MOSSAD! Begins Previews At Israel Film Festival In LA

Mossad!, the absurdly wild and hilarious comedy on the daily goings-on of the Mossad, Israel's international intelligence agency, which broke Israel's box-office records to become the country's number one comedy of the summer, will have a special sneak preview at the 33rd Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 16th at 7:15 pm the Ahrya Fine Arts Theatre, Beverly Hills. Director Alon Gur Arye and David Zucker (Airplane!, The Naked Gun, Scary Movie), the pioneer filmmaker for the spoof-comedy genre who served as a creative consultant on the film, will host a post Q&A immediately following the screening. To purchase tickets, visit: www.IsraelFilmFestival.com

Mossad! borrows its style from the classic American comedies Airplane! and The Naked Gun to poke fun at the Israeli Mossad and American/Hollywood cinematic clichés. Guy Moran (Tsahi Halevi, Fauda) is a sleek Mossad agent who must deal with Linda Harris (Efrat Dor, Sneaky Pete) a manipulative CIA operative, with each of them competing to get the credit for saving the world from an international terror organization. When an American tech-billionaire is kidnapped in Jerusalem, the CIA decides not to depend on Israel any longer and sends its own agent for the rescue operation. Relations between her and the Mossad agents reach the level of "respect and suspect". She is backed by substantial budgets and operates by the book whereas he is spontaneous, looks for short-cuts, and takes all the credit for himself. If the mission is a failure, Haim, the Mossad's Director won't be able to fulfill his ambition of lighting one of the Independence Day torches in a live TV broadcast, something that simply is inconceivable in his eyes.

Director Alon Gur Arye is scholar of comedy filmmaking. He already created a film with the theme of Mossad!. He had made a spy spoof, a 40-minute film on a shoestring budget, Israeli Intelligence, which became a popular midnight cult movie. It spawned running activities and competitions with its fans reciting the script verbatim, some seeing it over 100 times in the cinema.

The connection with David Zucker was made when Arye realized that Zucker's movies carefully recreated the genres they parodied. Arye reached out to his idol, who, he learned was planning to visit the Middle East. When giving Zucker a ride from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, he popped a video of "Israeli Intelligence" on a portable DVD player and a comedy union was born.