Spike Jonze, Park Chan-wook, Ulrich Seidl to hit Jerusalem Film Festival

Directors Spike Jonze, Park Chan-wook, Ulrich Seidl, Chantal Akerman and actress Martina Gedeck are among the high-profile international guests due to attend the Jerusalem Film Festival.

The festival said in statement: “Despite the security situation, more than 100 distinguished international guests are on their way to Jerusalem…The Festival’s international guests have expressed their support of the non-cancellation of the Festival and are due to arrive in Jerusalem in the coming days.”

Jonze, who recently won an Academy Award for best original screenplay for his sci-fi romance Her, will give a masterclass following a screening of his Oscar-nominated fantasy comedy Being John Malkovich — which marks its 15th anniversary this year.

It is the first time Jonze, whose father was descended from a German Jewish family, has visited Israel.

Korea’s Park will also give a masterclass and participate in a panel on his country’s cinema. His thriller Oldboy, which put him on the international map after it won the Grand Jury Prize in Cannes in 2003, and the recent English-language serial killer tale Stoker will both screen in the festival.

Austrian filmmaker Ulrich Seidl will take to the stage with his long-time collaborator, the actress Maria Hofstatter, who has appeared in a number of works.

Past films Dog Days, capturing the interaction between a group of Viennese neighbours during a heat wave, and the more recent Import/Export will screen in his presence.

American director and writer David Mamet is attending with his daughter for a joint reading of excerpts from his recent novel The Handle and the Hold, revolving around two young Jewish men smuggling weapons to Palestine on the eve of the 1948 war.

Experimental Belgian director Chantal Akerman is attending the festival with her recent photography exhibition entitled De La Mèr(e) au Désert, which opened on Tuesday night with a reading by the filmmaker from her book Ma mère rit.

Other directors attending with their films over the coming 10 days include Australia’s Aaron Wilson with Canopy; Italy’s Alice Rohrwacher with Cannes Grand Jury Prize winner The Wonders; and French, New York-based directing duo Ruben Amar and Lola Bessis with Swim Little Fish Swim.

Also hailing from France, Alexandre Arcady will present his 24 Days, revolving around the real-life kidnapping and killing of a 23-year-old Jewish man, Ilan Halimi, in Paris in 2006 by an anti-Semitic gang called The Barbarians.

A trio of guests will also be in attendance to receive an Achievement Award in the shape of Arab-Israeli actor Makram Khoury; Beki Probst, president of the Berlin Film Festival’s European Film Market and Marin Karmitz, founder of the Paris-based MK2 film production house and cinema chain.