Deadly Currents

Deadly Currents (1991)

The film focuses on Gaza and the West Bank where soldiers and youths are caught up in the Intefada, and on the clash of history and ideas in regions to which both peoples have historical claims.

Date of release
1991-10-04
TMDB
8.0 / 10 (1)
Runtime
1h 55m
Genres
Documentary
Director
Simcha Jacobovici

Casting

Interesting facts

Deadly Currents is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Simcha Jacobovici and released in 1991. The film explores the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, profiling various people on both sides of the dispute.

Production

In 1988, David Green, an Orthodox Jew, spoke to Simcha Jacobovici, an Israeli-born son of Holocaust survivors, about creating a film about the First Intifada. He initially only wanted Jacobovici to write a treatment and Green raised $5,000 for it. Jacobovici wrote a 20-page treatment in one day. Green felt that the media depiction of the conflict was superficial and distorting reality. Elliott Helpern and Ric Esther Bienstock served as producers.

Jacobovici made connections with executives at the Cineplex Odeon Corporation while making Falasha: Exile of the Black Jews. He sent the treatment to executives Jeff Sackman and Robert Topol and both reacted positively, but waited for Garth Drabinsky's reaction before making a commitment. Drabinsky was impressed with the script and gave an advance of $300,000.

The producers filed for funding from Telefilm Canada and Bill House, the head of its Ontario office, praised the treatment as "well written" and "so articulate about the issue". However, they could not receive funding from the theatrical fund due to being a documentary and would instead have to apply for the broadcast fund. 25% of the film's budget had to come from a Canadian broadcaster in order to receive broadcast funding.

The production financing for the film was $944,000, with $404,000 coming from Telefilm, $225,000 from the Ontario Film Development Corporation, $290,000 from Cineplex, and $25,000 from Citytv. The film cost $1,101,636.

Jacobovici shot 200,000 feet of film. The producers started raising funds for second unit filming in December 1989, and received an additional $30,000 from Cineplex. Second unit shooting started in August 1990, and lasted six weeks.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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