Discoveries from Israel World Cinema

Yossi Ginsberg recounts the trek that almost cost him his life in Bolivia in the Tuichi River, three decades after he miraculously returned from there, after getting lost in the jungles and surviving for almost three weeks.

Mamadrama combines film clips, cultural commentary, interviews with Hollywood and Israeli filmmakers and footage from Schwarz's earlier films in an exploration of the image of the Jewish mother in film beginning with early silent and Yiddish films up through contemporary movies.

While investigating the destructive relationship of his parents, Efim, the filmmaker, stumbles upon a dark secret concealed from him. This revelation rocks his world and he sets out on a cinematic journey to heal his wounded soul.

A hyperactive cinephile teenager tries to find a perfect idea for his debut independent film

From his hidden outpost somewhere in the mountains, Yuval Mendelovich rescues abused Pit Bills across Israel and the occupied Palestinian West Bank. But this isolated life on the edge comes at a dark cost.

In 2007 Livi, a photography student, moves into an empty building in downtown Haifa. Just before her loneliness urges her to leave, Shahar, Zvi, Iddo and Talia move into that very building - young artists themselves. The friendship ignites in an instant and when Zvi can't pay his rent, they decide to rent a space together, half of which will be Zvi's dwelling and half - an art gallery and bar. The joint work thrives and their voice is heard across the distance, but cracks begin to show, the gallery closes and they disperse. For 12 years, Livi follows their journey to fulfill their dreams as they face the reality of livelihood difficulties, manic depression and alcoholism, unfolding both intimately and lovingly, revealing the story of five friends and their maturing process.

After 62 years of loving marriage, Yosef and Zilli Abrahami decide to take their lives together. The memories of their love and their planned death are brought to life through the videotapes of their youngest son Doron.

Worried by his wife's behavior, a married man tries to find out if she knows something about his secret life.

Noga is a high school teenager who is eager to be accepted into the best unit of the Israeli army. Moran is a religious social worker who has chosen as a home town Sderot, which is under the threat of rockets. In this Israeli-Jewish town also lives Hanadi, a young Arab woman from the northern part of the country, fighting for her identity. Through an attempt to understand the choices of these women, the personal story of the filmmaker is revealed. From north to south, from past to present, the quest for answers creates an intimate portrait of women in a country at war.

Peek into the Orthodox Jewish ritual "mikvah" about the family purification bath after menstruating.

Asaf Shtaierman's horrific murder case. Asaf, who came back from the United States to serve in the IDF and has unfortunately met by three, bored to death teenagers. The documentary involves multiple rare testimonies from the investigations as well as footage from the crime scene.

A look into the lives of teenage male prostitutes working the area known as the "Electricity Garden" in Tel Aviv.

Hotline gets to the heart of a small NGO based in Tel Aviv: The Hotline for Refugees and Migrants. In exactly inverse proportion to the small-scale of this human rights organization, the issues they deal with are enormous, as are the numbers of those seeking help.

Based on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, Blind Man's Bluff takes a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance herself from her Holocaust survivor parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves out of her parents' house in search of her own identity. She moves into a small apartment but remains caught in a lattice of demanding relationships. Tension increases as Micki tries to succeed in the classical music world. Her eclectic new neighbors, though, introduce her to a new world of desires in which Micki finds the courage to confront her problems and emerge as an independent and mature woman.

Raymonde - diva, queen, enigma, inspiration, survivor, widow, woman, and mother. Armed with a camera, Yael Abecassis followed her mother and stepped into a world where she had always been a stranger. "You know, daughter, Morocco is a kind of therapy," Raymonde says, and for the first time, they embark on a journey together: from a childhood in the mellah of Casablanca to the dunes of Ashdod and back to Morocco, where the mother became the legendary Raymonde El Bidaoia - a world-famous Moroccan singer. As they journey, Yael discovers a woman who articulates her weaknesses and the complexities of her choices with keen self-awareness, even when mother and daughter are transposed, twined together by guilt, admiration, pain, and above all else - limitless love and music.

Moshke the jew, manager of the villages tavern is in heavy debt to the town Portiz. The Poritz gave a chance if he could win the dance competiton that Moshke had no chance of winning. Only with Hashems help a miracle did happen. The Flim Was flimed in Ukraine to give it a real look to where the true story happened.

