“Blues by the Beach” was screened on November 23 in Montreal’s Paramount Cinema to a full crowd. The film follows the story of Jack Baxter, an investigative journalist who went to Israel to film a documentary about a terrorist bomber. When he discovered others were already exploring the same topic, Baxter decided to cut his trip to Israel short and head back to the United States. It wasn’t until he stumbled upon Mike’s Place, an Anglophone bar featuring live music in Tel Aviv, that he decided he had a new subject for his film – the bar itself.
Tourists and Israelis alike call Mike’s Place home; the bartenders hail from the UK, Paris, the U.S. and Israel. Baxter fell in love with the bar and immediately hired filmmakers Joshua Faudem and Pavla Fleischer, Faudem’s girlfriend from Prague, to help him with the documentary. While interviewing bartenders, locals, and each other, Faudem and Fleischer never expected what was to come.
On April 30, 2003, Mike’s Place was the victim of a suicide bombing, with a hefty toll: three killed, many injured. Among those killed were Dominique Hess, the owner’s girlfriend and a waitress at Mike’s Place, and two musicians, Yanai Weiss and Ran Baron. The terrorist attack left Baxter himself and Avi Tabib, the bouncer, in critical condition. Faudem and Fleischer’s relationship was also torn apart after the bombing.
A week after the bombing, Mike’s Place re-opened with a memorial ceremony, and is still an extremely popular, entirely English-speaking bar.
After the screening of the documentary, Faudem was present to answer questions from the audience. “Blues by the Beach” received much applause from the predominantly Jewish audience. Many spectators, including multiple Israelis, responded positively on the film and talked about how it affected them personally.
Faudem said it was completely “not his style” to put himself on camera – in the rest of his films, you rarely ever hear his voice, never mind see him on screen. He said one of his favourite experiences of screening “Blues by the Beach” was a time in Israel when the film was shown to Israeli and Palestinian journalists. Faudem said the movie will likely be available for commercial purchase in the next few months.