Helen Mirren as Golda Meir promo pic
Helen Mirren, the Oscar-winning actress, is coming to Jerusalem. Well, her new movie about the late Israeli Prime Minister Golda Meir is coming to Jerusalem anyway. “Golda” will open the 40th annual Jerusalem Film Festival which will begin on July 13. The movie will be shown in a traditional outdoor venue for the festival’s opening night.
From its inception, the Jerusalem Film Festival has dedicated a central and unique place to Israeli cinema, premiering features, documentaries, and shorts. In 1989, the Festival granted an official stamp of validity to Israeli cinema with the introduction of the Wolgin Competition, which became the leading platform to showcase the majority of the most important Israeli films of the year. In time, additional Israeli film prizes became part of the Festival, and the Haggiag Family Awards Competition – which replaced the Wolgin Awards in 2010 – became the largest and most esteemed stage for presenting local films in Israel.
“Golda” starring Helen Mirren will be screened first at the famed Sultan’s Pool venues, an outdoor amphitheater located just below the walls of the Old City of Jerusalem opposite the Jaffa Gate.
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In “Golda” Helen Mirren, who won the Oscar award for best actress in 2007 for her portrayal of Queen Elizabeth II in the movie “The Queen” portrays Golda Meir at the single worst moment in the Israeli leader’s life – the disaster and the crisis of the Yom Kippur War in 1973. Golda focuses on the “intensely dramatic and high-stakes” responsibilities and decisions that Golda Meir, also known as the “’Iron Lady of Israel” faced during the Yom Kippur War.
So, as in “The Queen,” Helen Mirren does not perform in a full biopic, but portrays a woman at a seminal moment in her life.
Meir never recovered politically from the failures leading up to the war which was a national disaster for Israel. Eight months after the war ended, and even after winning re-election at the polls a month after the war, Meir was forced to resign as prime minister and retired from politics entirely.
The movie is directed by Israeli Guy Nattiv, Nattiv won an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film for the movie Skin in 2018. “I have long been an admirer of the great Helen Mirren,” said Nattiv. “She has melted so brilliantly into Golda Meir’s character with incredible talent, intelligence, depth and emotion, doing justice to the richness and complexity of this incredible woman.”
“Golda Meir was a formidable, intransigent and powerful leader,” said Hellen Mirren. “It is a great challenge to portray her at the most difficult moment of her extraordinary life. I only hope I do her justice!”
“Golda” will be available in wide release on August 25.
For Helen Mirren fans who cannot wait, she can currently be seen in the latest Fast and the Furious film “Fast X.”
