Epilogue

Hayuta Ve Berl

A beautiful, heart-breaking tale of an elderly Israeli couple who look out their window and no longer recognise the country or its people around them.

Even if a screening is sold out, tickets are often available 30 minutes before the start of the film at the box office at each venue.


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  • Director-Screenwriter Amir Manor
  • Producer Assaf Amir
  • With Yosef Carmon, Rivka Gur
  • Israel 2012
  • 96 mins
  • Sales Urban Distribution International

An elderly Israeli couple look out at a country they no longer recognise. Greed has replaced sacrifice, cynicism has overtaken hope and romanticism as the order of the day. That is the starting point for Amir Manor’s beautiful and heartbreaking Epilogue. Set against a backdrop of huge domestic upheaval in Israel – hundreds of thousands of demonstrators marched across the country in September last year to protest rising economic inequity – Epilogue emerges as a paean of nostalgic regret for the gradual passing of Israel’s founders. It also stands in its own, more modest, right as a poignant portrayal of a love affair all the more meaningful as it reaches its dying embers. Even as husband and wife Hayuta and Berl observe their neighbours with ever-increasing bemusement, their struggle for a better future burns undiminished.
Ali Jaafar

Director statement

Three years ago I lost both my grandparents to cancer. Both were, for me, living models of the greatness of human spirit, and left a huge void. To the pain of their departure, more pain was added, when I saw how, in their hour of distress and anguish, they were forced to realise the illusion of their most cherished beliefs. The solidarity nurtured by their lifelong work was swept away by personal interests. Joint responsibility, caring for others, reciprocity – all these were swept away by blind and alienated consumption relations, and despicable bureaucracy. This isn't only a personal story. The film presents a painful portrayal of old age in Israel. The feelings of transparency, loneliness, being a burden, trampled-upon honour, and lack of a sense of belonging, have become a great distress which stems from society’s attitude to its past and founders. The physical and mental state of the elderly is but a symptom of the spiritual state of a society that sheds all its moral treasures, a society addicted to profits, personal benefits and interests, that completely neglects its weaker segments, and in this case, its very own founders and creators.
Amir Manor

Director biography

Raised in Rishon Lezion, Israel, he worked for a while for a socialist youth movement, then became a magazine and newspaper journalist in both Jerusalem and Tel Aviv. Concurrently, he graduated from the Film & Television Department at Tel Aviv University. His 40-minute film Reds won the prize for the Best Drama at the Jerusalem Film Festival in 2007. Epilogue is his first feature film.

Filmography

2006 Shemesh Zala’afot (Pouring Sun) [s]
2007 Reds [s]
2008 Ruin [s]; Lands [s]
2012 Hayuta ve Berl (Epilogue)