ADAM RESURRECTED

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Synopsis From one of the most acclaimed books in Israeli history comes ADAM RESURRECTED, a moving story about the rediscovery of life in the aftermath of war. Adapted from the novel that has been called Israel’s Catch-22 for its dark comedy and fierce intensity, the film is a provocative tale of friendship and redemption, irreverence and grief, humans and dogs . . . and the quest for sanity in a world that seems to have gone mad. At the center of the story is Adam Stein (JEFF GOLDBLUM), once a popular German cabaret star who now, in the early 1960s, is living in a very different kind of three-ring circus: an experimental insane asylum in the Negev Desert in Israel. Brilliant, manipulative, exquisitely talented and exuberantly free-spirited, Adam outsmarts his doctor (Golden Globe nominee DEREK JACOBI), rebelliously leads his fellow patients, philanders with the institution’s ravishing nurse (award-winning Israeli actress AYELET ZURER) and resists all attempts at a cure. But when Adam encounters a young boy who has been locked in the asylum because he believes he is a dog, it sparks powerful memories of the events that shattered Adam more than 15 years before, when his own identity was blurred by a Nazi commandant (two-time Academy Award® nominee WILLEM DAFOE). Can a boy who thinks he’s a dog help a man regain his humanity? This story of two imaginary dogs in the desert drives ADAM RESURRECTED’s exploration of the profound human capacity for renewal. The film is directed by Paul Schrader (AFFLICTION, AUTO FOCUS) and the screenplay is by award-winning Israeli screenwriter Noah Stollman, based on the 1968 novel by Yoram Kaniuk. The book, controversial yet lauded as one of the great works of international literature, is a searing journey through the post-WWII psyche that illuminates the indistinct lines between freedom and captivity, truth and artifice, tragedy and comedy. A unique Israeli-German co-production, the film is produced by Ehud Bleiberg (THE BAND’S VISIT) and Werner Wirsing (2 DAYS IN PARIS). # # # # #
About The Production “Not all who are free scorn their chains.” -- Doris Lessing, Quoted in Yoram Kaniuk’s Adam Resurrected First published in 1968, Yoram Kaniuk’s ADAM RESURRECTED was instantly controversial, yet soon began to draw the admiration of the world’s foremost writers and literary critics. The late Susan Sontag compared Kaniuk to Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Time Magazine measured him against Dostoyevsky and the New York Times anointed him “one of the most innovative, brilliant novelists in the world.” The novel – the story of Adam Stein, once a famous European clown, animal trainer and mind reader, now living as a compellingly unhinged mental patient in an upscale Israeli institution – was the first to truly grapple, in luminous and darkly comic fiction, with the sheer impossibility of returning to ordinary life after the horrors of World War II and Fascism. Kaniuk added something new, even transcendent, to the conversation about catastrophe and survival: a biting inquiry into a question that continues to be all too relevant: how do shattered souls sustain the most basic human needs of love, laughter and desire in the face of terror and absurdity? More than four decades after the book’s release, ADAM RESURRECTED (once a project associated with the late Orson Welles) has finally become a motion picture, directed by Paul Schrader and featuring stand-out performances from Jeff Goldblum – in what he calls the “juiciest and most challenging role” he’s ever played – as well as Willem Dafoe, Derek Jacobi and Ayelet Zurer. The inspiration for ADAM RESURRECTED came in the aftermath of a more recent war. After being wounded in the Independence War of Israel in 1948, the writer Yoram Kaniuk moved to New York where he had two deeply affecting personal experiences. He met a group of concentration camp survivors and heard their stirring stories; and he encountered the unusual tale of a boy in a mental institution who had been raised on a chain and believed he was a dog. Thus, the basic structure of Adam Resurrected was put into place to become the story of a man who was once treated as a dog who befriends a dog who is really a boy. From that confluence of characters spilled out a richly layered, poetic tale of a man in a profound psychic crisis. Kaniuk would set his story in an extraordinary place: the Seizling Institute, a fictional asylum, one Kaniuk wrote was created by a rich Cleveland widow who believed that cutting- edge psychological techniques might help troubled concentration camp survivors. No such place existed at the time, but the novel would prove prophetic. In the 1980s, Israel created AMCHA, the National Israeli Center for Psychosocial Support of Holocaust Survivors and The Second Generation, a psychiatric treatment center dedicated to aging survivors and their children. Inside this intricately imagined world, Adam Stein comes to life as one of literature’s epic characters: a divine fool who is alternately an entertainer, a swindler, a drunk, a seducer, a clairvoyant, a genius and a madman. Ultimately, he is a broken soul who finds redemption in unlikely human connections. 3
Page 1: an Ehud Bleiberg & Werner Wirsing p
Page 5 and 6: Stollman was exhilarated by the mon
Page 7 and 8: Indeed, the task of adapting the st
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Page 11 and 12: elaborate model to reflect the Bauh
Page 13 and 14: PAUL SCHRADER - Director Filmmaker
Page 15 and 16: NOAH STOLLMAN - Screenwriter Noah S
Page 17 and 18: AYELET ZURER - “Gina Grey” Ayel
Page 19 and 20: Credits An Ehud Bleiberg/Werner Wir
Page 21 and 22: Nazi Soldier #1 Vali Albinet Nazi S
Page 23 and 24: Art Director Serban Porupca Asst. A
Page 25 and 26: Transportation Aurelia Paraschiva T
Page 27 and 28: Make-Up & Hair Department Key Make-
Page 29 and 30: Trailer Editing Chris Walter Films
Page 31 and 32: Filmstiftung NRW & Cinema Project,

ADAM RESURRECTED

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