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Dr. Pomerantz

Directed by: Assi Dayan
88 Minutes, 2011, Comedy

Dr. Yoel Pomerantz, 64, an unemployed clinical psychologist, lives in poverty in his twelfth floor apartment with his son Yoav, 30, who works as a parking inspector and loves giving out tickets, despite suffering from Asperger’s. Dr. Pomerantz volunteers at ANA, the psychology hotline, and as an expert on suicide callers, he suggests that they come to his clinic for private therapy sessions. One day, a patient named Shtark is offended when Pomerantz arrives late for a session and jumps off his twelfth floor balcony to his death. Shtark’s suicide provides the doctor with a life changing idea—to rent his apartment to potentially suicidal tenants for enormous sums of money. Funny, sad and philosophical, this black comedy raises the important question of why we live or, more accurately, why we don’t just give up on living. After all, “Life is a disease with 100% mortality.”

Credits

Director: Assi Dayan

Producer: Eyal Shiray

Cast: Assi Dayan

Cast: Gavri Banai

Cast: Shlomo Bar-Shavit

Cast: Shmil Ben Ari

Cast: Yosef Carmon

Cast: Evgenia Dodina

Written By: Assi Dayan

Distributor: Israeli Films

Awards

Dayan's new film is funny, touching and horrifying; it has excellent dialogue, is well directed and photographed (the cinematographer is Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov ), and its cast is very skillful.

-Uri Klein, Haaretz

In his latest tour de force, Assi Dayan, Israeli cinema’s enfant terrible, seeks to push Israel’s Ashkenazi elite into its grave, literally and figuratively.

 

-Ronen Shnidman, the Jewish Daily Forward