A documentary on groundbreaking queer poet Hezi Leskly, who lived and worked between Tel Aviv and the Netherlands and died of Aids

Vincent, who is invited to a nice and calm Parisian dinner by his sister Elizabeth and her husband Peter, brings news of his and his wife Anna’s unborn son. The name chosen by the soon-to-be parents strongly offends the others for many reasons. The dispute between the guests quickly escalates and before long the resurgence of old grudges and hidden secrets is unavoidable…

At half past six in the morning on October 7th, a red alarm brings us together with Annette and Albert, a couple of veterans from Sderot. The son who visited them on the eve of Simchat Torah was found with his friends at the Nuva party, from the terrorist attacks of Hamas outside the window of their house overlooking the Sderot police station. 25 hours in the life of the couple, intense drama outside and inside the house, from the window and the television screens, the same horror is reflected.

The story of two best friends, Gisele Almakayes (85) and Rina Akyan (84), who were evacuated from their home in Sderot on October 7th and moved to the Tel-Aviv. Rina and Gisele each try, in their own way, to adjust to their new lives in the big city, despite the difficulties that arise between them and the distance and longing for home near the boarder. This documentary presents the challenges the women face in a new, temporary, and physically and culturally foreign place, highlighting the power of true friendship.

Rabbi Capoeira reveals a dramatic and unknown occurrence in the heart of Bnei Brak, the largest ultra-Orthodox city in Israel. The hero of the film is the Capoeira champion of the Mediterranean. He is an ultra-orthodox man whose life was saved by Capoeira, who wants to revolutionize his beloved society, despite the strong criticism he has towards it. Together with his dream partner, a brave ultra-Orthodox woman with a tough life story of her own, he fights like a lion and is not ready to take no for an answer.

After 25 years of blindness, Dan gets a chance to see his wife and children for the very first time. It may also be his last.

A stand up special by Yonatan Barak

A young woman is looking for love during house party. What can possibly go wrong, if you’re lesbian millenial with social anxiety, searching for some love?

In the midst of a working day, Ming is pulled from the light rail construction site, to a place that reminds him of the home he left.

Gaia is a young woman, a bass player. She receives harsh echoes from the masculine world surrounding her. Out of desperation, she runs away. The escape becomes a quest for her own echo to define her.

More than 16 years have passed since furrier Stefan Braun passed away, but for Eliezer Rath, his lover and life-partner for 39 years, Stefan's heart is still beating. Day in and day out he sits in Stefan's room which hasn't been touched since Stefan's passed a way, recording himself talking to him. Eliezer has recorded hundreds of tapes in which he tells Stefan about the events of the day, sings to him, and includes him in his thoughts and longings. However, for Stefan's family, the relationship between the two is not an amazing and harmonious love story.They describe Eliezer as someone who rapidly transformed from lover to servant, ready to endure humiliation and betrayal just so he could be near his lover. After Stefan's death, Eliezer Rath was forced to prove his love for his life-partner. He is confronted by Stefan's cohesive family who raise doubts and suspicions about Stefan's last days in light of the will he left behind.

Mika and Ori are spending the day together (again).

In his abbreviated one and a half terms as Prime Minister of Israel, Menachem Begin faced a maelstrom of challenges and made a handful of fateful decisions that led to both creating peace and launching a hubristic war. This multi-faceted portrait merges rare archival footage shown for the first time, as well as current interviews of key figures from Begin’s time as Prime Minister.

Amos is forced to delay his suicide attempt to help a neighbor. Yael is preparing for an important job interview. Tomer is late to his daughter's birthday. For all three it is stressful morning. But all their plans, get a different perspective in the absurd world of Jerusalem 2002.

“Time Machine” goes back 30 years and depicts the narrative of Rockfour, one of the most significant rock bands in Israel. Formed in Holon by members Eli Lulai and Baruch Ben Izhak in 1988, Rockfour reached local success with the release of “The Man Who Saw It All” after which they began writing in English. In 2000, seeking world success, the band embarked on a four-year journey of intense touring throughout the USA. At a crucial moment in the midst of the American tour and following an emotional turmoil, lead singer Eli Lulai decides to quit the band and instantly returns to Israel, leaving the rest of the members to complete the tour as a trio. After a decade of absence and after the band continued its musical creation without him, Lulai returns to Rockfour, causing great excitement amongst Rockfour fans. Nevertheless, no one can guarantee a happy end.

Abe Nathan, one of Israel’s most beloved heroes, was a peace advocate, a rebel, and a shining example of humanity. He became an international sensation in 1966 with his one-man mission for peace that inspired John Lennon to immortalize his name in the song “Give Peace a Chance”. He ran a pirate radio station, organized humanitarian aid missions and was imprisoned for his secret meetings with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. This profile shows Nathan in his later years, still fighting to offer hope in an increasingly hostile world.

Worko is a 27 year old failed musician with sexist attitudes from Israel's marginalized Ethiopian community, who lives in Tel Aviv and gets in trouble with loan sharks. He escapes to Beit Shemesh, where he grew up, there he finds work in a community center while presenting as a woman named Titi, whose job is to facilitate women's empowerment workshops for Ethiopian women.

