Israeli filmmaker Moshe Rosenthal made “Tell Me Everything,” a father-son drama set during the 1980s HIV epidemic, while the Israel-Hamas war unfolded around him, and he wondered whether his personal story even mattered given the gravity of the current events.
“When you make a personal film, it really feels like it’s the most important thing in the world,” Rosenthal told TheWrap’s Sharon Waxman at the Sundance Film Festival, where the film is part of the World Cinema Dramatic Competition. “But when other stuff, bigger stuff, is happening around you, suddenly you get a lot of moments of doubt that you’re like, ‘Who cares about this personal thing? This is not important.’”
Rosenthal’s film follows a 12-year-old boy named Boaz who discovers a devastating secret about his father, set against the backdrop of the HIV epidemic of the late 1980s.
While the filmmaker had moments of doubt while the world around him was thrust into turmoil, he had to remind himself why personal stories matter.
“These are not only the most important things for us as human beings — family, accepting each other — but also, there’s gonna come a time really soon that we’ll need movies like this that remind us why we need to start learning to see each other with our flaws and humanity and to come closer,” he said.
The experience echoed his previous film “Karaoke,” which he made during the COVID pandemic. “I remember that feeling of, nobody’s gonna see movies anymore,” Rosenthal said. “It felt so out of reach. And it was so beautiful to see that the moment that the film came out and the pandemic ended, it was such a release of so many people who really needed to see that type of film.”
At Sundance, Rosenthal has felt welcomed. “I do feel like Sundance focuses on the artists, not the place where they come from,” he said. “I felt mostly comfortable talking about myself and my film, and obviously I’m not representing anything other than my work.”
Rosenthal remains optimistic about the film finding distribution, despite the boycott of Israeli films at some international festivals.
“The fear of not being accepted and seen as an Israeli project, it only made us feel like, ‘Oh, we should just make it so good that there won’t be any reason to doubt its importance and authenticity,’” he said. “So it was almost like a drive.”
The film stars newcomer Yair Mazor as young Boaz and Ido Tako as his older counterpart and Assi Cohen as Boaz’s father. Keren Tzur, Mor Dimri and Neta Orbach round out the rest of the cast.
“Tell Me Everything” is a French-Israeli-British co-production that will be released in Israeli theaters at the end of the year. Paradise City Sales is handling international sales.