A dramatic and nail-biting re-enactment of the sinking of the freighter “Altalena” in June 1948, a month after Israel’s Declaration of Independence. The Irgun attempted to smuggle arms and ammunition to re-supply its fighters but for Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, there was to be only one army in the new country. The confrontation turned into a civil-war like battle when the newly-formed Israel Defense Forces shelled the Irgun vessel, resulting in the death of more than 20 fellow Jews. This tragedy created political hatred that still simmers in some quarters until today. This docudrama faithfully and objectively recounts the story.
To establish the sequence where the ship is loaded with Jewish Immigrants and ammunition in Port de Bouc,France, several matte paints were created in order to establish the time and place. The live action plate was photographed in the Haifa port backlot. The wide shot was assembled from 3 plates of live action.
We provided several establishing shots for the film. Using digital matte painting techniques we were able to recreate Tel Aviv landmarks. One of these was the Ritz hotel circa 1948, which had drasticly changed over the years.
The 3D model of the Altalena ship was reconstructed from technical drawings and historical photographs. For a more practical approach, we mapped textures onto relatively simple geometry of the ship.This provided us a great deal of complexity with a low rendering "cost".
