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Helen Mirren and Aaron Sorkin
Photo: Getty Images

Helen Mirren: I love Israel, it's a great country

Award-winning British actress honored at 29th Israel Film Festival (IFF) in Los Angeles alongside American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin. 'The great thing that Israel has is Israelis, and they will guide it through,' Mirren says upon accepting Career Achievement Award.

Award-winning British actress Helen Mirren and American screenwriter Aaron Sorkin expressed their support for Israel over the weekend while being honored at the 29th Israel Film Festival (IFF) in Los Angeles.

 

 

Mirren, 70, received the Career Achievement Award at the IFF, which opened Wednesday. She used the occasion to recount her memories from Israel, first after the Six-Day War when she lived in Kibbutz Ha'on with her Jewish boyfriend at the time and toured the country from the north to Eilat, and later on a couple of additional visits.

 

Watch Helen Mirren's acceptance speech at the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles (video courtesy of IFF)    (קרדיט: באדיבות פסטיבל הסרטים הישראלי בלוס אנג'לס)

Watch Helen Mirren's acceptance speech at the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles (video courtesy of IFF)

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"This morning I was thinking about Israel and my relationship with that beautiful country," she said in her speech. "My visit to Israel in those early days is one of the building blocks that have made me into the actress that I am, doing the kind of work that I do, that I seek to do, and the way in which I seek to do it.

 

"Likewise, I was thinking about the building blocks that make Israel the great country that it is. And the courage and the commitment of those early people working on the kibbutz that I was lucky enough in those days to meet and work alongside briefly.

 

"I love Israel. I think it's a great, great country. I think that through all the difficulties and all the pain that Israel has suffered in the past and will in the future, the great thing that Israel has is Israelis, and they will guide it through."

 

Helen Mirren opens the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles (Photo: Getty Images)
Helen Mirren opens the Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles (Photo: Getty Images)

 

Helen Mirren is probably best known for her performance as Queen Elizabeth in "The Queen," for which she won the Academy Award for Best Actress in 2007, and for her performance as police detective Jane Tennison on the acclaimed ITV series "Prime Suspect," for which she won several Emmy Awards. In the 2010 film "The Debt," she played the role of a retired Israeli Mossad agent.

 

The IFF award was presented to Mirren by actress Diane Lane, her co-star in "Trumbo," which may bring her another Oscar nomination.

 

Sorkin, 54, received the IFF Film and Television Achievement Award. He is considered one of the most accomplished screenwriters in Hollywood today. His works includes television series "The West Wing" and "The Newsroom," as well as the films "A Few Good Men" (1992), "The Social Network" (2010), for which he won an Oscar, and "Moneyball" (2011). He also wrote the screenplay for "Steve Jobs," which is considered a leading candidate for winning at the upcoming Academy Awards.

 

"It couldn't be more important to support Israel," Sorkin said after receiving the award.

 

Israel Film Festival founder Meir Fenigstein with Helen Mirren and Aaron Sorkin (Photo: Getty Images)
Israel Film Festival founder Meir Fenigstein with Helen Mirren and Aaron Sorkin (Photo: Getty Images)

 

The festival also honored Dr. Sharon Nazarian, founder of the UCLA Younes and Soraya Nazarian Center for Israel Studies and president of the Nazarian Family Foundation, with the 2015 IFF Humanitarian Award.

 

The program of the IFF, which will run till November 19, includes as many as 29 Israeli films, led by Israel's entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 88th Academy Awards, "Baba Joon."

 

"Some 1,200 people came to pay their respects for the State of Israel and Israeli cinema," IFF founder Meir Fenigstein concluded. "On such difficult days, I am glad we succeeded in recruiting three of the leading names in the race to the Oscar season, who arrived to pay their respects to Israeli cinema, which serves as a honorary ambassador of Israel in the US and in the entire world."

 


פרסום ראשון: 11.02.15, 09:37
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