In the latest installment of Serugim’s film project “My First Film, Director’s Cut,” filmmaker Omri Tovi discusses his debut feature, “Tropicana.” The film follows Orly, a middle-aged supermarket cashier played by Irit Shelach, who lives in a remote desert settlement and splits her time between monotonous work and caring for her family. After the supermarket’s head cashier is mysteriously murdered, Orly inherits her job and belongings, setting off an erotic odyssey through a bleak and neglected Israeli desert.
Tovi says the film grew out of his wish to examine how geography shapes sexuality, intimacy and desire, especially in peripheral spaces marked by sexual repression, intergenerational shame and a need for human contact. He says that, as a teenager from southern Israel, he was frustrated by outside cinematic portrayals of the south as nostalgic, warm and exotic. In “Tropicana,” he wanted to show a more hidden, frightening layer of life in a remote place where neglect is part of daily existence and feeds fear, bodily discovery and emotional growth.
He says the screenplay began as a short story, then became a short script and later a feature draft written in a few days before continuing to evolve until filming. The production moved forward after Tovi and producer Gil Sima screened a short at Sundance and met Hila Medalia, then began pitching the script to funds and potential partners as if the film were already underway.
Tovi describes the casting and shoot as a collective process. He says screen characters become shared creations between director and actor, and that casting director Limor Shamila assembled an ensemble that matched his sensitivity. He singles out Shelach for bringing precision, depth and a quiet but stirring presence. Because most scenes were shot in one take, he says the main editing challenge was to work with the sequence between scenes rather than rebuild them, with editor Guy Nemesh translating that limitation into rhythm and syntax.
Speaking about the premiere, Tovi says the screening took place in an old opera hall where every creak of the wooden seats was audible in the film’s silence. He was especially moved by a viewer who told him the film had “a smell.” He also notes that after the theatrical release, he saw angry online comments that he believed were written by former education minister Yuli Tamir, who had hosted him in the Knesset as a teenager in a periphery youth project. Tovi says he wanted to tell her to calm down and remembers her as a very committed hater, but instead chose to let it go.
