Director's Works
Ido is a Tel Aviv-based director and cinematographer. Born in 1989 and raised in the northern Israeli village of Nofit, he graduated with a BFA from the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University. The director of several award-winning films, including "Horah" (Documentary, 18 min, 2018), "Pool" (Live-action short, 12 min, 2019), and "Uzzi" (Documentary, 21 min, 2018), which was shortlisted for the BAFTA's student awards. His latest film, "Requiem for a Whale" (Documentary, 15 min, 2022), has won the prestigious student documentary award at the IDA Awards 2022 and was nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 2023 Israeli Academy Awards. In addition, the film won the top prize at the Israeli Documentary Forum Awards, as well as the second place and the cinematography awards at the Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival 2022. In August 2023, the film was acquired for distribution in the documentary film section of "The New Yorker" magazine.
In early February 2021, while trying to put my parent's house and my life in order following my father’s unexpected death, I came across a surprising article about a beached whale nearby. The next day, I went to the beach with my camera and came upon the enormous carcass, surrounded by dozens of excited people who had come to witness, touch and have their pictures taken with the whale. I returned the next day to document the dissection and burial of the whale on the beach. Early on, I could not describe the emotional impact of the incident. Still, I knew I had witnessed a rare, unmediated encounter with nature, which left me with an aversion to the crowd’s dishonorable reactions. However, as I explored my feelings, the revulsion turned to curiosity and empathy for the shared desire to document an event that transcends words. My curiosity and empathy led me to call various people who were present on the beach and speak to them about their thoughts and feelings. I spoke to many people and three of them are featured in the film: Tal, 52, a photographer and art teacher who was there to document the whale, spoke to me about the primal fears brought on by the situation. Asaf, 51, a news reporter who covered the dissection of the body, shared the difficult emotions he experienced, seeing the body and understanding the ecological implications. Lotfi, 27, the Bedouin tractor driver who buried the whale, described his excitement at the unique opportunity that had come his way. Near the end of our conversation, Lotfi asked me how I felt about my encounter with the carcass. The question brought up a painful memory of my father’s funeral after he passed away from cardiac arrest a few months earlier. Our surprising, intimate conversation led me to the realization that I played a significant role in the emotional impact of the encounter with the whale and that I was part of the tapestry of people affected by it. I believe the powerful experience speaks not only to our random encounter with a representation of death but to the distance and barriers we have put between ourselves and nature, expressed in our immense reactions to the appearance of “the stranger”- a lone whale who dared to cross the border of the unknown and land in our own backyard. Ido Weisman