Discoveries from Israel World Cinema

Katya, a crane worker, receives a tempting work proposition. She leaves Alex, her 11-year-old son, to babysit his brother. When a storm breaks out, Alex starts to worry.

David is a sensitive, creative boy who lives in Dimona with his father and MS sick mother. He discovers an online writing forum and publishes stories under a fictitious name.

Israel, Tel Aviv, October 2023. War. Joy, a young actress, is right after a breakup. On her way to the gym, she bumps into her ex and her new boyfriend.

Sana and Annu — grandmother and six-year-old granddaughter, live together in a Druze village in the Galilee. The day before Annu’s family is due to move to Haifa, Annu suddenly loses consciousness. When she wakes up beside her grandmother, she whispers: “You will find my children in Syria.” Sana becomes convinced that Annu is the reincarnation of her sister Muna, who was killed in the war, and is overwhelmed by the revelation. But Annu’s parents explain it away as a side effect of epilepsy and medication. They ask Sana to stop and begin to distance the two from one another. Heartbroken, Sana sets out on a journey to cross into Syria — the homeland she left at seventeen. There, she uncovers not only the true meaning behind her granddaughter’s words, but also what she herself has been searching for all along.

In a bustling Tel Aviv, a man suffering from insomnia tries to remember if someone actually shot him in one the city's underground parking garages. He no longer knows what is real or a dream while the city increasingly reflects the human condition. A young woman wakes up in a hotel room in Shanghai from that dream by a mysterious phone call. A fragmented conversation with a stranger who seems to also be a lover, rolls into a dazed odyssey in what seems like another dream amidst nocturnal Shanghai.

"Tuned frequencies" explores the pivotal role of media in shaping individual and collective consciousness in Israel and Arab countries. The documentary delves into the interplay between media outlets, particularly the "Voice of Israel in the Arabic language" and "Sawt al Arab" in Egypt. It unravels the battle for consciousness and narrative construction during times of war and peace, shedding light on the hidden war between these two major radio stations used by the establishment to influence domestic and foreign perceptions.

Yair, a teenager from Haifa, escapes to the outskirts of Samaria, and meets the "Baladim" - a gang of runaways who settle a remote hill. The gang takes Yair in but at the same time drags him into their conflict with the neighboring Palestinians.

A young boy delivers food in the summer vacation for this mother, who has some sort of a restaurant. Suddenly his uncle Mario, who lives in Italy, visits them by surprise. The boy's life changes when he follows his uncle one night to an appointment. After that night things will never be the same.

The essence of a quarrel and reconciliation between an elderly couple in Tel Aviv in 1967. Inspired by L'âge de discrétion by Simone de Beauvoir.

An Israeli sports journalist befriends an American basketball pro playing in Israel. Although from very different backgrounds, their love for the game deepens their friendship. Each learns to value the other's culture.

Eddie is a lonesome young man who works as a security guard at a big shopping mall. Eddie strongly believes in an old prophecy predicting the very near end of all human civilization. Just as he is getting ready to embark on a carefully planned escape journey, Eddie meets May, a very intelligent yet anti-social young woman, with a dubious past. As the last days before the fateful date go by, May gradually insert herself into Eddie's life and heart until finally Eddie must choose whether to stay and abandon his hope to escape the upcoming apocalypse, or leave and lose his chance for intimacy and real love.

Ronen Miller has an idea for a comedy TV show about an elderly couple that is desperate for money and resorts to making porn. One network shows interest, and Ronen is eager to produce a pilot, but has literally no budget. He begs and convinces his own parents to play the lead roles, and with his partner, they work tirelessly to write, produce, audition, dub, and film the pilot. To spice things up, they cast the daughter of a close friend - an acting seminar graduate who is willing to do anything to elevate her acting career.

"The Road To OR-Shalem" is the premier Middle Eastern progressive metal crusaders' DVD debut and documents the band's incredible mission to unite warring factions in their home region through the power of music. Filmed in Tel Aviv, Israel in December 2010, 'The Road To OR-Shalem' features nearly two hours of stunning live material, as well as a second bonus DVD. The bonus DVD material includes additional live footage, a behind-the-scenes documentary and video clips.

