Experiencing Interruptions?

Primo and Sabbatai

Primo is obsessed with Sabbatai Sevi, the false Messiah from Smyrna, whose life was a sequence of religious and sexual scandals.
Identifying with the lost soul of the forgotten Sevi, Primo decides to make a film about him.
This cinematic journey will shake up his his world in a way he could not imagine….

  • Yoav Tal
    Director
    Savage the Man
  • Yoav Tal, Asa Eitan
    Writer
    Savage the Man
  • Yoav Tal
    Producer
    Savage the Man
  • Nadav Bin Nun
    Key Cast
    "Primo"
  • Lana Ettinger
    Key Cast
    "Sarah"
  • Ariel Krizhopolsky
    Key Cast
    "Elisha "
  • Project Type:
    Feature
  • Runtime:
    1 hour 23 minutes
  • Completion Date:
    July 31, 2020
  • Production Budget:
    100,000 USD
  • Country of Origin:
    Israel
  • Country of Filming:
    Israel
  • Language:
    Hebrew
  • Shooting Format:
    Digital
  • Film Color:
    Color
  • First-time Filmmaker:
    No
  • Student Project:
    No
  • Digital Cinema Package:
    Unavailable
Director Biography - Yoav Tal

Yoav Tal
Film Director, Producer, Writer
Selected Films
2020 Primo and Sabbatai, Tragic-Comedy, 83 min.
2017 Savage the Man, Experimental, 70 min. Commercial Screenings in Israel, Sydney World Film Festival, Best Experimental Movie 2017
2014 The Sick Time, Experimental, 50 min. Gallery Screenings
2010 Thorns, Experimental, 23 min.

Add Director Biography
Director Statement

Few years ago I started to explore the life story of Sabbatai Sevi, the false Jewish messiah from Smyrna (Izmir today). Sabbatai Sevi founded the largest messianic movement in the modern era. Most of the entire Jewish world followed him, carried away into a weird and ecstatic journey of belief.

In my Exploration I discovered a complex and legendary world of theological, political and religious battles, which I had no idea about. Sabbatai Sevi's Scandalous life became more than a historic event for me as it startled my life. These discoveries became a mean to ask questions about my current identity as an Israeli in the middle-east with a suppressed Jewish background.

The Sabbatai Sevi story has legendary attributes and should be treated this way. From this perspective I decided to build a movie inside a movie in order to create a multi narrative opposed to an absolute sequence of events.