Among the 26 feature films at
this year’s JCC Ames Amzalak Rochester International
Jewish Film Festival, which continues through July 18, is a special preview of
the inspirational sports documentary, “On the Map.” The film, which
will be screening for Rochester audiences ahead of its official U.S. premiere, chronicles
the gripping story of the Maccabi Tel Aviv basketball team’s unprecedented
success in the 1977 European Championship Tournament.
Not expected to make it very
far, a tenacious team of Jewish-American athletes ended up making history, and
in the process inspired a nation struggling to find its place in the world. In
an interview from his home in Los Angeles, director Dani Menkin
about his film and why the Maccabi team’s story is
such an important one to tell. The following is an edited transcript of that
conversation.
Menkin will be in attendance for the screening of his film, at
6 p.m. Thursday, July 14, at the Little Theatre. More information and a full
festival schedule is available at rjff.org.
CITY: Can you talk a little bit about your background
as a filmmaker?
Dani Menkin: I’ve been doing this for 20 years. My background
actually started in sports. I was in Israel making short films about sports for
what you’d call the Israeli ESPN. Then I started to do other non-sport movies
like “39 Pounds of Love,” and that’s how I started to make an actual career as
a filmmaker. After that, I crossed over into fiction movies.
As you mentioned, your career has alternated between
narrative and documentary features. Has that been a deliberate choice on your
part? Is there one form that you prefer working?
I really love them both. It
all depends on if I’m telling a good story. I think today in the new cinema,
the borders between documentary and narrative have faded. My
last fiction film, “Is That You?” – which I
shot in Syracuse, not too far from you – really played with the two genres, the
documentary world and the fiction world. I just enjoy telling honest stories,
whatever the form. Even if they’re fiction, I try for them to feel honest, and
with documentary, I enjoy sometimes giving them the quality of a fictional
story.
What was it that first attracted you to the Maccabi
Tel Aviv story?
I was actually approached by
Israeli TV to research this story, and I immediately felt like a kid in a candy
store. Because you have to understand, these guys are my childhood heroes. I
don’t know what you admired as a kid, but I’ll give you the best example. Did
you like sports?
I’ll be honest, I was never a
big sports guy. Movies were more my thing.
Ok, so imagine you get to do,
say, a documentary with rare, never-been-seen footage, about the way Steven
Spielberg made “E.T.” Stories nobody has ever seen and people will be blown
away because they only know part of the story. It’s the same thing for “On the
Map.” For Israelis, this is like the first man who walked on the moon for the
Americans. So for us, when Tal Brody says “We are on the map” after Maccabi Tel
Aviv beat the Russians, it’s like for the United States when Neil Armstrong
said “One small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.” That’s how we felt.
When I started to do my
research, I discovered from private resources and also from TV stations’
archives that there is so much footage that had never been seen. And for those
next few years, I felt like a kid in a candy store. And what also struck me was
the fact that people in the States – where I live now – don’t know about this
story. They all know about the “Miracle on Ice,” but this is the Miracle on
Hardwood.
For me, making this film
allowed me to combine my three big loves: the love for filmmaking, the love for
sports, and the love for Israel.
How long have you been working on the film?
I’ve been working on it for
three years, but probably subconsciously I’ve been working on it for 40 years.
Because I was 7 years old when it happened, and next year it’s going to be 40
years since the events took place. And honestly, these are my childhood heroes:
I like the team, I love the players, I love what they
represent. So I’ve been working on the film since my childhood in many ways.
But practically, for the last three years it has been a big part of of my life.
As the film goes on, [team
captain] Tal Brody becomes sort of the focal point of the story. Did you always
know he was going to be the central figure, or is that something that became
apparent during production?
I think as I was putting the
film together, I realized it’s probably the first movie I’ve made where the
hero is a team. I really didn’t have one specific hero. Not like “39 Pounds of
Love” or “Dolphin Boy” or “Is That You?” where they have a specific hero that I
could rely on. In this case, I really didn’t have that.
But when I was pushing myself
a little bit more, I said, “Who is the leader of the story? Who is the guy
that’s being changed and who’s the guy that is in some ways changing the
history of our country?” And it was obviously Tal Brody. Here’s a guy that gave
up on the NBA in order to establish basketball in Israel. Here’s a guy that
waited all his career to reach that level where the
team could beat the Russians, and make it to the championship game. And in the
last year of his career, he’s making that impact live on TV and saying to the
world that we are on the map.
People in Israel still use
that phrase today, and that’s how we really felt. Four years after the Yom
Kippur War, and not too long after the Holocaust, the country’s fighting for
existence, and here he is saying it loud and clear. And he’s doing it after
he’s beating the Russians, who did not want to play Israel because they did not
recognize Israel. They didn’t think it should exist. So Tal Brody is really the
engine of the story because of what happened to him and because of that larger
idea.
The film makes great use of archival footage. What was
the process like for tracking down that footage, then combing through it all to
see what worked best for the film?
I say that documentary
filmmaking is like being a fisherman. We’re going fishing, and we’re looking to
find documentary gold. And that’s what I was doing. For the last three years, I
don’t think there was one stone left unturned, at least not that I know of. And
I had a big team of people that worked with me, who researched every piece of
footage that existed about the team and about that year specifically. And
luckily we found a lot of footage that had never been seen before, so we could
really bring this story to life.
You mentioned that your background was in sports. Is
that a subject you see yourself possibly returning to, and possibly telling
other stories from the world of Israeli sports?
I love to just make good
stories about the underdog. That’s kind of where I’m coming from. If it’s in the sport world, wonderful. I do love it, but I’m
not sure. I’m actually writing another sports movie now, on Aulcie
Perry, one of the Maccabi players, and I’m also writing another love story. So
it’s always a question of finding the right story and whether the production
comes together. That’s what makes the movie for me.
“On the Map” is showing in Rochester as an advance
preview screening. What are the current plans for the official release of the
film?
We are doing a world premiere
in the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival this summer. Then we’re going to be
in New York City for Doc NYC. The film is already being requested like crazy in
the Jewish film festival world. The response to the film has been superb, and
we’re really proud of it and obviously very happy. So far in my life, my films
have taken on their own life and they have their own path. To that end, with
this film, I don’t know where it will go. “39 Pounds” was shortlisted for the
Oscars, won the Israeli Academy Award, and aired on HBO. “Dolphin Boy” was sold
to Disney. So I let my films go the way they need to go and thank god so far
they’ve done great.
I just hope that people will
enjoy the film, that it will touch people’s hearts. That they
will see a good story and the fact that it’s a good story coming out of Israel
will hopefully allow people to see us in a different way, a positive way.
It’s possible to win games, and it’s possible to win in life even though nobody
believes you can. I think Tal Brody and all the other teammates proved it is
possible. That’s always inspired me, and I hope it will inspire the audience.
This article appears in Jul 13-19, 2016.