A Kibutz in Israel is heavily in debt. In a last effort to produce a viable financial restructuring, the old, "unproductive" members are asked to leave the kibutz, to make room for younger, more productive new members. Among those destined to leave is Shraga. His marriage to Clara is loveless while he desperately loves Bracha, his late brother's widow. Clara dreams of starting afresh with her husband in an old age home, in the far north of the country. Bracha on the other hand refuses to remain a mere no. 2. Shraga is asked to make a decision. Other family members are forced into joining this unresolvable conflict.

Idan, Rotem and Dor sets a bonfire and take a camera with them.

2-minute animation film to music by John Coltrane.

A drama about a hotel manager who left Israel to US years ago and now returns back in order to volunteer in a war.

Two kids stand in front of an Israeli flag in an elementary schoolyard while the Remembrance Day siren is due to silence them. As it wails, enters a weary Palestinian man who plays a dangerous game with a squad of armed Israeli soldiers.

A film produced by the Israeli Film Service, the IDF Spokesperson’s Unit and the Navy Headquarters, documenting a training routine of soldiers at the Israeli Navy who serve on submarines and missile boats. The film documents various military exercises such as diving and planting enemy ships with mines, a land raid of the Israeli naval commando unit, and more.

The story is set in 1926, Yemen. Naama, a popular nightclub singer, learns of her Jewish roots whilst around her, a series of violent Antisemitic attacks, orchestrated by the local Arab population, continues. Following an encounter with a shepherd and a Jewish boy whose parents were murdered, she joins a small group of Jews who are planning to move to the Holy Land (then-British Mandatory Palestine). This is the first Israeli film to have been shot in technicolour.

Propaganda of the development of the Jewish community in Palestine.

Through the eyes of the scientist in charge of the operation, we see the events leading to Israel developing her nuclear option in the 1960's.

A high-school girl recalls the events of the last summer of her life. Mainly, her relationship with an autistic fellow class member. A parody of the major tropes usually found in high-school level student films; including the cinematography and editing style, plot structure and production value.

10 years after he left Israel and "played it big-time in America", Benny Shpitz returns for a visit, self-exploring his youth, friends, dreams, beliefs and idol, Daniel Wax, who symbolized the "beautiful Israeli". Shpitz finds out his friends are melancholic, unsatisfied with marriage life, hiding a vast hole in their sole. In a wider context, Israel post 67' will no longer be the society that it was meant to be.

In the Arab village of Jisr az-Zarqa, against a backdrop of rising tensions and threats to the place's identity, three women embark on a personal and collective journey for change. As a new Jewish neighborhood is being built nearby, threatening the village's character, Amina (45), Munira (46), and Ruya (19) unite in an attempt to reshape their future and the future of their community. Through their personal stories, the film exposes the daily struggle of Arab women for identity, self-realization, and social justice within a complex and challenging reality.

A portrait of 90-year-old Mira Perlov, the widow of the Israel Prize-winning film director David Perlov, through her granddaughter's point of view and their close relationship which is gradually crumbling.

Sometimes you wish for things you can't handle.

In Words that Remain, six people recall the languages that cradled their childhoods: Judeo-Spanish, Judeo-Arabic, and Judeo-Persian. These languages, while quite different from one another, have a common Hebrew component, and—especially—a common feature: all of them are written in Hebrew letters. These letters have, with the passage of time, lost their use and their force. Today, the languages themselves are becoming extinct. The resonance of their words, however, of melodies, rhythms, and accents, have left traces that still affect those who heard them as children.

Today is March 9, which means it is time for Tom’s annual suicide attempt. It is also time for Kobi to process some bad news. The world and a broken car force them together on a surreal road trip—one that is aimed towards ending Tom’s life.

A Jewish detective story in the Alps revolving around the former President of the Jewish Community in Tyrol, Ernst Beschinsky. A man with this name dies twice – once in 1969, in Israel, and a second time in 1987, in Innsbruck. This goes unnoticed, at first. In 2010, when a relative in London leaves a house as inheritance, the question arises both in Israel and in Innsbruck: Who was Ernst Beschinsky really? A true story, told by numerous forged documents and many authentic reports.

