Even if on the face of it there is no connecting thread between the Black Panthers protest and the underground organization Nili, which operated more than a thousand years before it, there is one. Yes, Danny Verta (“Nokyo”), the director of the film “Coco Ben 19”, which was inspired Pantharit Velo will be dedicated this Friday at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, one of the main events in “Soundtrack”, a film festival about music, he is also the author of “Nili 1917”, a book-screenplay in an unusual format, which appeared these days in “Parads” publishing house.
Nili? – Yes! Winter of 1959. Verta, then a seven-year-old child, travels by train from Jerusalem to Zichron-Yacob and during the trip he is captivated by the stories of his father, the historian Prof. Meir Verta, about the plots of the mysterious spy network. “As a child, I was carried away by The dramatic elements in the story, including the underground, torture, the few against the many and displays of heroism in the face of the oppressive and corrupt Ottoman rule,” recalls Verta. “While my father, an expert of the period, was delving into the documents at the Ahernson House, I sat down on the grass and saw in my imagination the mail pigeons of that time alongside the bad Turks, Sara Ahernson, the heroine and the British ship that signaled from the sea.”
The childhood memory of visiting the picturesque baron colony did not let go of Verta even when he grew up and became a film director without studying directing. In the course of time, beyond his ongoing interest in the Nili subject, the desire arose in him to be the first director to direct a film about it.
How has a feature film not yet been made on such a subject that beckons to the cinematic dimension?
“I’m not surprised by that. Because it’s a period film, the whole thing is very expensive and when I approached the film fund, what they offered me was not enough. I was promised that if I brought the rest of the money, which is a lot, they would help, but in the end I was unable to raise the two million The remaining dollar and a half.”
So instead of a movie you come out with a book-script.
“During the corona virus, I went back and read the script I wrote years ago and it got stuck. That’s when I had the idea of writing a screenplay, at least for the time being.”
If someone expected you to write comprehensively about Nili, they will see that you mainly concentrated on one of the main characters in the plot.
“Indeed, at the center of what I wrote is the multi-faceted figure of Yosef Lishansky, who attracted me more than other figures in the organization, being the man everyone was chasing and at the age of 27, the Turks executed him by hanging in Damascus, after the Bedouins betrayed him while he was disguised as a Bedouin.”
Was the truth a candle to your feet in writing your screenplay book?
“Not completely. There are things, about which it is not known how they happened and about which one can demonstrate an elastic attitude.”
Even so… you put Lishansky in bed with Sarah Ahernson!
“It’s true and I’m not the one who invented the romance between them. One of the things that attracted me to the story is the absurdity according to which she fell in love with the person who was suspected of murdering her beloved (Avshalom Feinberg – Y. BA).”
Do you already have an actor for the Lishansky role in case you direct a film on the subject?
“When I started writing the script ten years ago, I thought about Itay Tiran.”
And for the role of Sara Ahernson?
“There was some appeal to Natalie Portman, but nothing happened. Maybe…”
Now, perhaps, we will move on to the second reason for which we have gathered. And here the question is what about the grandson of the writer Shlomo Tzemach, Ben-Gurion’s friend and fellow citizen – and the Panthers who, as mentioned, inspired you to create your film “Coco Ben 19”.
“There is no relation to my grandfather. As a young Jerusalemite, I got to know the Black Panthers closely. I was even at several meetings when they started their activities in ’71. Almost 15 years later, I created the film following the case in which policemen shot to death a boy, a member of a troubled neighborhood And a member of a rock band.”
The producer of the film was Natan Zahavi?
“This is not the one who is known today as ‘nervous’, but another Natan Zahavi, who lived for years in Los Angeles and then worked in Israeli television as an editor and producer. He liked the script of ‘Coco Ben 19’ and joined me in creating the film. The one who joined us is Menachem Golan, after he invested money in the film, he offered me to direct ‘Kofiko in Africa’ with that Natan Zahavi as producer. While I didn’t feel like going to Africa, Zahavi accepted the offer and from there the path was paved for him to a career in Hollywood.”
The one who will appear on Friday at the festival screening of the film at the Cinematheque is Shlomo Mizrahi, the guitar legend from Jerusalem, the creator of the music for the film, which was based on non-professional actors, including Udi Cohen, who starred in the film as Coco. “It was a boy, who worked with his father assembling solar boilers and I heard him playing the guitar in the street,” Verta recalled. “Today, he is in Los Angeles, like Zahavi and he has a musical career there.”
“Koko Ben 19” (Photo: Yossi Wayne)The film was shot in the ruins of the Mamilla compound in Jerusalem, which before the Six Day War was in the firing range of the Jordanian legionnaires. “The ruins there were a tremendous location for the film, really a photo-site as ordered,” he notes.
After Verta finished studying history and psychology, he went down to Sharm el-Sheikh – and opened the fish restaurant “The Last Refuge” there. Verta: “During my university studies, I was involved in the night life in Jerusalem and I even owned a bar there. From there I went to Sharm to clear my head – and I fell in love with the place. In the restaurant we served only fish brought from the nearby sea, rice, salad and wine. There was a wonderful feeling of the end of the world there, But two years were enough for me in this amazing place with a fever that dried my brain and made me return to civilization.”
That’s when he met the director Danny Wellman and was an accessory in his TV movies “Basha’s Story” and “Gimple Tam”. From there he moved to another Dany, the Waxman family, and served as the artistic director of his film “Transit” and wrote the script for his film “Khamsin” with him, which made him want to direct his own film and that was “Coco Ben 19”.
Is it possible to direct a film without studying cinema?
“I am the proof that it is possible, but after all the accolades and awards it still sits on me, although precisely because I did not study I had the freedom to create as I wished.”
Verta later created his film “Yellow Asphalt”, with a story about Bedouins, whom he met years earlier in Sharm and now they are also present in his script book about Nili. This award-winning film also pampered his bank account, after it was produced a version Hollywood. Another film he directed is “Metallic Blues”. 16 years have passed since then and he still hasn’t released the Nazarene for another film. Verta is in no rush. “As the owner of the rights to my films, I can pretty much live on the royalties, which are paid for their screenings,” Meir Verta, who is also engaged in artistic photography and has presented in exhibitions.
As someone who used to jump between directing feature films and documentaries, his latest film for the time being, “The Human Turbine”, about the Palestinian shepherds in Susia and their encounter with Jews there, won him the best documentary award at the Haifa Film Festival a dozen years ago.
Verta, divorced and the father of two daughters, lives in the Galilee communal settlement of Kfar Hanania, near Amirim. “I wanted to get away from the center and I was looking for a place with a view and on the ground, what’s more, nearby Karmiel has a train everywhere,” he explains.
When Verta was finally asked what his dream was, he replied: “I would be very happy if “Nili 1917″ became a fascinating television series, which could bring the story of the Nili people, an important part of our DNA, to a generation of Today”.
And “Nokia”?
(Laughs) “It’s something that stuck with me in my teenage years and I couldn’t get rid of it. In any case, it has nothing to do with Pinocchio.”