The Pageant
Synopsis
Every year since 2011, a unique beauty contest takes place in Haifa. The contestants are female survivors of the Holocaust. In order to become “Miss Holocaust Survivor”, they train with an ex-beauty queen who teach them how to catwalk on the red carpet. At the climatic moment of the night, the survivors have to impress a jury with their life stories and their traumatic memories. This surreal event is sponsored by a right-wing Evangelical organization. Focusing on the story of Sophie Leibowitz who participates to honor her recently deceased sister, “The Pageant” explores how memory, politics and spectacle are interconnected.
Credits
Director(s)
Eytan İpeker
Producer(s)
Yoel Meranda (Kamara - Turkey)
Co-Producer(s)
Carine Chichkowsky (Survivance - France), Eitan Mansuri and Jonathan Doweck (Spiro Films - Israel), Kristina Konrad (Welt Film - Germany)
Cinematography
Itay Marom
Editor
Eytan İpeker
Original Language
English, Hebrew, Russian
Subtitles
English, French, Hebrew, Turkish
Sound Designer
Emmanuel Soland
Festival Highlights
Visions du Réel - World Premiere, France, International Feature Film Competition, 2020
Sarajevo Film Festival, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Documentary Competition, 2020
Jerusalem International Film Festival, Israel, 2020
Odessa International Film Festival, Ukraine, European Documentary Competition, 2020
Istanbul Film Festival, Turkey, National Documentary Competition, 2020
Antalya Golden Orange Film Festival, Turkey, National Documentary Competition, 2020
Human Rights Film Festival Lugano, Switzerland , 2020
Muestra de Cine de Lanzarote, Lanzarote, 2020
İstanbul Modern Cinema, Turkey, 2020
Reviews
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"The film accuses without a word, in a very efficient and intelligent way, the radical strangeness, not to say the sweet obscenity, of its subject."
- Le Monde (Jacques Mandelbaum)
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"offers a complex and nuanced look at the annual Miss Holocaust Survivor event."
- Cineuropa (twitter)
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"The Pageant (...) is able to use its feature-length to raise more of the troubling psychological aspects of the event, in a non-conclusive, humbly observational manner that never presumes to condemn the choices of its subjects.
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- Modern Times Review (Carmen Gray)
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"an eye for detail, especially uncomfortable ones"
- Cineuropa's review (Marta Bałaga)
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"the movie’s lack of final ethical conclusion, in a situation where no definitive or even partial judgment seems possible, is what lingers."
- Filmmakers Magazine (Vadim Rizov)
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"profoundly ironic editing work"
- Ubiquarian (Bénédicte Prot)
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"Ipeker deliberately creates associations that make you shiver"
- critic.de (Anne Küper)
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"Listed as one of the "Best Films of 2020" by Michael Sicinski"
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