TEL AVIV: Eurovision fans gathered in Tel Aviv Saturday to watch the show taking place in Sweden on big screens said they were hoping voters would finally show Israel some love.
The mood was electric at the packed Layla bar in Tel Aviv as the show got underway, with the crowd going wild when Israel’s contestant Eden Golan appeared on screen, jumping up and down and waving Israeli flags.
With her long lavender-streaked hair and matching nails, Golan performed her tune wearing a white chiffon gown billowing in the artificial wind and smoke filling the stage.
If Israel were to win, it would mean that “maybe we are not hated so much, and that the music really won,” said Tal Bendersky, draped in an Israeli flag.
The 23-year-old from southern Israel told AFP he had come to Layla, which prides itself as “the best gay bar in Tel Aviv,” “to celebrate with all the people that love the Israeli people.”
“Hopefully in the end, we will celebrate as much as we can, when she will hopefully win.”
A win for Israel would mean “we are loved in the world, and we have support of the world,” Yarden Arak, 33, told AFP.
Israel ranks with Croatia and Switzerland as one of the bookmakers’ favorites to succeed Sweden and take home the colorful and kitschy competition watched by more than a hundred million people.
But a win by Israel could be a stretch, given the fierce controversy that has surrounded its participation in this year’s edition of the competition as it continues to bombard and besiege Gaza.
The war started with Hamas’s unprecedented October 7 attack on Israel that resulted in the deaths of more than 1,170 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of Israeli official figures.
Militants also seized hostages, of whom Israel estimates 128 remain in Gaza, including 36 who the military says are dead.
Israel’s retaliatory offensive has killed at least 34,971 people in Gaza, mostly women and children, according to the Hamas-run territory’s health ministry.
Before the competition began, police in the host city Malmo said at least 5,000 people were demonstrating in the streets outside the venue.
Golan’s song “Hurricane” is an adaptation of an earlier version named “October Rain,” which she modified after organizers deemed it too political because of its apparent allusions to the Hamas attack.
The EBU — which oversees the event — confirmed in March the participation of Golan, despite calls for her exclusion from thousands of musicians around the world.
More recently, nine of the acts, seven of whom are finalists, have called for a lasting ceasefire in Gaza.
Shortly before she took to the stage, Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz hailed her in a post on X, formerly twitter.
“Eden proudly stands against immense hatred and anti-Semitism. Tonight, let’s show all the haters who’s leading the way!” he wrote.
And in Tel Aviv, hopes remained high, with many dismissing the protests, saying the demonstrators did not understand what Israel was going through since Hamas’s attack sparked the war.
“No one feels what we feel... They don’t know the facts, but it’s okay,” said Victoria Shishko, a 33-year-old Tel Aviv resident born in Ukraine.
“We know the truth and we will survive,” she told AFP, voicing confidence that Israel could win the contest.
That would show “that people really love us and they believe us and they stand with us,” she said.
“We deserve it. We are kind and good people and we hope to win.”
Others said they felt bad for Golan.
“I can’t imagine what Eden is going through,” said Alec Snyder, a 29-year-old Tel Aviv resident born in Los Angeles.
“Given the drama... I really hope Israel wins. I’m rooting for us tremendously,” he told AFP.
“It’s going to be tough, but we have a wonderful song, and I am sure we will do really well tonight.”
In Tel Aviv, Eurovision fans hope world shows Israel some love
https://arab.news/yewrs
In Tel Aviv, Eurovision fans hope world shows Israel some love
- Israel ranks with Croatia and Switzerland as one of the bookmakers’ favorites to succeed Sweden and take home the colorful and kitschy competition watched by more than a hundred million people
Akio Fujimoto discusses RSIFF Golden Yusr winner ‘Lost Land’
- The Japanese filmmaker on his groundbreaking Rohingya-language feature
JEDDAH: Some stories demand to be told. Not just as narratives, but as acts of witness.
Japanese filmmaker Akio Fujimoto’s “Lost Land” is one such story. Billed as the first feature film in the Rohingya language, the movie took home the top prize — the Golden Yusr — at this year’s Red Sea International Film Festival.
“Lost Land” — which premiered in the Horizons section at this year’s Venice Film Festival, where it won the special jury prize — follows two young Rohingya siblings, Somira and Shafi, fleeing persecution in Myanmar as they undertake a perilous journey d to join their uncle in Malaysia.
Presenting the Golden Yusr to Fujimoto, RSIFF jury head, the US filmmaker Sean Baker, said the film “confronts the plight of displaced children with unflinching empathy and poetic urgency.”
Fujimoto’s journey to this film is a profound narrative of personal reckoning. Having worked in Myanmar for more than a decade, he recognized the unspoken tensions surrounding discussions about refugee experiences but never spoke out himself due to fear of persecution. The 2021 military coup in Myanmar, he said, forced him to confront a lingering sense of guilt about his previous silence on the subject.
“Looking back on my decade of work, I realized I had been avoiding topics I wanted to focus on as a filmmaker,” Fujimoto said in an interview with Arab News at RSIFF.
That self-reflection became the catalyst for “Lost Land,” transforming personal hesitation into a powerful act of cinematic storytelling.
Eschewing traditional casting methods, Fujimoto discovered his lead actors through serendipity during community fieldwork. Shomira Rias Uddin and Muhammad Shofik Rias Uddin, real-life siblings who play the film’s young leads, were found walking near interview locations, compelling the filmmaker to reshape the entire script around their natural chemistry. While the original script was written with two teenage brothers in mind, the discovery of the Rias Uddin siblings led Fujimoto to alter the script significantly.
Communication between the cast and crew became an intricate dance of translation and cultural bridge-building. With Fujimoto speaking primarily Japanese and some Burmese, the team relied on Sujauddin Karimuddin, a Rohingya translator who did far more than linguistic conversion. “He wasn’t just translating words but conveying messages, creating trust, and establishing a collaborative atmosphere,” said Watanabe, Fujimoto’s translator.
One of the most remarkable aspects of “Lost Land” is its linguistic significance. Beyond being a narrative, the film serves as a critical instrument of cultural preservation. Karimuddin, who is also a producer on the film, approached his role like a linguistic curator. “As a Rohingya myself, I had the privilege of choosing words carefully, trying to instill poetry, capturing linguistic nuances that are slowly disappearing. So, the film is very important when it comes to the preservation of a people’s language. It was a privilege for me to contribute to it,” he said.
As they were making the first fiction film focused on Rohingya experiences, the team felt an immense responsibility. “Lost Land” aims to humanize a community often reduced to statistics, giving voice and complexity to individual experiences.
“In our film, we had around 200 people — including extras — who were all part of the Rohingya community. I felt in order to show their feelings and their voice; it was really important to bring in the Rohingya people and tell the story together with them,” said Fujimoto.
For Fujimoto, whose previous films include “Passage of Life” (2017) and “Along the Sea” (2020), the film represents more than an artistic achievement. It’s a form of personal and collective redemption. “I can now clearly talk about these people without hesitation,” he said.
The filmmaker’s future ambitions involve expanding on this project. He sees “Lost Land” as a crucial first step, and hopes to support Rohingya filmmakers in telling their own stories directly.
“The next phase is bringing narratives from the Rohingya perspective, directed by Rohingya filmmakers,” he said.
