Israel
At the elite level, bridge – the world’s most popular card game – has become a million-dollar cut-throat business. When the best competitive player is accused of cheating, the ensuing scandal confounds experts, criminal science, celebrities and basic belief in this hilarious true-crime thriller.
The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.
How US politicians and diplomats, over the past 25 years, have come close to achieving something almost impossible: securing peace between the State of Israel and its Arab and like-minded neighbors, mired in a struggle both dialectical and violent since the early 20th century, due to historical and religious reasons, entrenched offenses and prejudices, and the invisible and tyrannical hand of third countries’ geopolitical interests in the area.
About the life and work of controversial American Jewish academic Norman Finkelstein.
MY ITALIAN SECRET tells a heroic story that was all but lost to history, until now. The film recounts how WWII bicycling idol Gino Bartali, physician Giovanni Borromeo and other Italians worked with Jewish leaders and high-ranking officials of the Catholic Church, risking their lives by defying the Nazis to save thousands of Italy’s Jews.
A World War II prisoner returns home to his childhood sweetheart. However, back home, he discovers that he has to compete to win her love.
A sociological study of two men in the Israeli army who are lovers. The others in the unit react to their situation, suspecting, but not always understanding. One will leave the military soon, a few months away, as a snowy and desolate outpost is guarded from attack.
When ten-year-old Aya is left at a kibbutz where children are housed by age instead of gender, not only does she have to get used to dealing with a lot of children, making friends and enemies, she also has to get used to sharing her room with boys… and sharing the showers with them too.
The film features 38 second-generation Holocaust survivors who responded to an invitation I posted on Facebook. I filmed everyone who agreed to take part and youandapos;ll see and hear them all in the film. I didnt ask specific questions…
After a separation of more than a decade, Noam, the conscience-ridden director of the film, returns to the kibbutz where he grew up to save Zach, his childhood friend who has become a reclusive handicapped refusing rehabilitation….
This film provides a retrospective of 24 hours at the Nova festival in Re’im through the lens of young individuals who endured the horror.
Christina is a Ukrainian woman who moved to Israel through a ‘bride-to-order’ kind of deal. Compared to her life back in Ukraine, life in Israel is great for Christina. She works in a beauty salon, earns her own money, and loves Israel. Her Israeli husband Michael is also satisfied with this marriage. He is happy that he found a woman who can live with him. In fact, he is so satisfied that he starts his own little business scouting for Ukrainian brides for other Israeli men. Michael’s recent matchmaking is a special one—the bride’s name is Valeria, and she’s Christina’s younger sister. Michael went out of his way and found the best man he could get for her. His name is Eitan, and while he may not be the most handsome guy in the country, he is a good-hearted, generous man. However, Valeria is different to her older sister. And the whole delicate balance is at risk.
Mira Segal wakes up screaming one morning to discover that her husband has disappeared. The police open a Missing Person file and advise her to wait. As weeks turn into months, Mira continues to search for him while exploring her own desires and the guilt of not wanting him back.
The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub’s name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.
The film tells the story of the Chernobyl accident through a mosaic of unique personal testimonies of its participants. The experiences of the difficult past and the sad results of the present recreate the full picture of the accident 30 years later.
“My Father My Lord” is an intimate and deeply disturbing story of the conflict between a father’s love and his deep devotion to religion. A respected Orthodox Rabbi dotes on his only son but his religious strictures leave an emotional gap between the impish child and the stern father. When the father’s all-consuming obsession with observing religious ritual inadvertently leads to tragedy, his previously subservient wife rages against both her husband and God. A dramatic retelling of the story of Abraham.
Family secrets, lies, high drama and generations of contemporary history unspool in this international story that begins with World War II and concludes with an emotional 21st-century family reunion. Izak was born inside the Bergen-Belsen displaced persons camp in 1945 and sent for adoption in Israel. Secret details of his birth mother, an unknown brother in Canada and his father’s true identity slowly emerge in this extremely personal investigative film.
A fascinating journey through the life of Israeli artist Dani Karavan, an irreverent and charismatic creator, recognized worldwide for radically transforming public space with his monumental environmental installations.
Raya and Victor built a shared career as the Soviet Union’s most beloved film dubbers. As the USSR collapses, the Jewish couple must immigrate to Israel and reinvent themselves to find employment.
Freddy wants to be a star. He writes and performs his own songs, but has no record contract yet. He has an idea to form a group of back-up vocalists and recruits four beautiful girls who also happen to be his former lovers. They name themselves “THE FOUR PIN-UPS.” But even this doesn’t work because Freddy wants the spotlight for himself. However, by chance, the girls find themselves onstage without Freddy; they start singing and capture the audience and sign a contract with a big producer. They seem to be on the road to success with their own sound and a new wave image. Except the dream begins to lose its glow; scandal, conflicts, and disenchantment start affecting the group. They go from number one to…
Menachem, a former frontman for a rock band, is now religious, and a father to a six-year-old. When his daughter is diagnosed with cancer, he must find a creative solution to fund the expensive treatments. He reunites his band for one last tour. The journey to save his daughter exposes old wounds and allows him to reconnect with his secular past. Menachem understands that only a new connection to his past and to his music can pave the road to his own redemption.
Rebecca, an American who has been living in Jerusalem for a few months now, has just broken off her engagement. She gets into a cab driven by Hanna, an Israeli. But Hanna is on her way to Jordan, to the Free Zone, to pick up a large sum of money.
In Breaking Bread, exotic cuisine and a side of politics are on the menu. Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel – the first Muslim Arab to win Israel’s MasterChef – is on a quest to make a social change through food. And so, she founded the A-sham Arabic Food Festival in Haifa. There, pairs of Arab and Jewish chefs collaborate on mouthwatering dishes like kishek (a Syrian yogurt soup), and qatayef (a dessert typically served during Ramadan), as we savor the taste of hope and discover the food of their region free from political and religious boundaries.
