CRAZY SPRING

CRAZY SPRING

Director, Producer: Chen Shelach / Israel 2025

Category: Health & Human Rights, Society, Art & Culture

Language: Hebrew

Subtitles: English

Length: 58 minutes.

Neri Aluma, Hanan’s mother, is determined to reignite her son’s passion for life as he struggles with mental illness. Neri is a writer. Hanan, a musician, has been writing and singing since the age of 13. Through their creative work, they break down the walls of silence and concealment that separate the outside world from the storm within their home. Art allows them to engage in dialogue and create meaning and beauty within the chaos the entire family endures. Neri’s prose and Hanan’s music guide the film, giving voice to the pain of a family’s long struggle with mental illness.

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Festivals & Awards:

 

Movie Reviews:

* « Shelach's film is powerful in its honesty. At no point does the family attempt to sugarcoat reality or wrap it in hidden poetic meanings that might obscure the raw truth: that living alongside someone with a serious mental illness can be a grueling, painful existence. There is nothing romantic about the illness itself, and the film shows this clearly. Yet because the people facing it are gifted and creative and because the film also weaves in voiceover excerpts from Neri's side of the story as written in their book, their artistic expression offers the viewer a way to empathize, understand and feel the emotional upheavals the illness brings.»  Jerusalem Film Festival Reviews: "Crazy Spring": An intimate diary about mental illness / Shany Littman / Haaretz

* « Thus, two works of art touch one another and remind us of the fragility of life and the power of art. The hand of a master artist who handled the materials in a clever and sensitive way is very prominent.
The fragility of the home. The fact that at any given moment it can fall apart and crumble. Unintentionally, in these moments, the film becomes a kind of parable about the lives of all of us here in the last two years. About their fragility. About the fact that at any moment something can come and crumble them from the outside or from within. » Only when the film based on the book was released did I realize how wonderful the book is / Udi Ben Seadia / Walla 

 

Director's Statement:

This film began as a personal journey. Hanan, my nephew, was a gifted young musician when mental illness struck. As his condition worsened, his mother Neri – my sister – asked me to help document their lives. I gave the family a video camera, and they began filming from within. Crazy Spring offers an unfiltered, intimate look into a household living with mental illness - not only its impact on the individual, but on the entire family. It’s about pain, love, and the power of creativity as a way to cope and connect. By choosing not to hide, Neri and her family make a quiet but powerful statement: there is no shame in struggling.

Chen Shelach

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