Director Elvira Lind films a captivating subject in her new documentary “Bobbi Jene,” which follows an Iowa-raised dancer on the brink of returning home after living and dancing in Israel for over 10 years.
Critically acclaimed choreographer Ohad Naharin met Bobbi Jene Smith when she was just 20 years old, studying at Juilliard.
“I started dancing when I was three and it’s my first first love. I don’t know the world without it. It was my dream to dance for Batsheva and to dance for him,” Smith says. When Naharin visited Juilliard, Smith wasted no time in making a connection.” I had to talk to him and he said move to Israel and I said, “Okay,” she shares.
Lind met Bobbi Jene at Juilliard when she was filming a performance piece.”When I met her I was interested in making a film about a woman my own age.” At the time Lind was in the process of making a documentary about a teenage love story. “I was just really curious to make something that I could rear myself in a bit more as a human being from where I was standing in my life at that time,” Lind shares.
There was an immediate connection between both Bobbi and Lind after meeting and learning of Bobbi’s story. Lind knew right away she wanted to follow Bobbi on her journey. “Me and Bobbi had a lot of things in common. There was a lot of big changes at the time for her and that movement was interesting for me,” Lind says.
Now as Bobbi Jene she gets ready to return home. Lind offers an in-depth and raw perspective of her unique challenges as a dancer in Israel and the hardships of leaving behind the “love of her life” and the life she’s known for more than a decade.
The documentary is raw, rare, and captivating from beginning to end. Lind’s subject is daring and brave, leaving viewers transfixed her to her character.
Lind dissects Bobbi Jene’s artistry and personal life to bring forth an emotional ride of success and struggle. Her ability to “one-man-band” the documentary through a three-year span of filming shows her incredible strength in filmography, and came as a complete shock when we sat down to interview the director who said she had no idea which direction the documentary would head in.
“It wasn’t [at first] that I was going to do a documentary about dance, I was going to do a documentary about Bobbi and she happened to also be a dancer and that’s how the came about,” says Lind.
Lind worked as a fly-on-the-wall. Her sense of direction and focus into Bobbi’s life puts viewers comfortably into Bobbi Jene’s shoes. We see Bobbi not only struggle with moving back to America but we learn about the art dance and her mesmerizing style of movement that’s she’s perfected called, “Gaga.”
Lind also intimately follows her new relationship with fellow dancer Schraiber, and beautifully captures her dance which adds to the story line to makes Bobbi Jene’s art more revealing.
From some viewers’ perspective her dancing is art that’s imitating her life and the moment she’s going through at that time–a journey to break free and become independent.
Jene is terrified of going home, unsure of what the future holds and how it will affect her relationship, but she does find the courage to do it.
The film which has now won Best Documentary Feature at Tribeca Film Festival displays the perfect combination of an artist’s struggle, but in a way that makes the character relatable to the viewers because of the wide range of hurdles she’s overcoming.
Smith captivates audiences with the way she dances and how she decides to present a dance. Her journey to break away and be free is shown in the film’s climatic dance sequence, upholding the message of the film. Smith shares: “I hope they [audiences] can recognize and appreciate and celebrate their own efforts and that effort isn’t necessarily connected to burden. It can also bring a lot of joy and pleasure.”
Bobbi Jene premiered at the Tribeca film festival. Buy tickets and learn more here https://tribecafilm.com/filmguide/bobbi-jene-2017.
