Inspired by real-life events, Michael Winterbottom’s political thriller Shoshana – an Italy-United Kingdom coproduction – stars Douglas Booth, Irina Starshenbaum, Harry Melling, Aury Alby, Ian Hart.
The film is set in the 1930s, in Tel Aviv, a new European-style city built on the shore of the Mediterranean during the British Mandate while the Israeli State is developing in the background. Through the relationship between Thomas Wilkin (Douglas Booth) and Shoshana Borochov (Irina Starshenbaum), the film shows how violence and extremism divide people, forcing them to choose a side.
Wilkin, member of the anti-terrorism team of the British Palestine forces, is working with Geoffrey Morton (Harry Melling) to find a clandestine leader, charismatic poet Avraham Stern (Aury Alby). Stern is certain that the creation of the state of Israel will only come about through violence and Wilkin and Morton become his key targets. Shoshana, meanwhile, is a modern, progressive feminist. She hates the politics of Stern and his followers but the intensifying climate of violence forces her to pick who she wants to fight with.
Produced by Bartleby Film and Revolution Films with logistical support from Apulia Film Commission, the film took 15 years to come to fruition and followed archive research in Israel by the director. Winterbottom identified a range of similarities between Puglia and 1930s Tel Aviv in the photographic and historical material he found.
“We shot in Puglia, Italy. We need to recreate Tel Aviv, built in 1924, so we needed lots of low, white buildings that could look about 15 years old. Tel Aviv today is enormous and filled with skyscrapers, we realised right away that we couldn’t shoot there. Of course, we couldn’t use the original Thirties buildings because now they are almost a century old, while Tel Aviv then was a new city, but we found very similar architecture in Puglia, with recently built houses. There were many Israeli actors on set and they were truly stunned by the similarity”.
Vintage Tel Aviv was created from: Ostuni (the Melogna neighbourhood and others), Brindisi (Casale), the coastal areas of Pantanagianni (Carovigno) and Torre Canne (hamlet of Fasano).
The “white city” provided a location in the viale Pola area for an ancient market with a chase scene and gunfight: a leper colony was set near the historic centre with its plaster walls; the courtyard of a former cigarette factory was used as a military camp; the area of Zona 167 provided backdrops for several scenes of conflict and Palazzo Cenci Tanzarella became a military hospital.
The director adapted corners of Lecce to stand in for Jerusalem, shooting near Carlo V Castle in piazza Giuseppe Libertini, in via Francesco Rubichi (near the courthouse), in via Oronzo Tiso, in piazzetta Sigismondo Castromediano, in via degli Antoglietta, in via Leonardo Prato (between via D’Amelio and piazzetta Arco di Prato), and in the Dominican cloister.
Jaffa was created in Taranto: the old city was used for scenes of the Arab market in Jaffa where a bomb causes a massacre.
The director worked on the set with production designer Sergio Tribastone, creating an ideal landscape as the setting for Israel: “the sea is the same, and the coastline is also very similar with hills, olive trees etc. There were many, many places we could work in Puglia.”
Locations also include other villages in the Valle d’Itria: Locorotondo (Cloister of the Dominicans and cemetery), Ceglie Messapica (near the town hall), Cisternino and Fasano (Pezze di Greco and the Montalbano cemetery). Parts of Monopoli, the old harbour with fishing boats and the scenic facade of Palazzo Martinelli-Meo Evoli, whose neo-Gothic facade overlooks the sea, were also successfully used to create the vintage setting.
Inspired by real-life events, Michael Winterbottom’s political thriller Shoshana – an Italy-United Kingdom coproduction – stars Douglas Booth, Irina Starshenbaum, Harry Melling, Aury Alby, Ian Hart.
The film is set in the 1930s, in Tel Aviv, a new European-style city built on the shore of the Mediterranean during the British Mandate while the Israeli State is developing in the background. Through the relationship between Thomas Wilkin (Douglas Booth) and Shoshana Borochov (Irina Starshenbaum), the film shows how violence and extremism divide people, forcing them to choose a side.
Wilkin, member of the anti-terrorism team of the British Palestine forces, is working with Geoffrey Morton (Harry Melling) to find a clandestine leader, charismatic poet Avraham Stern (Aury Alby). Stern is certain that the creation of the state of Israel will only come about through violence and Wilkin and Morton become his key targets. Shoshana, meanwhile, is a modern, progressive feminist. She hates the politics of Stern and his followers but the intensifying climate of violence forces her to pick who she wants to fight with.
Produced by Bartleby Film and Revolution Films with logistical support from Apulia Film Commission, the film took 15 years to come to fruition and followed archive research in Israel by the director. Winterbottom identified a range of similarities between Puglia and 1930s Tel Aviv in the photographic and historical material he found.
“We shot in Puglia, Italy. We need to recreate Tel Aviv, built in 1924, so we needed lots of low, white buildings that could look about 15 years old. Tel Aviv today is enormous and filled with skyscrapers, we realised right away that we couldn’t shoot there. Of course, we couldn’t use the original Thirties buildings because now they are almost a century old, while Tel Aviv then was a new city, but we found very similar architecture in Puglia, with recently built houses. There were many Israeli actors on set and they were truly stunned by the similarity”.
Vintage Tel Aviv was created from: Ostuni (the Melogna neighbourhood and others), Brindisi (Casale), the coastal areas of Pantanagianni (Carovigno) and Torre Canne (hamlet of Fasano).
The “white city” provided a location in the viale Pola area for an ancient market with a chase scene and gunfight: a leper colony was set near the historic centre with its plaster walls; the courtyard of a former cigarette factory was used as a military camp; the area of Zona 167 provided backdrops for several scenes of conflict and Palazzo Cenci Tanzarella became a military hospital.
The director adapted corners of Lecce to stand in for Jerusalem, shooting near Carlo V Castle in piazza Giuseppe Libertini, in via Francesco Rubichi (near the courthouse), in via Oronzo Tiso, in piazzetta Sigismondo Castromediano, in via degli Antoglietta, in via Leonardo Prato (between via D’Amelio and piazzetta Arco di Prato), and in the Dominican cloister.
Jaffa was created in Taranto: the old city was used for scenes of the Arab market in Jaffa where a bomb causes a massacre.
The director worked on the set with production designer Sergio Tribastone, creating an ideal landscape as the setting for Israel: “the sea is the same, and the coastline is also very similar with hills, olive trees etc. There were many, many places we could work in Puglia.”
Locations also include other villages in the Valle d’Itria: Locorotondo (Cloister of the Dominicans and cemetery), Ceglie Messapica (near the town hall), Cisternino and Fasano (Pezze di Greco and the Montalbano cemetery). Parts of Monopoli, the old harbour with fishing boats and the scenic facade of Palazzo Martinelli-Meo Evoli, whose neo-Gothic facade overlooks the sea, were also successfully used to create the vintage setting.
Bartleby Film, Revolution Films
Middle East, late Thirties. Against a backdrop of the newly established state of Israel, two British police agents in Palestine, Thomas Wilkin and Geoffrey Morton, are ordered to investigate Avraham Stern, poet and charismatic leader of the extreme left in Israel. Violence and extremism condition the relationship between Thomas and Shoshana Borochov, forcing each of them to choose a side.
