TORONTO—Amos Kollek, the writer and director of the dysfunctional-family drama Restless, spent most of his life being introduced as “Teddy’s son”.

His father was one of Israel’s most prominent politicians—Theodor “Teddy” Kollek—a long-time ally of Israel’s first prime minster, David Ben-Gurion, and the mayor of Jerusalem for 28 years. And when Amos started filming Restless, Teddy had just died at the age of 95.

Sitting in a hotel room for an interview with the Georgia Straight the day after his film’s North American premiere at the 2008 Toronto International Film Festival, the 61-year-old Kollek says he was inspired to tell the story of a down-and-out, broody Israeli poet in self-imposed exile in New York after running into Moshe Igvy, “the foremost actor in Israel”, who was living “in a boiler room” while trying to launch a new career in the city that never sleeps.

But Kollek said the story never clicked for him until he decided to create the character of Moshe’s son—a broody sniper in the Israeli army.

“I have a big thing about the father-son relationship, because my relationship with my father was always very important to me and also kind of complicated,” Kollek says. “He was a very famous man, a very domineering man, not the easiest man to be the son of. So even though the characters are completely different, I added the son and that became really the basic conflict of the film.”

Even though Kollek established himself on the Israeli literary scene in his early 20s with his bestselling autobiographical first novel, Don’t Ask Me If I Love, he still spent most of his career in his father’s shadow. “Even when I was already a writer and a director, people sometimes said, ”˜This is Teddy’s son.’ And I was, ”˜What, don’t I have a name?’ And that was very hard for me for decades and decades and decades,” Kollek says. “And it gave me a terrific complex, because I always felt I was in the shadow of this big man and I always felt nobody was interested in me for me. Everybody was always interested in ”˜the son of’, which I hated.”

That shifted in 1993 when Teddy lost his job as mayor. “After that, I don’t know if it was connected, but I started making movies that were more successful [including a documentary about his dad in 1996].” The movies started playing international festivals where the locals weren’t interested in Israeli politics, and Teddy’s name disappeared from most of the interviews—especially outside of Israel.

But in discussing Restless (which opens in Vancouver on Friday [December 5] ), Amos proudly spotlights his famous father, to whom he dedicated the film.

Restless is a five-country coproduction, with funding and creative input from Israel, France, Germany, Belgium, and Canada. The Canadian content includes Quebec doubling for New York (at least the interiors), assorted crew, and several supporting actors.