Love Inventory
 Director David Fisher encourages aspiring filmmakers to create conflict, strive for authenticity
Edited for Applause Online by Anna Christopher
David Fisher, director of the Independent Lens documentary Love Inventory airing on WHYY TV12 Sunday, April 18 at 11 p.m., has been writing, producing and directing documentaries for Israeli television since 1989. He says the films he creates are based on meticulous research, and are often motivated by his quest for social justice. Love Inventory is Fisher's first autobiographical film, although all of his works reveals pieces of his own involved and personal attitude.
In 1999, Fisher was appointed the director of the New Documentary Foundation for TV and Cinema in Israel. His past films include Little Big Sister (1998): an intimate profile of a Swedish writer; A Shepherd's Affair (1997) about Jewish and Druze cattle growers on the Golan Heights; and Buried Alive (1996), in which an abandoned woman goes after her husband who disappeared 20 years earlier. In the following conversation, Fisher discusses the challenges of the independent film industry and his key inspirations.
Any updates about the Fisher family?
DF: The women -- the brothers' wives -- are pushing now for creating a film about them. They are obviously jealous that Love Inventory focused on the men in the family.
What did you learn about filmmaking by making this documentary?
DF: This film sums up my career of more then ten years of filmmaking. I felt, I knew, it would be the best of all my films. Yet I learned that a film can reach the level of pure art and when it did so it became the most important thing in my life at the time of production.
What do you hope to achieve with this film?
DF: I hope the film serves as an inspiration to others not to recoil when demanding their rights from the establishment, wherever it is. I hope it creates a debate regarding absorption and immigration in a multicultural society. It's important for me to introduce an uncommon face of Israeli society -- one that is not automatically associated with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Do Israeli and American audiences react differently to Love Inventory?
DF: The film started its international life at the Berlin Film Festival and has traveled to many countries ever since. It is obvious the film is received as a touching and moving piece worldwide.
The independent film business is a difficult one. What keeps you motivated?
DF: Since I've finished my film, I've been nominated as head of a major documentary fund supporting documentary filmmakers. I'm very proud of the achievements of the Israeli documentary film around the world, with our small contribution to it.
Why did you choose to present your film on public television?
DF: I have high regards for public television as a dominating factor in shaping public opinion and discourse, especially without its need to consider rating factors.
What didn't you get done when you were making your film?
DF: I didn't find my sister. But since I went into this mission mainly as a narrative vehicle to tell a multi-layered story, I am not that disappointed.
If you weren't a filmmaker, what kind of work do you think you'd be doing?
DF: I might be a psychologist since I do like people, I enjoy listening to human stories and I am good in making them disclose intimate stories. I might be a storyteller or a publicist, as I naturally understand how to lead audience and/or readers into a different and imaginative world.
What do you think most inspires the filmmaking process?
DF: Dilemmas. Take advantage of dilemmas. Find conflicts. If not found, create them, and try understanding complexities.
What advice do you have for aspiring filmmakers?
DF: Not to take advice but to fight for their own unique voice and authenticity.
Which filmmakers have most influenced your work?
DF: Roman Polanski, Errol Morris.
If you could have one motto, what would it be?
DF: The family is the country of the heart. (I didn't invent this, but adopted it.)
What sparks your creativity?
DF: The quest for justice. The need to protect the private citizen against the establishment. Naive love for so many people. My ego. The urge to create new worlds in a documentary style. Drive to direct -- manipulate? -- people in and into situations.
What are your three favorite films?
DF: Alfred Hitchcock, North by Northwest; Errol Morris, Thin Blue Line; Frederick Wiseman, Hospital
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