David Perlov

David Perlov (; born 9 June 1930 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; died 13 December 2003, in Tel Aviv, Israel) was an Israeli documentary filmmaker, photographer and drawer.

Biography

David Perlov was born in Rio de Janeiro and grew up in Belo Horizonte. At the age of 10, he went to live with his grandfather in São Paulo. In the years following the end of World War II Perlov became one of the main leaders of the Zionist Socialist youth movement in Brazil. His artistic vocation, however, led him first to Paris at the age of 22, where he stayed for six years, studying at the Ecole des Beaux Arts and later on at the studio of Arpad Szenes. The prevailing abstract tendencies in the 1950s art world did not satisfy Perlov, and his need to confront more human subjects drew him to stills photography and eventually to cinema. In Paris, he worked as a projectionist for the newly established Cinematheque and worked as editor with the documentary filmmaker Joris Ivens. In 1957, he made his first short film, Tante chinoise (Old Aunt China), based on drawings of a 12-year-old girl of the French provincial bourgeoisie of 1890 which he found in the cellar of the Paris house in which he was living. In 1958, Perlov immigrated to Israel, settling with his wife Mira on Kibbutz Bror Hayil. Although Perlov made two feature films by 1972 (The Pill and 42:6), his film proposals were repeatedly rejected by the Israel Broadcasting Authority and Israeli film board, which found his work too lyrical.

Retrospectives 2005 Israelite chronicles by a filmmaker born in Brazil, Centre Pompidou, Paris

2014 Retrospective Exhibition, Mishkan Museum of Art, Ein Harod

2017 David Perlov: Retrospective, Documenta 14, Kassel

2018 David Perlov - Filmmaker, photographer, drawer, Musee d'art et d'Histoire du Judaïsm, Paris