One of the most successful Israeli series in the world, “Fauda”, Is about to return to the screen this summer. Today (Sunday) yes gathered the stars of the series at the end of filming in Israel and ahead of the trip to Budapest, for a press conference with the creator of the series Lior Raz, and the actors Idan Amidi, Rona Lee Shimon and the new acquisition on the set – Lucy JobWho will tell Maariv Online about the fourth season that takes the plot outside the borders of Israel and the West Bank, the filming experiences in the days of the Corona and the surprising success in Arab countries.
“The season takes place in several countries, within Israel, in the territories – in Jenin, and in Belgium,” Raz said at first. “This is a plot that spreads to many places. The team and Doron find themselves once again in a Sisyphean pursuit of terrorists. “The complexity in which we live. As we delve deeper into season and season, we try to understand and unravel the complexities of the country in which we live.”
Fauda’s cast speaks. Photo: Courtesy of yes, Yoni Sapir
“I play Maya Benjamin, formerly Maya Talwalbi, originally from the Jenin refugee camp, but at a relatively young age she and her family moved within the borders of the State of Israel,” Job said of the character she plays in the new season of the award-winning series. “She lives as an Israeli for everything, a police officer, married to an Israeli, lives extensively in a kibbutz and at some point reality strikes her in the face. She gets involved in things she did not plan to get involved in.”
What was it like to shoot in Corona?
“First of all I must say that there was a waistline of the entire industry,” Rona Lee Shimon replied of the challenging period. “There was a clinging to doing and continuing life ahead despite the global epidemic, and continuing to create despite this thing. The very fact that a series of this magnitude managed to go into production, with all the difficulties this thing brought, it was really impressive. There were many such productions and we are just one, It’s just amazing and it’s just proof that life had to win. “
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“We’re all in Social Security claims, have our noses enlarged with all the sticks,” Idan Amidi joked. “There were a lot of tests that would not embarrass a hospital. I think it was a bubble that was good, when you come to the set and know things are going on then do not think about it. When you go out after a month and hear the omicron is raging, because I have another profession, “Significantly, there were no performances at all, nowhere to sing and suddenly this production works like a well-oiled machine and aspired to all of us, and certainly to those who work behind the scenes and let us do the work,” he concluded.
Congratulations on the international success, what reactions did you get from it from the world?
“It’s everywhere we go,” Raz said. “One story for example, Idan and I traveled in Dubai, we could not walk around at all, everywhere people approached us, Iranians, Lebanese, Syrians, Kuwaitis, Americans, Mexicans, Indonesians, Indians. It’s just a melting pot there, there are so many people from all “Mini places,” he said.
Raz shared a special moving moment: “We went to a club where there was an Iranian singer who knew us, she said ‘hello’ and I told her there was an era here, and he went up to sing with her – Iranian, Israeli in Dubai with a Lebanese audience applauding. There are plenty of cases like this, I was recently York, and I suddenly heard a squeak of the brakes, I see a junk car with a Chinese driver getting out of the car, ‘Take a Picture’ – you do not know where it will come from. It’s a success that is fun and I think it promotes not only us personally, the actors and the art, but The industry, too. “
Did you get to absorb non-positive comments as well? Are people upset?
“I think Hamas liked the series less, they wrote on their website that it is a series that is entirely funded by the Israeli government – I wish it was not worth watching because it is propaganda, but they put a link to the first episode on their website. It is an art, there are many people abroad And even in a country where the series does not speak to them, they think the acting is not good, the directing is not good, it is an art, it is impossible for everyone to love everything. “
Amadi also shared the responses he received: “I was surprised by the responses from the Arab world that they really embrace. At the end of this series that is filmed in Israel, they put us behind the scenes of units that are occasionally heard in the news or newspaper, and I must say the responses in the Arab world are very embracing. – York before the Corona, I went into a hotel, and the Belle-Boy in the elevator said to me, ‘You’re not playing Fauda?’ I said ‘Yes,’ so he said, ‘What are you doing in this hotel?’ “I must admit that the reactions in the world are fun and embracing.”
Quite surprisingly we are loved in Arab countries, what do you hang it on?
“Our narrative is Israeli, the person who writes the series is Israeli, but to tell a good story you also have to understand the other side. You have to connect emotionally to the other side, we try to understand the Palestinian side, understand it, understand what’s going on there. “The biggest terrorist has children, a wife, friends – that’s one thing. Second thing – I think we have a lot of respect for the Arabic language, we like the Arabic language, we try to be very accurate in our accent.”
Lior Raz in Fauda (Photo: courtesy of yes, Neti Levy)Raz shared another interesting curiosity about the reactions to the series in the Arab world: “A few months ago, Al Dostor, which is a very important and large Egyptian newspaper, had an article on the front page about us changing the young Arab’s perception of what an Israeli looks like. Otherwise because ‘Hit & Run’ was there in the first place for a long time and ‘Fauda’, and they suddenly see that the Israeli they always perceive as Klags – suddenly he has a face, and he is a human being and he has children and he has a wife, etc. So there is here Duality. I know a lot of right-wing people who say, ‘I feel empathy for the Palestinian side all of a sudden.’ We managed to cause some confusion. “Our story, of our team, of the perception of who is Israeli in our eyes and we are trying to tell a good story.”
A parallel series from Hamas’ side will be launched soon, are you curious to see?
Lucy Job: “It’s intriguing. I’ll watch at least one episode.”
The main star, Raz, said: “We do not know, we very much hope that they will succeed and we hope that they will also see the Israeli side as we show the Palestinian side.” Amadi was a little more joking: “This is a copyright infringement,” he claimed, but Raz later claimed he was complicit.
Lucy, your character as I understand it is a divided figure, between the Israeli identity, and the Arab identity. You feel that there are similarities to you, because they also talked about how much you are Israeli and how much Arab.
“To a certain extent, nevertheless my character was born in a refugee camp in Jenin, much more hardcore. On the other hand, she makes a path to the heart of Israeliness – to enlist in the police. Very Palestinian citizens of Israel that you live in a country and you want to live your daily life, but then very big questions come knocking on your door, and you have to understand what you are doing with it and where you stand in relation to all these internal conflicts – and also the big external conflict. I think a lot of people will connect with this character, because as Lior said, she is a character who is a bit confusing somewhere like ‘Fauda’ creates some confusion and confronts you with big questions, so also this character, who thinks she lives in her own world and everything is perfect she finds herself “She has a lot of big questions about her identity.”
Rona Lee, can you share with me good and challenging experiences from the filming?
“I feel like we’ve been together for so many years, that there’s a sense of home, I mean – we’re laughing full, we have a feeling we’re carrying this thing along with the captains of this ship. From a distance of time, we’ve been together for seven years, it’s We’re good weight. We’re good friends, we consult, we’re involved on some level in each other’s lives and it’s very heartbreaking that it’s your workplace, that you create with people that you love so much, that you’re connected to them, that you go through with them. “A specific experience, it’s more of a general sense of what it’s like for me to work with these people.”