A journey full of secrets and deceptions, which begins with real estate issues but actually devotes itself to matters of the heart, in Dana Modan’s first film as director, based on a graphic novel with family autobiographical elements, written and illustrated by her sister, Rutu Modan.
Regina and her granddaughter Mika embark on a journey to Poland to reclaim their family property seized during World War II.
But their quest quickly unravels. Regina unexpectedly decides to abandon the mission entirely, leaving Mika lost and confused.
To complicate matters further, an irritating distant relative keeps appearing at every turn. Just as Mika finds herself falling for a charming tour guide, Regina seizes the opportunity to pursue her own hidden agenda: finding her long-lost love, from whom she was separated seventy years ago.
‘The Property’ blends the different and similar characteristics of the Modan sisters as creators, and echoes their previous works: on the one hand, the pull to an ironic gaze and to comic situations steeped in black humor, evident in the television series created by Dana (‘Love Hurts’, ‘Significant Other’, ‘Aviram Katz’), and on the other hand, a dreamy-melancholic atmosphere that characterizes Rutu’s stories and illustrations. Cinematographer Yaron Scharf does a good job of translating the visual perspective of the illustrator Modan into film, and also of capturing Warsaw in a way that blurs its past and its present into a uniform, theatrical time, which well serves the journey that the grandmother and granddaughter take down memory lane.” (Shani Litman, Haaretz)
StageTalk Following the screening, a conversation with the film director Dana Modan
