Synopsis

Writer’s statement

On the evening of February 4th, 1997, I came back to my apartment. A stray cat was sitting inside a cardboard box I put for it that morning. 

It was around 7pm. Just two hours before my life changed forever.

I still remember the rain, pouring down all day, I remember a phone call, I remember me saying the helicopters would not go in such bad weather. 

At 9 o’clock, the regular evening show on TV stopped. Pictures of dead soldiers, bodies lying on the ground, were shown. 

My brother, Yiftach, was one of them.

Hundreds of people came to the funeral. I was 25. These were the people that were supposed to be at my wedding.

And as I was standing close to the grave I realized my brother would from then on, become a memory.

I embarked on a quest. 

A quest for finding the correct way of remembering him. And, most importantly, how to pass it on to my children, for them to have a real notion of who Yftach was. 

It took 20 years before I managed to get my self back to his writings. At that point I knew I wanted to commemorate him through his words.

One of his poems reads “I’m a director with no script, you are an actress with a role but no guarantee…”. 

That line resonated with me and guided me when I wrote the movie. 

I have always loved fairytales with happy endings.

I imagined what would have happened to him had he survived the mandatory army service, and found love.

Gili Blum was born in 1997, the same year my brother was killed. When we met in 2020, he was a young veteran. 

Long conversations with Gili turned into a story. “All the things I wanted to say” is the movie that tells that story.

And while it is a memorial for the dead, it is dedicated to the living.