How is love to be rekindled in a decades-long marriage? In search of what eventually gets lost in relationships, director Ohad Milstein films his parents. He invades their privacy, asks uncomfortable questions, digs out old recordings from the family archive and ultimately begins to question his own marriage.
The crumbling relationship between his aging parents doesn't give Ohad a moment's peace: While his father increasingly finds solace in DIY, his mother spends huge amounts of money on clothes that pile up at home without ever being worn. What begins as a psychogram of the two develops into a reflection on monogamous relationships. Ohad Milstein doesn't restrict himself to recording his conversations with his parents however; instead, he also begins to film his own everyday family life. He talks to his wife about opening the relationship. Little by little, the boundary between documentation and fiction, and that what is observed and what is staged, becomes blurred. And yet one thing ultimately seems crystal clear: as uncomfortable as it may be to sit down together and talk things through, that ultimately might be what is needed to rekindle the spark.
Director Ohad Milstein was an award winner at the 2023 JFBB, receiving the Gershon Klein Documentary Film Prize for KNOCK ON THE DOOR.
Text: Dominique Ott-Despoix
English: Peter Rickerby
Supporting Film: Thirty Tears Old (Daniel Shanni, IL 2023, 12 min)
Credits
original title Monogamia
international title Monogamia
german title Monogamia
JFBB section Feature Film Competition
country/countries IL
year 2023
duration 73
Ohad Milstein
BIO Ohad Milstein is an award winning Israeli documentary filmmaker and producer. He teaches Cinema at Bezalel Academy of Art and Design (Screen-based Arts Department) in Jerusalem and lives in Tel Aviv. Ohad studied Cinema at Tel Aviv University and graduated from the Department of Art & Photography at The Bezalel Academy of Art and Design with an MFA. His films are studies of narrative structure powered by a strong visual component and cinematic expression that examine the boundaries of documentary filmmaking. “Summer Nights” (2021) won the Israeli Academy Award - Best Documentary and the First Prize of DocAviv Film Festival, Tel Aviv. Other cinematic works include: “Knock on the door” (2023), “Flood” (2018), “Week 23” (2016), “Planets” (2014), "Systema" (2010) "Obsession" (2008).
