30/01/2026 - The filmmaker discusses his second feature, his personal link to its story and to its music and the reason he set most of it in the 1980s

Tell Me Everything [+see also:
film review
interview: Moshe Rosenthal
film profile] is Moshe Rosenthal's second feature film. This Israeli-French co-production, which tells the story of a boy who feels alienated from his father after discovering that the latter is gay, premiered at this year's Sundance Film Festival. We met with the director and asked him about his personal connection to the story, the music, and his reasons for setting most of the action in the 1980s.

Cineuropa: How much of your own childhood made it into the film?
Moshe Rosenthal: I think the world, the characters, and especially the feelings are very autobiographical. The story itself is largely fictional. To be very specific: the coming-out experience in the film was my own in real life, not my father’s. I wanted to explore my relationship with my father through the backdrop of that experience. Switching the roles allowed me to go deeper emotionally and to explore my own fears - fears around sexuality and internalised homophobia. Sometimes, to make something truly emotionally autobiographical, you have to change facts. That way it becomes more truthful to how it felt, rather than to what actually happened.

Why did you decide to set the two timelines in the 1980s and 1990s?
Historically, it was a very important time for queer identity. It was a period filled with fear, but also a moment when cultural perceptions began to shift. The film takes place in 1987 and 1996, and the way society viewed the gay community changed drastically during that time. I wanted to explore that transformation, especially through Boaz’s character and how social consciousness evolved. On a personal level, it’s also about my own memories of that period. I’ve seen many nostalgic representations of the 1980s, but they never felt right to me. They didn’t look like what I remembered. It was upsetting to realise that this was becoming the collective memory. I wanted to give my own vision of that time - one infused with memory and trauma, not nostalgia.

To achieve that, your vision for the set design was important. What aspects did you wish to enhance in this regard?
Realism was essential. We worked with photos from my family and from crew members’ families from that time. What we found was something very specific to Europe and Israel back then. There was a strong influence from American culture, but it was translated differently. It often felt like a messy copy of things people saw in American films. I find that very beautiful. Much of my work is about finding cinematic glamour in domestic, lower-class settings. People living on the outskirts of a city or in small towns trying to make their homes look like something from an American movie – that always moved me. There’s also something slightly grotesque in that effort: pushing things too far to convince the world that you belong. Bigger hair, more shoulder pads, more hairspray. From a child’s perspective, that can feel both fascinating and scary.

You have siblings yourself. How did you develop the relationship between them in the film?
I grew up with two older sisters, and I know many people who had that experience. Being the youngest among teenagers is a very specific position. I almost felt like this film is a love letter to older sisters. They introduce you to music and to life, to the human experience - in a very young, naive, but formative way. I wanted to portray that world. In the film, within the family, siblings form their own unit.

How did you find the actors?
It was a long audition process, but with all of them, I knew very early on that they might be right. I still looked further, but I always came back to them. I never find actors who perfectly fit a role. Instead, I look for someone who moves me, and then I ask them to transform. That transformation creates something offbeat and more realistic. For example, the older sister, played by Mor Dimri, isn’t naturally motherly at all. But asking her to go there created a performance full of contradictions, which felt very human.

The bond between the siblings reaches its peak in a particular scene, when they are in the car on their way home after being deeply disappointed by their father. It's an intense scene. Was it difficult to shoot?
In a way, it was the easiest and the hardest. The song almost directs the scene itself. We shot it on the siblings’ last day together, so it became a kind of goodbye for them. The scene became very personal. At one point, we heard someone crying off-camera, and I was worried about the sound. Then I realised it was Boaz, Yair Mazor - the one who wasn’t even supposed to cry. He just broke down. We knew immediately that this would be a special scene for all of us.

Music plays a huge role in the film. How did you develop this element?
I work with music a lot, even when imagining scenes. I always thought of this film as a kind of rock opera - full of pathos, unapologetic emotion. The music follows Boaz’s transition: from pop and a connection to his feminine side, toward new wave and punk as he connects to something more aggressive and rebellious. I searched for songs and sounds that are almost forgotten, an unflattering version of 80s pop. The same with the score. We’ve had so many nostalgic synth scores lately that they no longer feel nostalgic.