Land of the Little People | Medinat Hagamadim
October 31, 2017 - 8 pm @ IL Kino.
Four young kids who live in a village of military officers families, form a small gang. An old abandoned army base, located in the surrounding wild fields, turns into their camp. Another war begins in Israel, and most men are drafted to serve their country. The mothers are sitting worried in front of the televisions and listen to the constant news reports, while the kids, with no one to supervise them, return to their camp in the wild. To their surprise, they discover two soldiers who deserted their units, using their camp as a hideout. The children try to regain control over their stolen territory, but the soldiers hold their grounds. Ruthless struggle develops between the groups, and the soldiers, who sought refuge from the war outside, find themselves in another war, which turns to be as dangerous and bloody.
Cast & Crew
Cast: Maor Schweitzer, Ofer Hayun, Lior Rochman, Mishel Pruzansky, Amit Hechter, Ido Kestler
Scriptwriter: Yaniv Berman
Director of photography: Rami Katzav
Editor: Oz Guttman
Sound design: Michael Goorevich
Music: Gad Emile Zeitune
Producers: Tony Copti
Production company: Fresco Films
Festivals & Awards
– Shanghai International Film Festival – World Premiere
– Silk Road Film Festival, China
– Warsaw Film Festival, Poland
– Rome Film Fest, Italy
– Haifa International Film Festival, Israel
– Tallinn Black Nights Film Festival, Estonia
– Tbilisi International Film Festival – Silver Prometheus (Best Directing)
– Phoenix Film Festival, USA – World Cinema Best Picture and World Cinema Best Director Awards
Director Yaniv Berman
Country Israel, Palestine
Year 2016
Length 83 min
Language Hebrew with English subtitles
About the director
Born in Haifa, Israel, Yaniv is a graduate student from the MFA program at the Film and Television Department, Tel-Aviv University. His short film EVEN KIDS STARTED SMALL, about school children taking over the school, was officialselection of the CINÉFONDATION, Cannes Film Festival in 2006. He filmed for six years a documentary about a military company of reserve soldiers in the IDF, which was made into the award winning documentary THE ALPHA DIARIES. LAND OF THE LITTLE PEOPLE is his first narrative feature film, which like his previous works deals with the traumatic process of becoming a child-soldier in a violent militaristic society. Yaniv is also a producer and director of commercials. He lives is Israel with his wife and two daughters.