The meteoric rise of Avigdor Lieberman was the first sign of a new era in the state of Israel - and with it, the fall of "the old elites," the right wing trend, and the emergence of "the second Israel" as the dominant political force. But Lieberman himself, who immigrated at the age of 20, without a penny in his pocket, remains a mystery.

Fantasizes an 'Old' Middle East, wherein communities were not divided along ethnic and religious lines; a Middle East in which even metaphorical borders had no place

The Shakshuka System (Hebrew: שיטת השקשוקה‎) is a 2008 Israeli documentary film created by the Israeli investigative journalist Mickey Rosenthal and the Israeli director Ilan Abudi. The film focuses on the connection between private capital and government in Israel and suggests that a system exists whereby the State of Israel sells its limited resources, cheaply, to a handful of wealthy families. The film shows this by specifically focusing on the business relationship between the political leadership in Israel and one of the wealthiest families in the Israeli economy – the Ofer family.

A young man haunted by anxiety about time finds himself on a surreal journey through the desert, where his memories, doubts, and fears materialize around him. Chased by his past and facing an unknown future, he is forced to confront the question: is it possible to stop time and find a genuine moment of peace?

Rushing from work to his parents' home, Omri is pulled into a family intervention when his mother denies stealing the neighbors' Bimba (tricycle), sending the family on a nighttime trip to the ER where he first faces her mental illness.

The central station is the home of Adam and Thomas, it’s their jungle. Thomas creates a kingdom of magic and amusement for his mentally challenged brother. The blood pact between the two is questioned when Thomas is offered a way out. Their underground fortress is crumbling.

Following an illegal foreclosure order issued against his partner, Attorney Barak Cohen started a fight against the heads of the banking system, and created a new model of civil resistance demanding personal responsibility from the decision makers. The public uproar caused by the campaign led the heads of the banks, the attorney's office and the police to try to stop the activity of Barak and his friends in any way possible. The culmination of this attempted silencing was the "trial of the bankers" which included serious charges, as if taken from the world of organized crime. Barak and his friends did not panic and turned the trial into a serious indictment against the heads of the banking system, a move that was hailed as a resounding success and has since inspired all civil struggles in Israel.

This film deals with the illegal Jewish immigrants - Holocaust survivors - who, between 1945 and 1948, overcame incredible hardships to get to Israel and, by their numbers and presence, helped to make inevitable the birth of the Jewish state.

Five friends arrive at a seminar meant to reflect on the past, expecting something routine. But when the day takes an unexpected turn, they’re pushed into an uncomfortable situation that forces them to rely on each other in ways they didn’t expect, all captured through the lens of a camcorder.

Filmmaker Uri Barbash follows five conscientious objector reservists – two pilots and three fighters – who define for themselves the boundaries of what is permissible and what is forbidden: their doubts, thoughts and conclusions, and the price of the choice they made. The film was produced at the time for Channel 1 and was shelved.

Yoav's life start to change when he meets his new neighbor, Josh, who lives in a tent.

Tells the heartfelt story of new immigrants in Israel who have just made Aliyah—focusing on a father and son as they navigate generational differences and the challenges of relocation.

A single-screen video installation featuring footage of men driving four-wheel drive vehicles in the dusty coastal hills outside Tel Aviv. Sequences of cars trying to negotiate tricky gradients are interspersed with shots showing the gathering crowd as the day progresses. (via TATE).

"The Hebrew Superhero" is a cinematic journey into the world of Israeli comics, directed by Shaul Betzer. The film explores the image of the Israeli hero and Israeli identity - from Uri Muri, the first Israeli comics hero created in 1936 by Aryeh Navon and Leah Goldberg, to modern-day heroes, such as Dudu Geva's giant yellow duck and characters by Shay Charka and Daniella London Dekel, among others. Israeli comics, which had long been on the sidelines of the country's culture, have become gradually more popular. They have also grown increasingly important in shedding light on the complexities and contradictions of Israeli identity.

On new year's eve, a known criminal takes his young wife to their favorite restaurant, after discovering that she is cheating on him. At the table next to them sits the woman's secret lover, with his opinionated wife

A documentary following Kaveret's last tour.

We have all heard of the tomb of Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai on Mount Meron, but many of us do not understand the appeal of the place and the meaning of the faith that causes hundreds of thousands of people to ascend to the tomb all year long. The film presents a poetic and intimate observation of this special place through a collection of authentic moments combined with the personal stories of several women who visit the place regularly.

A young man goes out to look for his missing cat but soon realizes he's being followed by a mysterious teenage girl.