Ron Leshem is one of Israel’s leading young authors and public intellectuals. He achieved his breakthrough with the novel Beaufort (2005) in which he chronicles Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. In 2006, the book won the Sapir Prize, Israel’s highest literary honor. A year later, it was made into a movie (with Leshem writing the screenplay) that became an international sensation, garnering a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film among many other honors. More recently, Leshem has published the novel Niloofar, a coming-of-age tale set amidst underground parties, drugs, and music in contemporary Teheran. Leshem is also a prominent journalist, having worked at Israel’s two largest papers, Yedioth Ahronoth and Ma’ariv. Since 2006, he has served as deputy director of programming and special projects for Israeli television’s Channel 2. Ron visited UIUC's campus in the Fall of 2011 through the Israel Studies Project.
An Evening With Ron Leshem
Location: Third Floor, Levis Faculty Center
Date: 9/12/2011, 7:30 pm
Video of event here.
Screening of award-winning film Beaufort
A discussion with screenwriter Ron Leshem follows the film. Nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film and Winner of the award for Best Director at the Berlin Film Festival, Beaufort (2007) is among the greatest achievements of Israeli film-making. Based on the novel by Ron Leshem (who also wrote the screenplay), it chronicles the withdrawal of Israeli troops from Southern Lebanon in 2000 from the point of view of an IDF unit stationed at Beaufort castle. Amid redoubled shelling from Hezbollah, the fort’s brash, impossibly young commander Liraz (Oshri Cohen) struggles to keep himself and his men safe from a faceless enemy that would turn withdrawal into massacre. An unusually dexterous ensemble cast and director Joseph Cedar’s visionary combination of gritty objectivity, lucid sudden violence, and keen sensitivity to the tangle of terror, duty, and sacrifice, results in a film so realistic, so intense, it verges on the surreal.
Location: Cohen Center for Jewish Life
Date: 9/14/2011, 7 pm
An Afternoon with Ron Leshem – UIC Hillel, 924 South Morgan Street, 12:30 pm (Chicago)
Date: 9/15/2011