The post Image of Victory appeared first on Israel Film Center.

The post Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story appeared first on Israel Film Center.

Alice is a Parisian pharmacist who has a fixation on Woody Allen and his films. She has a huge portrait of him hanging in her bedroom, with which she tends to converse, seeking his wise counsel about life. She even hands out DVDs of his films to her customers as medicine for their ailments. Her parents have a sense of urgency for her to find a man, but none can match Woody Allen, not even the alarm specialist Victor who services the pharmacy. But there is one thing a man could do to impress her – introduce her to Woody Allen.

The post Paris-Manhattan appeared first on Israel Film Center.

The post Peaches and Cream appeared first on Israel Film Center.

The post Zrubavel appeared first on Israel Film Center.

A incompetent crew, shooting a film about David and Goliath, is beset by problems when the leads start quarreling.

The post Shovrim appeared first on Israel Film Center.

The post A Matter of Reputation appeared first on Israel Film Center.

When the Israeli government announces that it will withdraw from the Gaza Strip, it means lifeguards Lior, 21, and Meir, 27, will be forced to leave their home – Gaza’s Palm Beach – forever. They and their surf posse could be characters on MTV’s The Real World, but in the blink of an eye it becomes obvious that the danger is all too real. For Neta, 20, a religious filmmaker, the pullout plan sets off a desperate struggle to convince Israelis and the world that the withdrawal is a crime against God. Soldiers Yuval, 21, and Tamar, 20, must prepare for a mission against other Israelis, putting aside their own emotions to face angry protestors and the prospect of attacks. Ye’ela, 21, joins a cross-country tour in support of the withdrawal, even as she mourns a sister killed by Palestinian terrorists. For young Israelis, the summer of 2005 will change the meaning – and for some the very location – of home. 

The post Unsettled appeared first on Israel Film Center.

May 2000. Southern Lebanon. For 18 years now, Israel’s most controversial war drags on and on adding fragmented slivers of shattered lives to ashes of smoldering hopes. Up there on the hill overlooking the feathery fairy-tale clouds, a hallucinatory body of boy-soldiers inhabited a world of petrified anguish, coated with layers of innocence. Dispossessed and exiled, they carried out unfathomable orders, fighting invisible yet fatal phantoms; their gazes, clouded with embittered, wizened dread – the chilly stare of the sharpshooter masquerades the bewildered gape of the child who chases his evading innocence. Wasted, they hang between the backdrop of earthly paradise and the engulfing abyss of raging inferno.

The post Wasted appeared first on Israel Film Center.

In 1935, three Walt Disney films were screened in Moscow. Fyodor Chytruk, then a young art student, saw these films and didn’t believe his eyes; he was convinced that he had seen a miracle unfolding before him. What he didn’t know was that one day he himself would become one of the greats of Russian animation. Through his personal story, we discover a magical art form that remained closed behind the Iron Curtain for decades.  Another main character is Yuri Norstein, one of the most renowned animators of the world. Norstein is an animator considered by many as a pure magician, his works have won all the possible animation awards, including the title “The best Animation film of all times and nations” in the Arts Olympics at Los Angeles in 1983 (for “The Tale of Tales”). In “Magia Russica” he talks about his sorcery and conveys the secrets of his studio. Compared to the other arts – especially literature and Cinema – the animated films, considered a children’s art form, passed relatively easily through the strict censorship of the Soviet Union. Like all Soviet institutions, the animation studios Soyuzmultfilm enjoyed full government support, a fact that provided the artists with generous production budgets as well as distribution in 112,000 cinemas around the USSR. This situation allowed for the development of a tradition of animation style that was not only for children. Magia Russica moves between the sights and sounds of the Russian landscape, and into those of the animated films themselves. The films reflected not only the difficult though humor-filled Soviet experience, but also the rich cultural heritage of Russia, with Pushkin as its spiritual father. Today, following the collapse of the Soviet Union, as Russia makes the transition into capitalism, the animation artists discover that the rules of the market and ratings are not necessarily less restrictive than ideological censorship. In a rare look into the artistic process, at the creation of magic, the artists share their ideas about art, about cinema and about the way in which these should be related to. Magia Russica is guided by the spirit of their words. Magia Russcia is Yonathan and Masha Zur’s first film.

The post Magia Russica appeared first on Israel Film Center.