Meeting with Gila Almagor

Gila Almagor is the lead actress in Israel, she was born in pre-state Israel in 1939 and became a famous actress in Israel, both in theater and film. It is great to meet her tonight, we do have a great talk about theater, film and TV things in Tel Aviv, she is a nice woman, and very proud of her work, she is very busy and will have five shows in coming Sunday for children, and also she will do Vagina Monologues on sunday night, she has been to China two times, and fell in love with China, she like chinese food and chinese people, tonight she also wears a chinese tranditional suit, our talk was beginning from the food, and many things, I watched her film " Munich" which was released two years ago, one of my favorit film. I also asked her to send me her novel " the summer of aviya" which was shot by film and won many international film award includes the golden bear award, and this plays was staged in many contries by more than sixteen languages, I would like to invite her to bring this play to present in Shanghai for asia contemporary theater festival 2008, she promised to do that, a good thing for tonight.

Gila started her wonderful career in Cameri theater and also the Israel national theater, it is great to talk with her about the situation for theater in Israel, from actor's salary to management of theater, many good idea to share with her. Special she told us a wonderful story which touched me very much.

In 1991, during the first golf war, one day in Tel Aviv, a famous violinist from Israel, he played violin in a big hall where has more than one thousand seats, it is in the morning and gets a full house, and everybody brought the gas mask in case, during the concert, suddenly the warning came, and nobody felt scared, nobody moved, everybody took out the gas mask and put it on, and sat there quietly and consertrating their minds and enjoy the listening, the violinist continues his playing, the music and the waring sound mixed each other...Gila said that moment became statute in her mind and she will never forget that time. She added a last sentence, in Israel, theater can never be in dark even in the war.

A good time to spend with Gila tonight, I wish to see her soon in Shanghai, for she is invited to be a jury for Shanghai international film fesitval in 2008.

Congrantulations.