'The Gatekeepers' lauded in US
Director Dror Moreh discusses Academy Award-nominated documentary in interview with CNN's Christiane Amanpour
Director Dror Moreh discussed the film in an interview earlier this week with CNN's Christiane Amanpour, who expressed great interest in the project as well.
Moreh is visiting the US in a bid to promote the film and its chances of taking home an Oscar. As part of these efforts he gave an interview to Amanpour, who is a world renowned journalist and news anchor and has been named "one of the world's 100 most powerful women" by Forbes magazine.
"She really liked the film," says Moreh. "She wondered why our defense establishment chiefs appear more pragmatic than the politicians above them. She said that the Shin Bet directors interviewed in the film express a sort of sincere yearning for a solution, which our politicians seem to be ignoring."
Asked by Amanpour why Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has yet to see the film, Moreh replied: "I think that the fact that the prime minister of Israel is not willing to watch a film in which six former heads of Shin Bet are speaking and conveying a message to the Israeli public, to him and to the world – it just says much more about his personality than about the film."
During his tour of the US, Moreh met with director Joel Coen, who he says also liked the film.
"The American audience is a bit shocked by the openness with which the service chiefs speak. They say they would have never imagined six heads of a secret service in any other country, including the United States, speaking so openly," says Moreh.
According to Moreh, all analysts say the two leading films in the Oscar race are "The Gatekeepers" and American "Searching for Sugar Man."
"It will be a sort of poetic justice if Israel wins its first Oscar with a film dealing with six Shin Bet chiefs calling for an end to the occupation," he concludes.
