Högskolan i Skövde

The article investigates Russian-Israeli cinema concentrating on the career of the filmmaker as someone having a decisive significance for the film product. However, here it is different migratory paths that are compared: the nature of cinematic representation of Russians abroad in part depends on which generation the filmmaker belongs to. As will be shown, differences in migratory paths are projected onto the portrayal of Russians in Israel, a country that has seen nearly a million people arrive from the former Soviet Union (FSU) since the late 1980s. The two filmmakers I have chosen for my analysis are Leonid Gorovets, a second wave immigrant to Israel, and Arik Kaplun, who is from the first wave. My analytical approach to the filmmakers and their films will involve a strong emphasis on the autobiographical, which will be used to reveal a personal experience behind the films’ representations, where both function as ‘translators’ or informers of Russian cultural values that arise from the diasporic situation, but without involvement in the production from the Russian film industry.