More than six years after filming began and roughly 16 years after it was first written, Itai Lev’s “Lost Leon” is finally reaching audiences. The film will have a special preview screening at Tel Aviv Cinematheque, dedicated to the memory of actor Shmulik Calderon, who died in March at age 75. It is also being presented as a final on-screen encounter with another veteran Israeli cultural figure, Tzvi Shissel, who died in 2021.
The 95-minute Israeli-Polish film follows Leon Binder, a 65-year-old tax clerk going through a severe personal crisis. After his mother dies, his son pulls away, he loses his job and his health worsens. He travels to Lodz, the Polish city where his family was born, hoping to find answers and some comfort. Along the way, he meets strange and unexpected characters who force him to reconsider his life and his past.
Lev said he wrote the script about 16 years ago, during a low point in his own life. In his statement of intent, he wrote, “I found myself lonely as a stone.” He said Leon was born out of his attempt to deal with loneliness, failure and hopelessness. For years, he said, no one wanted to back “a drama about the troubles of an aging, lonely man.”
The project only revived after Lev moved to Poland in 2018, where he met young filmmakers from the Lodz film school. Together they reworked it into an Israeli-Polish co-production. Filming began in 2019 in Tel Aviv, Bat Yam and Lodz, with those cities serving as more than backdrops. Tel Aviv represents Leon’s present pain, while Lodz symbolizes family memory and the chance of rebirth.
Lev, a Tel Aviv University film graduate, is known for “Five Minutes Walk,” “Little Heroes,” “Sea of Salt,” and documentaries including “In Another World, No Words” and “Belfast Blues.” In this film he blends fiction, documentary elements, dreams, memories and mystical layers. Beyond Leon’s private story, the film also explores ties between Israel and Poland, seeking human connection and a shared language beyond the memory of the Holocaust. After the screening, Lev will take part in a conversation with the audience.