A movie about a last summer in the life of four friends just before they go to the army during early 1980's Tel-Aviv summer before the war in Lebanon.

A young actress embarks on a turbulent journey with an autistic girl, breaching limitations of right and wrong, and discovering new aspects of her personality.

Humit, the kibbutz Dachshund dog, travels to Tel Aviv to see the animals in the zoo. She sees the animals in small cages, unlike the kibbutz monkey, who roams freely and plays with the children, or the pair of porcupines that the children feed with milk from a bowl, and the deer that was adopted and became the friend of the kibbutz’s lamb. There are also turtles, cats, chamalions, and a giant peacock moth in Humit’s kibbutz “zoo,” all of them free to go wherever they like, except for the golden hamster. Bedouins arrived with their herds in the area next to the kibbutz, and the kibbutz children went to watch a camel calf being born.

The boy for whom football was in his soul, grew up in Tel Aviv in the late 1960s without his parents who left for the USA. At 17, Roni Kalderon became the star of Hapoel Tel Aviv, and was regarded as the great promise of Israeli football. Then, he was invited to go to the Netherlands and play for the coveted Ajax football club. This was only the opening whistle for the real game of his life: he would soon find himself deep in international drug trafficking, constantly escaping from the law, until he disappeared off the face of the earth. The fantastic narratives woven around his enigmatic persona, and the mystery surrounding his disappearance, lead the viewer between reality and the myth around the promising footballer who became a drug lord.

In December 1987, the (first) Palestinian Intifada broke out and the Occupied Territories were set alight with a mass wave of demonstrations, protesting the ongoing Israeli occupation – the largest scale, longest-running ones seen in the area since 1967. The IDF was sent in to quash the uprising and before long, TV screens across the country were inundated with footage of burning tyres, stones thrown about, and baton-wielding Israeli soldiers chasing after teens and children. In the face of this new reality that made the question of the Occupied Territories the single most pressing issue of the time, the Jerusalem Film Festival went ahead and commissioned the following project. The result is a classic, Heffner-esque film – an intelligent labyrinth containing the most fundamental of Israeli tropes: The Holocaust; Arabs; us vs. them – all of which find themselves clashing and intermingling, and ultimately rendering the viewers helpless and cringing with awkwardness.

During the covid 19 curfew, Bracha is wandering in the middle of the night, in the empty streets of Bat Yam. Her anxious mother, Nitzi, is surprised to find her at her doorstep, and has a hard time welcoming her into her home.

Anna (12) and her mother (40) arrive in a gloomy ultra-Orthodox neighborhood on the outskirts of Jerusalem. Anna, who brought a pair of bicycles with her, soon discovers that it is forbidden for girls to ride there.

A documentary on the events leading to the six day Arab-Israeli War of 1967, consisting of preexisting archival footage, incident re-creations, and interviews with military personnel.

Michal Ben Horin reveals her childhood secrets. Through a personal film archive in which she holds private conversations with the world’s most psychopathic criminals, including Charles Manson, Richard Ramirez – The Night Stalker who murdered 18 people, Lynette Fromme – a member of the Manson family and the woman who tried to assassinate President Ford, and more. Michal asks them questions she couldn’t ask her stepfather, Motke Keddar, a Mossad agent who murdered his informant and became known as prisoner X, but for Michal he is the man who hurt her, and the biggest psychopath of all. The filmmaker embarks on a 30 -year journey in which she wants to understand the dangerous madness behind the stamp of genius and logical proficiency of her stepfather.

Three gods descend from the heavens in search of something truly rare: one good person. In the city of Szechwan, they find Shen Teh, a poor prostitute with a heart of gold, who agrees to take them into her humble home. As a token of gratitude, they gift her a sum of money that enables her to start a new life. But when goodness meets harsh reality, it becomes clear that a generous heart may come at a high cost. To survive, Shen Teh invents an alter ego: a tough cousin named Shui Ta, who can do all those things she herself wouldn't dare do. As she falls in love with a melancholic pilot, the internal rift between her two selves further deepens. Can one remain good in this world? And if so—at what price?

