Taboo: Amos Guttman

While he was alive, Amos Guttman remained a red flag for the notoriously conservative Israeli film establishment. As he was a Romanian migrant, he never truly found his place in his new home. As a gay artist, he made the nation’s first movies on the subject. He was an artist who wanted to make films not for the masses but for the few. Conversely, he wanted to make movies that connected with the rest of the world and not only Israel – works that maybe Derek Jarman or Pedro Almodóvar could watch by chance and feel understood, and painted even the most sacred moments in Israel’s history in campy shades and hues. He was adventurous, but Guttman only made four features before dying of AIDS. Taboo is formed by excerpts from his last interview. (Olaf Möller)