For Natalie Portman's foray into directing, she's decided to turn Amos Oz's autobiographic book A Tale of Love and Darkness into a movie. The novel released in 2004 is Israel's the best selling novel of all time. Like (the original version of) the book Portman decided that for the film version of the story to work, she had to keep the script in Hebrew.
As well as directing, Natalie also plays the role of Fania Mussman Klausner, Amos' mother, though the actress and director (who has born in Jerusalem) could already speak Hebrew, she took great care to master the language. Speaking about why she chose this novel, she said the choice was very easy as she always felt a connection to the story: "The book is really moving and beautifully written and so many of the stories sounded familiar. I had heard many stories about my grandparents and their relationship to books and learning and to language and to Europe and Israel - it felt familiar and something I was interested in exploring."
The story is based on Amos' life as a youngster from 1945 and follows him - and his family - into adulthood. Producer Ram Bergman best explains the film as such: "It's a love story for a language and a country and the people, and of course, for his mother."
Starring: Natalie Portman, Makram Khoury, Shira Haas, Neta Riskin, Gilad Kahana, Amir Tessler, Yonatan Shiray, Asia Naifeld