Album 61

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Album 61

To this day, only sixteen people in the world have earned the title of World Chess Champion. Boris Gelfand of Rishon LeZion was the first Israeli to compete for the title. All his life Boris prepared for the occasion. From the age of six, he was raised to be a chess champion. His father devoted most of his time to developing his son’s chess skills, setting an ambitious and demanding daily schedule and obsessively documenting every event in the child’s life. This is a film about a clash between the two strongest minds in the world, but it is also a film about parental choices and the dilemma of whether to dictate for one’s child the way to self-fulfillment or to be a liberal and lenient pushover.

Halil Efrat, himself an average chess player, sets out in the footsteps of the fascinating character of Boris Gelfand, and in search of the answer to the question: can every one of our children, with a little bit of good Soviet education, turn into a genius?

Festivals and Awards:

The Jerusalem Film Festival, 2013;   Washington Jewish Film Festival, 2014;  Milano International FICTS Festival, 2013

Director: Halil Efrat

Producer: Lee Yardeni, Aviram Buhris

Cinematographer: Vitali Krivich

Editor: Halil Efrat

Supporter(s): The New Fund for Cinema and Television, Yes Doco

Distributor: Go2Films

Subtitles: English, Hebrew

Film Name in Hebrew: אלבום 61

To this day, only sixteen people in the world have earned the title of World Chess Champion. Boris Gelfand of Rishon LeZion was the first Israeli to compete for the title. All his life Boris prepared for the occasion. From the age of six, he was raised to be a chess champion. His father devoted most of his time to developing his son’s chess skills, setting an ambitious and demanding daily schedule and obsessively documenting every event in the child’s life. This is a film about a clash between the two strongest minds in the world, but it is also a film about parental choices and the dilemma of whether to dictate for one’s child the way to self-fulfillment or to be a liberal and lenient pushover.

Halil Efrat, himself an average chess player, sets out in the footsteps of the fascinating character of Boris Gelfand, and in search of the answer to the question: can every one of our children, with a little bit of good Soviet education, turn into a genius?

Festivals and Awards:

The Jerusalem Film Festival, 2013;   Washington Jewish Film Festival, 2014;  Milano International FICTS Festival, 2013

Director: Halil Efrat

Producer: Lee Yardeni, Aviram Buhris

Cinematographer: Vitali Krivich

Editor: Halil Efrat

Supporter(s): The New Fund for Cinema and Television, Yes Doco

Distributor: Go2Films

Subtitles: English, Hebrew

Film Name in Hebrew: אלבום 61

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