Grierson award-winning director Iris Zaki enters the heart of Tekoa, an Israeli settlement in the West-Bank,and sits down to talk to the locals. Though fearful at first of the left-wing invader, settlers from various backgrounds gradually open up to her. Their honest, surprising and sometimes funny conversations offer a fresh take on Israeli reality from both sides of the Green Line.
King Saul of Israel is jealous of the fame and adoration of David, who long ago slew Goliath and brought victory to Saul’s armies. Now Saul, egged on by his Edomite counselor Doeg, attempts to have David killed. Saul’s son, and David’s best friend, Jonathan, conspires to help David, who is reluctant to fight back against his own people the Israelites.
Somewhere between the 1947 traditional Bedouin desert-life of southern Israel and the 2007 modern city life of Beer-Sheba, just 4 Kilometers off the highway, lives a small Bedouin community. 15 year old Hulud has a dream; she is cracking the barrier set on that highway. With her young brother and sister she goes on a journey that will enable her to let go of the life she once wished for.
The story of South Africans who fought for Israel’s freedom in 1948.
Twenty-five years after the death of actress Talia Shapira, her son begins a journey to retrace her life. He combs through the vast belongings his mother left behind – diaries, stories, films, audio tapes – as he peels his memories layer by layer, finally arriving at the most significant moment in their relationship: Talia’s last days.
Seventeen chapters of observation constitute an abstract and emotional mosaic, an intense investigation into the essence and meaning of a dialogue between mother and son – a dialogue that transcends words and time.
The unique way in which the director has chosen to describe this process of deciphering his mother’s life poignantly conveys both the need as well as the inherent difficulities to connect incidental moments of our lives into meaningful stories.
At “Fifi’s,” a small hair salon located in the heart of Haifa’s Arab community, director Iris Zaki installs a mini film set over the washing basin. While she shampoos their hair, Zaki speaks candidly with the salon’s Arab and Jewish clients, discussing their views on politics, history, and love. Within the space of this hair salon, the women of the neighborhood achieve a temporary freedom, examining their differences and friendships within a community that many consider a model of Israeli coexistence. What emerges from these conversations is an honest and nuanced portrait of contemporary Israel.
Three gay Palestinian friends explore the contradictions in their lives with Jewish filmmaker, Witzenfeld. Khader is at ease with his relationship with an Israeli lover as just another dimension of “otherness,” while fervently political Fadi rejects intimate friendship with the enemy until he finds himself falling for one of their number. Naeem, in the closet to his traditional family, endures their increasing pressure to marry and start a family of his own. Together the three embark on a flamboyant form of activism involving video skits. In Arabic, Hebrew, and English with English subtitles.
Beitar Jerusalem F.C. is the most popular and controversial football team in Israel, the only club in the Premier League never to sign an Arab player. Mid-way through the 2012/13 season, a secretive transfer deal by the owner, Russian-Israeli oligarch Arcadi Gaydamak, brought two Muslim players from Chechnya. The deal inspired the most racist campaign in Israeli sport that sent the club spiraling out of control. One season in a life of this famed club is a story of Israeli society, personal identity, politics, money and a window into how racism is destroying a team and society from within.
As the Allies sweep across Germany, Lore leads her siblings on a journey that exposes them to the truth of their parents’ beliefs. An encounter with a mysterious refugee forces Lore to rely on a person she has always been taught to hate.
A Palestinian in Ramallah, Mosab Hassan Yousef grows up angry and ready to fight Israel. Arrested for smuggling guns at the age of 17, he’s interrogated by the Shin Bet, Israel’s security service, and sent to prison. But shocked by Hamas’s ruthless tactics in the prison and the organization’s escalating campaign of suicide bombings outside, Mosab agrees to spy for Israel. For him, there is no greater shame. For his Shin Bet handler, Gonen, there is no greater prize: “operating” the oldest son of a founding member of Hamas.
