SAN FRANCISCO JEWISH FILM FESTIVAL | SFJFF 2010

When the playfulness of the Muppets comes together with the hedonistic machismo of faded rock demigods like Spinal Tap, mixed with the crude humor of South Park and a dash of the inventiveness of Flight of the Conchords . . . well, you just might end up with something like the Puppet Folk Revival, making their American debut at SFJFF with a live musical performance and clip show at San Francisco’s CELLspace.

Ari Pfeffer, Micha Duman and Ami Wiesel—the Puppet Folk Revival's puppetmaster-musicians— bring their bizarrely unique and bitingly funny live musical puppet act to San Francisco for a night of rockin’ music, riotous clips and surefire puppet mayhem.

Already a cult sensation in Israel, the Puppet Folk Revival are the stars of the raucous mockumentary-style television show Red Band, based on their live act created with Aviram Buhris, Lee Yardeni and Eitan Zor and Produced by MY TV Communications Ltd. The Puppet Folk Revival trio are friends who attended Tel Aviv University Film School and are first-generation Israelis born of American parents. Their show follows washed-up ’60s rock ’n’ roller Red Orbach’s inept attempts at staging a comeback in Tel Aviv with former band mates Lefty and Poncho and tagalong drug supplier Phillip, all of whom happen to be life-size puppets. A mashup of American pop culture (Red being the only English speaker) and Tel Aviv hipdom, the show has featured many of Israel’s biggest musical stars (Aviv Geffen, Shalom Hanoch, Efrat Gosh) as guest musicians in hilarious self-skewering depictions of celebrity where no one is safe from the wrath of Red’s foul mouth. As Red himself describes it, the Puppet Folk Revival is “kick ass fucking rock ’n’ roll!”
—Joshua Moore

Video: Joshua Moore on Rockin Puppet Mayhem! at the 2009 Press Conference

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