An other day

“From below a beautiful city appeared, spreading over hills and valleys and in it tall towers, domes, flat bright rooftops, gardens, pools and bridges all bridged above the valleys.” (Boris
Schatz)

In 1918, while living in exile in Tiberias, Boris Schatz, (a Lithuanian
Jewish artist and sculptor who settled in Palestine, founded the Bezalel School in Jerusalem and became known as the "father of Israeli art") wrote the novel "Jerusalem Rebuilt: A Daydream". in the novel he outlines the land of Israel and Jerusalem in particular, from a standpoint of a utopian vision - political, economic and social vision - that is to take place a hundred years later, in the year 2018.
Schatz describes a green city filled with gardens, whose citizens put great effort in cultivating their environment. The city is managed in the spirit of socialist-communist ideology by cooperatives whose members are farmers, industry workers and artists, all collaboratively working as they maintain their physical and mental health. In this city futuristic trains travel, they are powered by solar energy. Schatz describes a designated quarter, “The Children’s Paradise", where children and youth are brought up and are educated. This is reminiscent of the children housing and education programs of the Kibbutz. The cultural-spiritual center of Jerusalem and the country at large is the Temple Mount that has been rebuilt in the same exact place as its predecessor. It is no longer a place of worship through sacrificial
rituals but is rather a museum whose art is the center of life, and as such, is to be held sacred.

'An Other Day' is a film that borrows its inspiration from Boris Schatz’s vision and infuses it with visual interpretation based in manipulations of formal elements of cinema and television
vocabulary. In this film, Shai Dror - born and raised in Jerusalem - offers an alternative to life in this charged and complex city in the day after signing a peace agreement, or, alternatively -after a global war erupted. The movie refers to utopian and dystopian artworks and in this context one cannot ignore its relationship to more contemporary titles like 'The Handmaid' or 'The Leftovers', as well as others, that delve into the dark side of totalitarian regimes and societies' failed attempts to form a new social order. The film takes place in several locations throughout the city of Jerusalem - a church, a museum, an outdoor field - and chronicles a daily
routine that is imbued with rituals, of a group dressed in hooded white sweatsuits (are they prisoners? cult group? Kibbutz members?). The absence of one distinct narrative heightens the
symbolic layers in the piece: Kadishman’s familiar Sheep painting presented as an icon of Israeli art, is echoed throughout the film. The cityscapes of Jerusalem symbolize sublime beauty and are shown from a birds’ eye view or appear as representations of colorful landscape paintings. The final dramatic scene questions what has so far been established as a cinematic truth, and is
asking us to reevaluate and reassess what we have seen.