One of the perks of being a part of the Rochester Jewish Film Festival --aside from making sure that patrons get the correct half of their ticket stubs back to receive free ice cream at Friendly's--is being granted the priviledge to rub elbows with the occassional artiste. This year, when the board was asked who wanted to pick up one of the actors (who was to introduce his own film and open the festival), I involuntarily and excitedly raised my hand.
I've never collected an important person before: and I've certainly never had one in my care. As Heath and I drove to the airport to pick up Sirak Sabahat, an Ethiopean-born Israeli currently living between Paris and New York--it occurred to me that perhaps he wouldn't speak English (who needs English in New York?), and perhaps I don't speak Amharic, Eritrean, French, or Hebrew. But language was no barrier: upon seeing our very mod actor walk through the glass doors of Rochester's "International" Airport, I was relieved that he felt comfortable enough to exchange a friendly hello and a warm hug. Thank goodness: not a diva.
We offered to take Sirak out for lunch and then to the theater to prepare for his film, "Live and Become" (Va, Vie, et Souviens); but he explained that he doesn't eat much, nevermind the toll Western foods take on him, and only after 8 p.m. We offered him a nice shower and a place to rest at the lovely home of our festival director. To this, Sirak asked why he would want to use the home of a stranger when he would be far more comfortable using ours--and so, quietly hoping the other had wiped up the bathroom and changed the towels, Heath and I brought Sirak Sabahat, the "Israeli Brad Pitt," back to our home.
While Sirak showered and changed, we waited, in silence, at the kitchen table. Were this Israel, we'd have to ward off fans and paparazzi, or so it was explained to me later. But anonymity in America can be a blessing. Sirak, freshly dressed in white linen, was ready to explore Rochester, with only his new companions to share him. We brought him to the landmark George Eastman House--former mansion of the inventor of the moving picture--but Sirak was less interested in a museum than in taking a walk, with us, around the block. In the span of less than a mile, Heath and I learned why such a prominent figure in world cinema was so humble: this movie star was once a hunter, he said. He could feed and protect his family with his hands by the time he was eight years old. It took Sirak's family over a year to WALK from his home to the city where they would be airlifted, with hundreds of other Ethiopean Jews, to their homeland. Assimilating to Israeli life was shocking (as "Live and Become" touches upon), but more for his parents, who still do not understand what Sirak does--nor why he is known so famously in Israel.
When we arrived at the Little Theater, Sirak was asked three times to grant interviews--he wasn't thrilled to do it. A glimpse of paparazzi, in the form of our local news channels, made him slightly uncomfortable. But in front of our sold-out crowd, he softened, and his smile warmed the audience, as it had Heath and I. We had trouble letting him off at the airport that night. What a lot we'd learned that day--including why one should always wipe up the bathroom and change the towels.
0 comments:
Post a Comment