A History of Israeli Cinema tells the story of the building of a gaze on a society torn by ethnics, religious, and political conflicts. It attempts to understand, to denounce or to explore these complex subjects, always searching for the right ethic, the right form: to explore or transform its own definition and its place in the world. A History of Israeli Cinema is the result of years of research, studies, documentation, screening, interviews, some recorded, some to learn, to understand, to unfold. Actors, thinkers, producers, filmmakers, professors, critics negotiated to build a narrative that remains fragile and incomplete. It is the process rather than the result that is shared here. The first episode (1933 – 1978) starts with the Zionist movement and ends with the first re-visitation of that history. The second episode (1978 – 2005) starts at the beginning of the political wave until the more recent personal cinema. However chronological, both episodes cover most of the genres, themes and periods of Israeli cinema—from the beginning of the Zionist Movement to the most personal stories—from commercial to politically engaged directors, from the local to the universal.
Watch Part 1 here.
