Michal Bat-Adam is an Israeli woman director, producer, screenwriter, actress and musician. She became famous for being the first woman in Israel to shoot a feature film. Bat-Adam's paintings are devoted to complex and contradictory family relationships. A number of films explore the line between sanity and mental illness. Some of these films contain autobiographical elements from the life of Michal.
Biography
Michal Bat-Adam (nee Breslava) was born in the Israeli city of Afula. Her parents, Emima and Adam Rubin, immigrated from Warsaw in 1939.
At an early age, Michal lived with his parents in Haifa. Michal Jemima's mother suffered from mental illness and could not take care of the children. When Michal was 6 years old, she was sent to kibbutz Merhavia in the Harod Valley, where her older sister Netta lived.
While living in the kibbutz, both sisters changed their surnames from Rubin to Bat-Adam, which in Hebrew meant "daughter of Adam." At the age of 17, Michal left the kibbutz and returned to her mother to take care of her.
Dreaming of becoming a musician, Bat-Adam began to study at the Tel Aviv Academy of Music. But at some point in time she became interested in theater and, after auditioning, changed her place of study to the Beit Tzvi School of Performing Arts, located in the city of Ramat Gan. At this school, the future star was helped to develop acting skills.
The first performances of Bat Adam took place on the stages of the National Theater of Habim, Theater of Cameri and Theater of Haifa. The young actress often starred in performances.
Career
In 1972, Michal got her first leading role in the film of her future husband Moshe Mizrahi "I love you, Rose". The film took part in the 1972 Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film. With this role, Bat-Adam's career began on the cinema screens.
After a short romantic period, Bat-Adam and Mizrahi got married. This happened in 1973. After that Michal began to constantly appear in the films of her supurg: "House on Chelush Street" (1973), "Daughters, Daughters" (1973) and "Women" (1996). Of particular note is Michal's work in the title role on Madame Rose (1977), which won an Oscar on behalf of France for Best Foreign Language Film.
In the late 1970s, Bat-Adam moved to Paris, where he began his career as a director and screenwriter. Her first film was Moments (1979), a French-Israeli co-production. In the United States, this film is known as "Each Other". The picture was dedicated to the lesbian relationship between the two actresses. In parallel to her work as a director and screenwriter, Michal also played one of the roles in this film. The film received positive reviews from critics and also scandalous fame thanks to a large number of explicit scenes dedicated to the difficult relationship between the heroines.
In the early 1980s, Bat Adam released two films with some autobiographical elements. The first is Thin Line (1980) about a mother struggling with mental illness, the second is Maayan Zvi, dedicated to a young girl left by her parents on a kibbutz.
In the late 1980s, Michal directed two literary adaptations, titled Lover (1986) and A Thousand and One Wives (1989). In addition, she starred in the television drama "Flight of Uncle Peretz" (1993).
In her later films Aya: An Imaginary Autobiography (1994) and Maya (2010), she will return to showing scenes from her biography.
Currently, Bat-Adam works as a teacher at Tel Aviv University and the Chamber Obscura, works as a director and actress, performs solo poetry concerts and even recorded a CD on which she recites poetry to the accompaniment of music of her own composition.
Husband
The first and only husband of Bat Adam was Moshe Mizrahi, a famous Israeli film director. Born in Egypt in 1931, immigrated to Israel in 1946, studied filmmaking in France. He won an Oscar for his film Madame Rose, which tells the story of a former Parisian prostitute who survived Auschwitz.
Moshe made 14 films in Israel and France. Three of them received Academy Award nominations for Best Foreign Language Films. These are “I love you, Rose”, “House on Chelush Street” and “Madame Rose”, and the last of them received the award.
In 1994, the Haifa Film Festival was named after him for his lifetime contributions to Israeli cinema.
Until 2009, he taught acting at Tel Aviv University, was a leading employee of the cinematography workshop of the film school of this university.
Moshe Mizrahi died in 2018 at the age of 86.
Acting creativity
Michal Bat-Adam starred in the following films as an actress:
- "I love you, Rose" (1972);
- "House on Chelush Street" (1973);
- Daughters, Daughters (1973);
- Rachel's Man (1975);
- Madame Rose (1977);
- Moments (1979);
- The Real Game (1980);
- "Hana K." (1983);
- The Silver Dish (1983);
- Ataliya (1984);
- Ambassador (1984);
- The Impossible Spy (1987 TV film);
- Lover (1986);
- Aya: An Imaginary Autobiography (1994);
- Women (1997);
- "BeTipul" (TV series 2008).
Directing creativity
As a director and screenwriter, Michal Bat-Adam has released the following films:
- Moments (1979);
- The Thin Line (1980);
- Boy Meets Girl (1982);
- Lover (1986);
- A Thousand and One Wives (1989);
- The Deserter's Wife (1991);
- Uncle Peretz's Flight (1993);
- Aya: An Imaginary Autobiography (1994);
- Love at Second Sight (1999);
- Life is Life (2003);
- Maya (2010).
Awards and achievements
Israel Film Institute Award for Best Actress in I Love You Rose (1972) and Athalia (1984).
Israel Film Institute Award for Best Film and Best Director for Moments (1979) and Thin Line (1980).
2019 Opfir Award for Lifetime Achievement in Film.