A 35-year-old architect returns from America to his native home in Israel to visit his ageing parents. He watches as a young Russian woman fills the void he has left in his parents' life.

A retired cynical actuary reconnects with his granddaughter, a naive and detached artist, to retrieve his savings that were stolen from his locker. She's completely unaware that the video-art she's making on the pool is a cover for a detective investigation. Together they'll realize that Above the water is not what lies beneath. "The Pool" is a Woody Allen style comedy, with a tone of absurdity as in "The Manhattan Murder Mystery" and a sense of rhythm and style of "Snatch".

When Israel is hosting the 1979 Eurovision Song Contest soldier Shuki knows it is his chance to ask his girlfriend's father for her hand. His commander, major Magen David, will do his best to prevent this from happening.

5 IVF embryos embark on a journey to find their mother.

This musical follows an incredibly colorful troupe – three drag queens who embark on a hilarious and moving journey in a pink bus they have named "Priscilla" to perform a drag show at the end of the world. It's a story about a father's love for his son, uncompromised friendship, and a celebration of individual freedom and self-fulfillment. Accompanied by a dreamy soundtrack of the greatest and most timeless pop and disco hits, with spectacular costumes and a message of openness, acceptance, and compassion.

As a young promising poet marked for greatness, Yossi Sarid unintentionally found himself in politics and eventually became the leader of the Left. He was ambitious; aspiring to save those on the margins of society but was often rejected by them. His dream of serving as Education Minister came true; when it did, he chose to insist on his principles at the cost of overthrowing the government. For 50 weeks and five days, Education Minister Sarid fought with the Orthodox Shas party that demanded its education movement’s debts be covered, and refused to yield even when he was called as “Evil Haman” and when the Prime Minister said he’d turned into a liability. This is the story of the eternal opposition leader who refused to compromise despite the consequences.

Directed by Nathan Axelrod and Alfred Wolf.

This is the personal journey of the director who leaves her Arab-Muslim village and moves to Tel Aviv. While searching for an apartment, she encounters discrimination by most landlords because of her Arab origins. She finally finds an apartment, and meets her neighbor – Jonathan, a Jewish-Canadian man who immigrated to Israel. A love story ensues.

Lior is an officer in the IDF down to her very core. That is who she is. One night, she breaches protocol and gives in to her desire for the notorious Kinneret, a female soldier. When Lior comes clean, she realizes that the system she is so devoted to has a different set of rules for people like her.

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.

An abstract and detailed observation of a young life told through a series of observational montages. Part of the 'Technicolour' series of films from Lot 108 Productions.

A driver ran over Daphna and evaded punishment by claiming she attacked him. When it's revealed that photographic evidence was removed from the investigation, Daphna fights to prove her innocence. Will she get the justice she deserves?

Artist Eli Shamir paints the view from his studio balcony - fields stretching to the horizon, ancient oak trees, and a generation of farmers that is disappearing from the vistas of the Jezreel Valley. His large oils are treasured by collectors worldwide. It was director Ben Shani's encounter with one of Shamir's works that spawned the idea of documenting the artist at work. Neither of them had any idea that everything would change as the filming progressed, as an unforeseen danger threatened to rob Shamir of his talent. Filmed over the course of ten years, A lullaby for the Valley focuses on the fascinating figure of Eli Shamir and his paintings. As time passes, like the endless fields of the valley, they are transformed before our very eyes.

This is a period family drama that takes place in Jerusalem right before the political uprising of 1977

The Wooden Gun takes place in Tel Aviv in the early 1950s and details the conflict between native-born Israelis and the newly arrived European refugees.

We begin in the future, where no one knows what caused “Kippah Power,” one of Israel’s greatest heroes team, to break apart. The story then travels back to the past, when the team was at the height of its greatness, following a routine mission that goes terribly wrong. Blending high-stakes action with bold, unapologetic Israeli humor, the film uncovers the truth behind their downfall-and the price each member was forced to pay.

The story of a young girl who explores the outside neighborhood in an attempt to escape her family's problems.

On a desert road, a couple makes love in front of a monument where, a year earlier, four Palestinian workers had kidnapped their Israeli boss in a protest against the injustices of the Israeli occupation.