Timeline Productions

Timeline Productions - Portfolio

Documentaries

A STAGE OF MIND (Israel 2005)

Director: Niv Cohen

Producer/DOP: Dan Shanan

Edior: Yenon Vardi
Time: 54 minutes
Language: Hebrew (English subtitles)

Two stage actors play out on the theatre of life as they come to terms with growing old.

Mordechai is the vital and energetic 90 year old actor and his monologue from "Haimke the Coachman" forms the primary narrative in this story. It also becomes an obvious metaphor for what is playing out in his own life. Struggling against the establishment's bias for younger actors, Mordechai's refusal to quit theatre life is preceded by the documentary's opening question "Was it all worth it". Having invested life's passion and tears into his chosen profession, the marginalising of Mordechai by the establishment is viewed as a form of betrayal by the actor.

Ruth was the first lady of theatre in Haifa but in her 70s she is preparing for her comeback in the play "The Golden Pond".

The parallel struggles of the two actors culminate in the anticipated premier night of "The Golden Pond". The two actors are reunited again after a long time. How is Ruth's re-entry into theatre life received by the public and the critics? Does Mordechai finally resolve the answer to the documentary's opening question?

"A Stage of Mind" is a sensitive and heart warming look into one of life's inevitable questions.

International Distributor:

MAKARA AT MAKARA (New Zealand 2004)
Direcrors: Alex Lee & Dan Shanan

Producer: Alex Lee
Time: 12 minutes
Language: English and Hebrew (English subtitles)

Following an incident of vandalism in the Jewish graveyard in Makara, New Zealand, Dan Shanan goes out to examine the reactions of the Jewish community and other New Zealanders to an act of Antisemitism in a country that has hardly known the phenomenon.

Makara (Click for a 1:19min clip)