‘Shoelaces’ tells the story of a complicated relationship between an aging father and his special-needs son, whom he abandoned while he was still a young boy. Reuben’s (60) kidney’s are failing and his son Gadi (35), wants to donate one of his own kidney’s to help save his father’s life. However, the transplant committee objects to the procedure claiming that Rueben, acting as Gadi’s sole legal guardian, does not have the right to authorize such an invasive procedure. Gadi, who recently lost his mother, is afraid of losing his father as well. He feels he finally has the chance to do something meaningful; to become a man and stand on his own. He’s furious with the committee’s decision and sets out to fight for his right to save his father’s life. Through the film’s portrayal of a relationship full of love, rejection and co-dependency, it manages to shed some light and question the importance of human life, human connection and if life is even possible without it either one of them.
An anxious woman navigates the bustle of modern day Cairo to find her missing lover, a young adult strives for an authentic connection in a future society numbed by alcohol, and two Cold War-era lovers face the consequences of finding romance across political borders. A vibrant collection of short films – by turns gritty and dreamlike – exploring the changes and complexities of a Love Evolving.
Filmmaker Trevor Graham is an Australian ‘hummus tragic’. Every week in his Bondi Beach home he observes the hummus making ritual, mashing chickpeas, lemon juice, garlic and tahina. But when the Hummus War erupted in 2008, among the usual suspects, Israel, Lebanon and Palestine, Graham was hungry for more. But this war ha no soldiers, bullets or tanks. Just chickpeas and hummus. Make Hummus Not War is a humorous homage to the chickpea’s most distinguished dish. But there’s a personal story, how Graham became a hummus tragic, a father who served in Palestine during WW2 and two lovers in his life, one Syrian, one Jewish, with whom he shared a great culinary passion.
Joy can’t let go of her ex, but doesn’t seem to be able to fall for the new guy. In the meantime she keeps having casual sex with strangers.
A party in Tel Aviv, Israel. Danny is looking for Max to share that she is pregnant with his child; but Max has just started a new relationship with Avishag whose rough sexual fantasy he is trying to make come true.
One of Cannon Films’ two 1976 Italian-Israeli co-productions starring Lee Van Cleef and Leif Garrett (Gianfranco Parolini’s Pistola di Dio was the other), this spaghetti western was actually shot in the Middle East by American director Joseph Manduke. Pop star Garrett plays Tom, a teenager who teams with a black gunfighter named Isaac (Jim Brown) to avenge his family. The culprit was McClain (Van Cleef), a sadistic outlaw who carried out the brutal rape-massacre, but his role is minor, as most of the film deals with Tom’s maturation and coming to terms with his feelings. Omnipresent 1970s character actors Glynnis O’Connor and John Marley co-star. If there is anything remarkable about Kid Vengeance, it is Francesco Masi’s fine musical score, but the film is otherwise anemic.
Zaza is a 31-year old Israeli bachelor, handsome and intelligent, and his family wants to see him married. But tradition dictates that Zaza has to choose a young virgin. She must be beautiful and from a good family, preferably rich. Zaza’s parents, Yasha and Lily drag Zaza to meet potential brides and their families. Zaza has no choice. He plays along with his family, advocates of the suffocating traditions of their Georgian Jewish heritage. But Zaza always manages to somehow get out of being engaged. What his parents don’t know is that Zaza is already in love. Judith is sensuous, strong and intriguing. She’s also a divorcée with a 6-year-old daughter. So Zaza has kept Judith a secret from his family. He will have to choose between respect of the strict confines of family and tradition, or the love of his life.
Rules must be followed. For the “supervisors” of the Bat Yam neighbourhood in Israel, this means ensuring that women are dressed appropriately, that people respect Shabbat, or that Arabs from Jaffa don’t enter the neighbourhood with music blaring from their cars. Avi, Kobi and Yaniv are young and know how to fight. They want to force their neighbours to become religious, without hesitating to be violent in the name of God. The inhabitants admire the gang and are afraid of them at the same time. One day a new girl, Miri, arrives. She is not familiar with the strict rules of modesty. The gang’s leader Avi is going to be torn between his feelings for Miri and his dedication to the gang.
Ovadia Rachmim is the strongest and most violent doorman of Tel Aviv night clubs. He and his wife Rachel are trying to get pregnant for 5 years. A small time gangster named Shalom, offers Ovadia a job, to be a debts collector, offering him a lot of money. Ovadia sees this as great opportunity to start an expensive private treatment for his wife. As soon as Rachel gets pregnant, he decides to stop working for Shalom. Shalom wants him for the most important mission. The mission in which Ovadia has to betray all his best friends. Now it’s the time to pay the price of becoming a father.
The year is 1999 and the storyline is actually a number of sub-plots all revolving around the 13-year old Clara, a girl that can predict the future and has telekinetic powers. The sub-plots include a boy in her class who has a crush on her, his family, her family and her principal that keeps talking French for some strange reason.
A tragic comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel’s largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.
Lea Tsemel, a Jewish-Israeli lawyer, defends Palestinians: from feminists to fundamentalists, from nonviolent demonstrators to armed militants. As far as most Israelis are concerned, she defends the indefensible. As far as Palestinians are concerned, she’s more than an attorney, she’s an ally. «Advocate» follows Tsemel in real time, including the trial of a 13-year-old boy — her youngest client to date.
Sallah Shabati, the patriarch of the big family recently arrived to Israel from Yemen, tries to make money and get better housing, in a country that can barely provide for its own and is in the midst of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.