state be so fruitful in terms of creation?
Fauda and When Heroes Fly on Netflix, On the Spectrum sacred to Séries Mania, Asylum City , Miguel, False Flag on MyCanal… For the past fifteen years, the entire planet has been wrestling with Israeli series. “The idea came from a sequence from my previous documentary, Bingemania , shot in Israel. With my producers and Canal +, we thought about the idea of an entire film on the Israeli series. Through this particular case, we wanted to illustrate the phenomenon of the globalization of series, ”says Olivier Joyard.
The success of Israeli fiction is all the more surprising given that it is a country with few viewers. "Israel has less than 9 million inhabitants, to which we must subtract the ultra ultra-Orthodox who do not watch television and the Arabs who do not watch Israeli programs", summarizes the director.
In Israel, "television is a new idea"
Another surprising phenomenon, in Israel, "television is a new idea", underlines the documentary maker. “The first TV channel appeared in 1968 and the first private channel in 1993, says Olivier Joyard. Israel did not have a television industry twenty years ago. Since the beginning of the 2000s, "the world has turned its eyes to the Israeli miracle" and its fictions "broke, daring, with great writing quality". "The writers would like more money", launches the director, who points out "the precariousness of the creators".
If the series born in Tel Aviv are exported in their original version, they are subject to numerous adaptations. Homeland, In Treatment and Euphoria are thus remakes of Hatufim, BeTipul and Euphoria . “The 20th adaptation of BeTipul will be French. In therapy is partly carried out by Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache ”, welcomes Olivier Joyard. On the flip side, “Israel has developed a form of dependence on these remakes. "
Through interviews with the big names in Israeli fiction (Hagai Levi, Ron Leshem, Nir Bergman, Avi Issacharoff, etc.), executives of the private channels Yes and Keshet, and a filming visit, Olivier Joyard explores the paradoxes and the complexity of this small country. “Israel is a young country. The rule is to invent day by day. And at the same time, its history is a thousand years old, he sums up. The world of series belongs to an open and lucid cultural environment on the Israeli geopolitical condition. There is no taboo subject. "
No doubt that we have "a lot to learn from them, they offer a counter-programming in Hollywood", congratulates the director. Where does the exceptional creativity of this “Hollywood counter-model” come from? "Intense lives and echoes of war that are everywhere", of the "strong literary tradition", of the proliferation of film schools "8 or 9, it's huge compared to the size of the country", the lack means or the fact that "necessity has become a virtue"? Through a careful and detailed analysis, Israel, Land of series shows how Israel, with its fictions, managed to touch the heart of an era.
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