This coming-of-age story follows Mina, a 16-year old Jewish girl who has grown up during the Ethiopian Civil War. Her family plans on fleeing to Israel, where Mina’s mother awaits them. However, this plan excludes Eli, Mina’s Christian boyfriend, who lives in the woods to evade being drafted into the army. In order to remain together, Mina hatches a plan to save Eli, but in times of war, all plans tend to go wrong.
A famous conductor, Eduard Sporck, is approached to create an Israeli-Palestinian orchestra, but is quickly drawn into a sea of problems. Young musicians from both sides are unable to form a team, largely due to their personal experiences with war, oppression, or the risk of terrorist attacks. For the orchestra to be a success, Sporck must help his musicians overcome their own beliefs, fears, and bigotry in order to come together.
Seventeen-year-old Franz journeys to Vienna to apprentice at a tobacco shop that provides cigars and sanctuary for leftists and Jewish people amidst the rise of fascism. There, he befriends Sigmund Freud (Bruno Ganz), a regular customer. Franz seeks advice from the renowned psychoanalyst as he falls in love with the dancer Anezka. Political and social conditions in Austria dramatically worsen during the Nazi occupation, and Franz, Freud, and Anezka must decide if they will stay or flee.
Based on the international bestseller by Robert Seethaler.
After fleeing Europe for Uruguay during WWII, Jacob Kaplan built a quiet life. Now 76, and in the middle of an existential crisis, Jacob believes that a German man who runs a café by the beach is actually a Nazi fugitive. He devises a plan to kidnap the German and smuggle him to Israel for trial.
40-year-old filmmaker Yael Reuveny returns to Israel to reunite with former classmates from 1988, who were all coming of age as Israel was turning 40. They were the first Jews born in Israel, a dream come true for the many generations before them. Examining a decade that began with optimistic peace agreements and ended with the painful clash of the Second Intifada, Reuveny and her classmates discuss growing up as the first Israeli generation to know hope and perhaps the first to lose it.
The true story of Germany’s most famous anti-Nazi heroine is brought to thrilling life in the multi-award winning drama Sophie Scholl – The Final Days. Academy Award Nominee for Best Foreign Language Film, Sophie Scholl stars Julia Jentsch in a luminous performance as the young coed-turned-fearless activist. Armed with long-buried historical records of her incarceration, director Marc Rothemund expertly re-creates the last six days of Sophie Scholl’s life: a heart-stopping journey from arrest to interrogation, trial and sentence.
Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the latest from Nadav Lapid (The Kindergarten Teacher) features a dynamic lead performance from newcomer Tom Mercier, whose feral intensity practically bursts out of the frame. Mercier plays Yoav, a disaffected young Israeli who flees Tel Aviv for Paris to start a new life. Desperate to erase his origins, Yoav sees becoming French as his only hope for salvation. Step one is to replace his language. From now on, he will not utter a single word of Hebrew and his dictionary becomes his constant companion. His work at the Israeli embassy is a burden, but studying for his naturalization test also has its pitfalls. And the young French couple he befriends has some rather strange ideas about how to help him. Based on writer-director Nadav Lapid’s own experiences, Synonyms explores the challenges of putting down roots in a new place. Yoav’s attempts to find himself awaken past demons and open up an existential abyss in this tragicomic puzzle that wisely knows how to keep its secrets.
In the award-winning HANNAH ARENDT, the sublime Barbara Sukowa reteams with director Margarethe von Trotta (Vision,Rosa Luxemburg) for a brilliant new biopic of the influential German-Jewish philosopher and political theorist. Arendt’s reporting on the 1961 trial of ex-Nazi Adolf Eichmann in The New Yorker—controversial both for her portrayal of Eichmannand the Jewish councils—introduced her now-famous concept of the “Banality of Evil.” Using footage from the actual Eichmann trial and weaving a narrative that spans three countries, von Trotta beautifully turns the often invisible passion for thought into immersive, dramatic cinema.
A subversive love story about clashing cultures and families, Kiss Me Kosher is a romantic misadventure crossing all borders. When two generations of Israeli women fall for a German woman and a Palestinian man, chaos follows. What happens when lovers don’t fit together but do belong together?
Based on the books of Sayed Kashua. Eyad, who grew up in an Arab town in Israel, is given the chance to go to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. He desperately tries to fit in with his schoolmates and is isolated until Jewish classmate Naomi befriends him. Eyad’s other lifeline is Yonatan (Michael Moshonov), whom Eyad is assigned to help with schoolwork. Both are “misfits”: one in a wheelchair, the other an Arab. Through love, friendship, tradition, and conflict, Eyad struggles to find his identity.
