John Shea (11/86 Dreamers/Unsettled Land/Ha-Holmim)
Excerpt from Los Angeles Times 11/15/86: John Shea | Dreamers
Shea Fiddles Around To Get Ready For 'Dreamers'
Roderick Mann November 15, 1986
"I'll just check my violin," said John Shea handling the instrument to the hotel desk clerk before leading the way out to the swimming pool. A wise move. You look a little silly taking a violin out to the pool -- unless, of course, you're a member of the serenading band. And Shea isn't as far as I know. What he is, of course, is the New York actor who made his mark as the journalist in Costa-Gavras's 1982 thriller "Missing." So what's he doing fooling around with a fiddle? "Practicing, that's what," he said. "I play a Viennese concert violinist in my next film and I've got to make it look authentic."
Shea, together with Kelly McGillis, leaves today for Israel to make the movie "Dreamers" for director Yuri Barbash. It's a story set in Palestine just after World War I when many Viennese Jews were fleeing the rising tide of anti-Semitism. "And that's the reason I took it," said Shea. "I've never seen another film that covers that particular period of history--when the roots of so many of today's problems were planted. It answers a lot of questions that have always puzzled me."
Shea really does have to look as if he's playing properly--for later a famous Russian violinist will actually play the pieces. "But my bowing and fingering must look right," he said. "So I've been practicing for months."
© Los Angeles Times
Excerpt from New York Times 2/15/87: John Shea
ISRAEL'S PIONEERS RETURN ON FILM
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN Published: February 15, 1987
Tentatively called ''Dreamers,'' the movie, like the original settlement it portrays, brings together an international cast. It stars as Zionist visionaries Kelly McGillis, coming off the hit film ''Top Gun,'' and John Shea, who won renown as the young man who disappeared in the movie ''Missing,'' along with the French actress Christine Boisson and a host of Israeli actors and Arab extras. The money behind the film is also multilingual with part of the $2.5 million budget financed by an Israeli group and the lion's share split among the Dutch-based Belbo Film Productions, Dutch investors and the British Hemdale Film Corp., which produced ''Platoon.'' ''Dreamers'' should be in theaters by late spring.
© New York Times
Excerpt from NY Times 8/2/87: John Shea
Foreign Film Makers Look to American Actors
By ANNETTE INSDORF; Published: Sunday, August 2, 1987
And John Shea - whose credits include Costa-Gavras's ''Missing'' - co-stars with Kelly McGillis in another upcoming English-language Israeli film, ''Dreamers.''
© New York Times
Excerpt from San Francisco Jewish Film Festival 1988: John Shea
Unsettled Land (Dreamers)
1988 | Israel, USA | color | 120 min
UNSETTLED LAND tells the story of young Jewish idealists. Fed up with western civilization after the tragedies of World War I, they come to a commune in the Galilee to build a new society based on absolute equality. They find love, compromise, and disillusionment - and face Palestinians who have lived on the land for generations. UNSETTLED LAND, Barbash's first feature since the critically acclaimed BEYOND THE WALLS, is part of an important trend in Israeli culture to reexamine the myths of the past so as to understand the troubles of today. With Kelly McGillis and John Shea.
© San Francisco Jewish Film Festival
Excerpt from Christian Science Monitor 7/27/88: John Shea
Jewish Film Festival known for its lively controversy
By Reese Erlich, Special to The Christian Science Monitor July 27, 1988
This year's festival features 24 films from 12 countries. More than 12,000 are expected to attend the showings at San Francisco's Castro Theater (through Aug. 4) and University of California Theater in Berkeley (Aug. 6-11).
....
``Unsettled Land,'' a new dramatic feature film from Israel, also portrays a controversial period in Middle East history. Israeli director Uri Barbash and American stars Kelly McGillis and John Shea attempt to re-create the harsh times of an egalitarian Zionist commune in 1919 Palestine.
© Christian Science Monitor
Excerpt from Philly.com 2/23/89: John Shea
Marking The Arrival Of Three Hot Comedies From Last Year
Inquirer staff reviews and synopses, compiled by Christopher Cornell Posted: February 23, 1989
UNSETTLED LAND (1988) (Nelson) $79.98. 109 minutes. Kelly McGillis, John Shea, Arnon Zadok, Christine Boison. Idealistic Zionists immigrate to Palestine in the 1920s to set up a new society and soon find themselves at war with the Bedouin tribesmen.
© Philly.com
Scarsdale Events 10/5/09
Unsettled Land (Ha-Holmim)
date:Monday, October 5, 2009 time:7:00 PM
venue:The Bendheim Performing Arts Center
address:999 Wilmot Road Scarsdale, NY 10583
from:The Bendheim Performing Arts Center Vivian Milstein Family Film Series
Starring John Shea (a famous violinist) and Kelly McGillis (a beautiful Viennese doctor) as lovers tested by the leader of a group struggling to form a new nation in the Sinai Desert. The idealistic leader forbids couples to live together. It’s 1919, the time between the two great wars, and this film is the shattering story of young men and women willing to sacrifice everything to defy their own destiny and change history.
© American Towns