# Aviva, My Love

Aviva, My Love (Hebrew: אביבה אהובתי) is a 2006 Israeli drama film directed by Shemi Zarhin. The film was regarded as a major Israeli success, attracting 300,000 viewers to cinemas.
The film won six Ophir Awards, including Best Actress for Asi Levi and Best Picture (which it shared with the film Sweet Mud). It also received two Wolgin Awards, the Chicago Film Festival Award, and the Shanghai Film Festival Award.

## Plot

Aviva Cohen (Asi Levi) is a cook in a hotel in Tiberias, where her dream to be a writer has been suppressed for years. She draws ideas for her stories from her life. She carries a small notebook where at every opportunity she writes about small events that happen to her and she later weaves these events into her stories. With the help of her sister Anita (Rotem Abuhav), who lives next door, Aviva goes to Oded Zer (Shashon Gabai), a well-known writer who lives in Tel Aviv, a writer who reads her works and promises to help Aviva achieve her dream. The path to achieving her dreams was influenced by Aviva's family life- her unemployed husband- Muni (Dror Kern), three teenage children- Osherat (Dana Ivegi), a soldier, Alon (Itay Turgeman), and Ofek (Dekel Eden), her troubled mother, Violet (Lavna Finkelstein), and her sister Anita.
In her difficult financial situation, Oded Zer offers her a deal that she doesn't really understand its effects on her life. But at the same time the owner of the restaurant in the hotel also offers her to return to her job as a cook. However, her sister, Anita, intervenes in her life, until the point where Aviva accidentally witnesses Muni cheating on Aviva with her sister, which hurts Aviva deeply. Everybody around her worries about Anita, because she left her works with the writer, who is about to go abroad. Aviva must make decisions which is better for her: the money or the artistic work.

## Production

Much of the film's plot was filmed in Tiberias, with its landscapes prominently featured in the movie. The film's premiere was planned to take place in Tiberias and did indeed occur there. However, since Tiberias was under the threat of rockets during the Second Lebanon War at the scheduled time, the screening was held in a shelter near director Zarhin's childhood home.
Film critic Yair Raveh commented on this:
   "Isn't it perfect, in the film's own ironic cinematic language, that its Tiberian premiere, the most festive and glamorous moment of all, took place in a shelter, underground? It's, of course, tragic, but suddenly, as I write these lines, it feels like a poetic ending—a bittersweet one—that Aviva herself would have written."

## Cast

* Asi Levi – Aviva Cohen
* Rotem Abuhab [he] – Anita
* Levana Finkelstein – Violette
* Dror Keren [he] – Moni Cohen
* Sasson Gabai – Oded Zar

## Soundtrack

In March 2020 Helicon Music released the film's soundtrack, which includes new remixes and tracks that were not included in the original release. The theme song "My Spring Shall Come" ("האביב שלי יגיע") was performed by Miri Mesika, and it appears in two different versions. The soundtrack features the following talents:
* Limor Oved – Vocalization
* Yankale Segal – Oud
* Nitzan Hen Razel – Violin
* Oren Fried – Percussions
* Jonathan Bar Giora – Piano and keyboards
* Shemi Zarhin – Synth qanun and voices
As the film was released in 2006 a special mix was released to the radio, in which, in addition to the original players, also feature Dudu Tassa on the guitar, Yaniv Teichman on the Oud and the Bağlama, Asher Pedi on the drums and Uri Zach on the keyboards.