8/19/10 Update: Although it played for almost the entire month of June at the Landmark Renaissance, The Little Traitor will be back in Chicagoland for at least one more week of screenings at the Highland Park Theatre beginning Friday, Aug. 20.
To celebrate, filmmaker Lynn Roth is flying in from California, & she will participate in a Q&A after the 7 p.m. screening Sunday on Aug. 22. She is also hosting a reception at a local restaurant from 9 to 10 to thank everyone personally for all this great support. Click HERE for more details!
NOTE: If you’ve already seen the film but want to meet Lynn personally, please join us at the reception @ 9 PM. Contact me directly for location: tzivi@msn.com.
From May ’10 Spotlight: Lynn Roth’s 2008 film The Little Traitor opens May 14 at Landmark’s Renaissance Place Cinema in Highland Park. Set in Jerusalem in 1947 (at the tail end of the British Mandate), The Little Traitor stars Ido Port (from Dear Mr. Waldman) as 12 year old “Proffy.”
One night, failing to make it home before curfew, Proffy is stopped and questioned by a soldier named “Sergeant Dunlop” (Alfred Molina). Proffy has lived his entire life surrounded by refugees and Holocaust survivors (including his emotionally damaged father), and he has absorbed their bone-deep fear of imminent annihilation, but he develops feelings for this gentle giant anyway. Secret meetings with Dunlop are soon discovered by Proffy’s school buddies, and their suspicions ultimately impact the entire neighborhood. Although historical circumstances drive Proffy and Dunlop apart, the film ends with a touching epilogue—a tiny, humanistic statement of hope for a beleaguered world.
The Little Traitor is based on Amos Oz’ 1995 novel Panther in the Basement, but readers of his award-winning memoir A Tale of Love and Darkness (2004) will also recognize many of his idiosyncratic characters and evocative locations. Note: Even though the film was made in Israel, the primary language is English (with some subtitled Hebrew).
