LATE SUMMER BLUES: Film Screening & Discussion with Eran Eldar, Ph.D.

Join the Stuart & Suzanne Grant Center for the American Jewish Experience and Tulane’s Jewish Studies department for a screening of the Israeli film, Late Summer Blues.

Late Summer Blues is an Israeli feature film directed by Renen Schorr, written by Doron Nesher and produced by Ilan de Vries. Initially released in 1987, the film was a box office hit and went on to become an Israeli classic. In 2016, after undergoing extensive digital image and sound restoration, it was rereleased to cinemas, becoming the first Israeli film to do so.

Set just after the Six-Day War, in the shadow of the War of Attrition with Egypt, Late Summer Blues follows a group of high school graduates during the summer before they’re conscripted into the army. Restored after thirty years, this Israeli classic portrays the paradox of Israeli adolescence in raw, deeply human terms: the uncertainty, confusion, and playful embrace of the present are constantly tainted by the shadow of military service and the razor’s edge of anxiety, only somewhat tempered by days at the beach and rock music. Drawing from his own experiences, director Renen Schorr and writer Doron Nesher create a powerful and bitterly funny anti-war message by drawing on the restlessness of the young men and women as they cope with their growing fatalism as well as the crushing defeat of Israel at the hands of Egypt in the 1973 October War.

Awards & Recognitions: Main Filmography Directing: · “Late Summer Blues”, 1987 (“Blues La’Hofesh-Hagadol”), winner of the Israeli Oscar Award and the Israeli Film Festival, New York/Los Angeles, 1988, as the Best Film of the Year, Best Script and Best Original Score. The film was screened in 30 international film festivals.