HPPUB MOVIE REVIEW of Positive Story

Title: Positive Story (Sipur Hiyuvi)

Release Date: 1996

Nationality and Language: Israel

Running time: 42 min

MPAA Rating: Not available (suggest PG-13)

Distributor and Production Company: Frameline

Director; Writer: Ran Kozer

Producer: Anat Dotan

Cast:

Technical:

Relevance to DOASKDOTELL site:

Review:

Movie Review: Positive Story

42 Min; Produced and Directed by Ran Kotzer; suggested rating: "PG-13"

Released by Frameline Pictures

Shown with "Rubber Gloves" (Bugsby), "Positif," "Blind Eye to Justice," and "Don't Rub, Johnny" (Bugsby) at Bell Auditorium at the University of Minnesota in an international film festival in 1998.

This long short is usually billed with the other films listed at film festivals, as on World AIDS day. The film provides a look at gay life in Israel from the viewpoint of an ectomorphic, balding young man who has just learned he is HIV+. You don't need scalp hair if you put on wigs and dresses and buff yourself up to be in drag. You can be somebody else for a while.

Israel, the focus of The Land of the Bible, is a place where individualism remains subordinate national and religious identity. Yet, the Jewish people who live in that homeland do so largely because they want to. (I put aside for now the political questions about the Palestinians). The "gay community" is much weaker there as a cultural force than in the United States and western Europe; nevertheless Israel has no problem with conscripting gays to serve in its military and allowing them to serve with distinction.

The other long short, "Blind Eye" was a somewhat whiney look at HIV+ women in California prisons.

Related reviews: Latter Days, etc.

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