Director’s Note
When I was seven and a half, I lost my mother. Six months later, I was sexually abused. During my teens, I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder. My father and his wife didn’t know how to handle my emotional state, and sent me to a Society for Protection of Nature hiking camp. Their hope was that it’ll offer me the healing I needed. I did. In camp I met boys and girls my own age, who like myself were labeled as “at-risk youth”. One a month we’d go on exhausting hikes in different locations across the country. During those hikes we started to bond, and for the first time in my life I had real friends who served as a sort of alternative family to me. This hiking camp group changed my life forever, and is the inspiration for the “Survival Camp” where the film’s main character - Rafaela - is being sent. Rafaela’s emotional journey, her trauma and the main conflict she deals with throughout the plot are based on my own biography. “Seven Chapters in Survival” is a journey to the heart of Israel’s periphery: be it geographically, culturally or socially. The film’s main character and her friends all come from dysfunctional families, and are forced to survive and grow out of nothing. The film showcases the wild beauty of these untamed teenagers, their spirit, their courage and their desire to grow and become strong, independent persons despite the unbearable environment in which they grew up and their terrible personal stories. The geography of the film - all the way from Eilat in the south to Hermon in the north - reflects the main character and her friends, the wild landscapes referencing their spirits. During the main characters’ journey, they meet various characters (people and animals alike) who are usually exempt from public, cultural and cinematic discourse. The film focuses on these “transparent” people and locations, giving them the center stage. In all the films I wrote and directed there was always a female heroine who the plot revolved around. My heroines all reflect the physical and emotional journeys I’ve been on, as they face different struggles specific to the female experience. My inspiration for the film’s directing-style, general atmosphere, tone and art are derived from films such as: “Badlands” (Terrence Mallick), “Happy as Lazzaro” (Alice Rohrwacher), “Whale Rider” (Niki Caro), “Beasts of the Southern Wild” (Benh Zeitlin), “Princess Mononoke” (Hayao Miyazaki), “Rosetta” (the Dardenne brothers), “American Honey” (Andrea Arnold) and Nomadland (Chloe Zhao)... Films where the heroines go through a turning of age journey and find salvation and peace by connecting with their wild sides. The film is divided into seven chapters, referencing Jewish mythology where the world is created in seven chapters - including the creation of man. It is a narrative of evolution, of blossoming out of the wilderness, out of the fringes, from nothing. The concept of creating something substantial out of so-called barren land excites me. A lot.