Walk on Water is Israeli director Eytan Fox’s latest meditation on masculinity. A multi-layered thriller that challenges deep-rooted homophobia in Israeli society and suggests Israel’s attitudes towards Palestinians is no different to the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews during the Holocaust.

Lior Ashkenazi, who’s been described as “Israel’s Brad Pitt”, gives a powerful performance as a ruthless assassin who finds the ability to reconnect with his emotions through his friendship with a gay man. The film prompted its straight star to admit, live on Israeli television, to a past affair with a man.

Rachael Scott talked to Eytan Fox about his leading man’s on, and off, screen epiphany and asked him his thoughts on the burden of the Israeli masculine ideal.

How is Walk on Water being received?
It’s been doing beautifully and we’re more than delighted. It was brought for theatrical release in 33 countries, which for an Israeli film is outstanding. There have been very good reactions and reviews.

Walk on Water asks the audience to rethink their attitudes towards homosexuality and encourages Israelis to move on from the past. Have you had any opposition from Israelis on the stand that the film takes?
There were some people who weren’t happy with the criticism of Israel, our collective psyche and our behaviour. Some people could deal with the subject matter, but didn’t see why we had to show the film abroad. “Why do we have to wash our dirty laundry outside of Israel?” they said.

But the younger generation really understand what we’re trying to do. People talked to each other on the internet about it and there was a feeling that they weren’t dismissing us for just being left-wing homosexuals, but that they understood what we were saying and came to the conclusion that we were probably right on a lot of different fronts.

If it gets people talking about homosexuality and the war with Palestine then some people might re-evaluate their opinions.
Yes. I think that both Yossi & Jagger [Eytan’s previous film about two soldiers who fall in love] and Walk on Water have managed to do quite a lot. Without wanting to brag, I’m happy that these two films have reached a larger audience in Israel who aren’t just urban, left wing and intellectual.

You were born in New York and moved to Israel when you were two. Do you find that’s given you a different perspective on Israel?
It might. I think of myself as very Israeli, but maybe the fact that I grew up with an American family and my parents maintained an American culture may have made a difference. I think being a gay or lesbian child in a very strict society makes you a little more sensitive to what’s going on around you.

As a gay filmmaker in Israel have you come up against many barriers when trying to get your films made?
My first film went to the London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival and it got good reviews. People in London were very appreciative and not as suspicious of me or my work as they are in Israel. In the beginning it was difficult to explain what I was about and what my story was.

There was one very famous gay director in Israel called Amos Gutman [who died of AIDS in 1998] who made two feature films, but they were very ghettoised and campy.

I made Time Off and tried to connect gays with mainstream society and the army. It was acceptable to make a film about being gay, but not when you come into the holy shrine of the army or the Mossad. It took me a few years. It wasn’t until I had commercial success with a very big romantic comedy called Song of the Siren that I could do what I wanted.

Lior Ashkenazi confessed to an affair with another man on live television while promoting Walk on Water. What do you think made him do that?
Lior is a huge star in Israel and when the film came out he did two things. In an interview he talked about the time he was a soldier in the Israeli army and the war crimes he committed. He described how Vietnam-like it was and how so many people are walking around with these experiences inside of them that they aren’t able to share. He was comparing what was happening on the West Bank with the Holocaust. To do that in Israel is a no no and everyone got very upset.

Afterwards people were writing on the internet like mad and asking him how he could say such things. But young men who were in the army were happy that he had spoken out and described how all of them have scars from their terrible experiences that they can’t talk about. No one understands the awful things that have been done and the harm that the war has caused to both sides.

He also talked about a gay relationship he had. He came to a point where he didn’t want to bullshit his audience and he wanted to talk about the real issues that the film raises.

So what sort of reaction did he get when he said that he’d had a gay relationship even though he’s straight?
As straight as they come I think. There was a lot of gossip about the possibility of him being gay, and secondly that maybe he was having an affair with me. I was asked by my friends about our relationship and I explained that we are just very good friends, we care about each other and nothing else was going on.

Then we had to do a cover for Time Out Tel Aviv and Lior suggested that we do something provocative, but that also said something very important.

This is the cover where you’re both lying on a bed and Lior is naked and wrapping himself around you?
That’s right. That got people talking, but in the article inside we tackled stuff that asked why a straight actor and a gay director couldn’t be very close friends? Why does there have to be something else happening? It was interesting and debate is still going on about it.

It was a brave move.
Imagine a British or American film star embracing a gay director while he was naked. That’s a very brave thing to do.

You work professionally with your partner [Gal Uchovsky, Eytan’s partner of 17 years and Walk on Water’s screenwriter]. What would you say are the benefits and disadvantages of working with your lover?
Gal is a well-known journalist in Israel and he writes fantastically as far as I’m concerned. And at some point we decided to work together because we care about the same issues and have a similar vision about the things we want to talk about.

The disadvantage is that there are no borders between you and your partner. We don’t like to do interviews together because we find that everyone has their own way of putting things and we both want to be centre stage, so we have to find ways of separating.

Did you and Gal ever contemplate Eyal and Axel having a sexual relationship in the film?
Walk on Water is based on a true story about a Mossad agent who comes home one day and finds his wife hanging from the ceiling. She leaves a note describing how difficult life has become with him and living with a killer who’s closed emotionally. The man cracks up on his next mission, leaves Mossad and goes to university and studies art and literature. He meets a young boy and falls in love with him.

I heard the story from the Mossad agent’s shrink, who didn’t know whether to endorse or object to the relationship. But he saw that this man was opening up and changing in a wonderful way and that the sexual side wasn’t important. Eventually the man meets his lover’s sister; falls in love with her and they start a family together.

This story blew my mind away when I heard it because men grow up in Israel believing there is only one kind of man they can be, especially my generation. I was in the army for four years and you have to be tough and strong and protect and survive, so when I was growing up being gay wasn’t an option. You couldn’t be sensitive or outgoing or vivacious.

So is Eyal typical of Israeli men?
Yes, but there’s more variation in the younger generation. People a little older realise the world is changing and they want to be part of that, but they still find it very difficult to change what’s inside of them.

Can you tell me about your next project?
It’s called The Bubble, which is a term used by Israelis to describe life in Tel Aviv. There are three characters, a young woman and two men and a Palestinian comes into their life – Palestinians are illegal in Tel Aviv – and they play a game with him. They bring him into their apartment, give him a new name and get him a job. But a relationship develops between them all and they connect with him. They open up areas of their lives that they’ve repressed or denied and an affair starts between one of the men and the Palestinian. The Palestinian falls in love with the Tel Aviv way of life, but he also feels hatred towards them all and contemplates becoming a suicide bomber. All sorts of bad things happen and it’s a kind of Romeo and Juliet type story.

Read our review of Walk on Water.

Walk on Water is released in the UK on 30 June.

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