Little Town of Bethlehem shares the gripping story of three men, born into violence, willing to risk everything to bring an end to violence in their lifetime. A Christian, a Muslim, and a Jew-shaped by events of their Palestinian and Israeli upbringing-find inspiration in the words and actions of Martin Luther King Jr. and Mahatma Gandhi. Sami, Ahmad, and Yonatan believe that violence can indeed be stopped but recognize their own struggles will remain. Yet they will struggle together to discover a common humanity through non-violent action. In the city of Bethlehem where it is said God became man, these men stand alongside others whose central desire is to be accepted and treated as fully human.Their story brings fresh hope to the ongoing conflict between Palestine and Israel while taking a stand against violence throughout the world.
This film is a documentary based on the large amount of footage filmed by prime minister Yitzhak Rabin during 1963-1973. It begins with steady shots of Paris – from beautiful landscapes to repeated images of homeless people sleeping on the streets – and eventually shows his filming of touristic London and Florence, various rural scenes in Asia and Africa, and a series of city scenes in Iran. A long section devoted to his time as ambassador to the United States – during which he filmed not only New York, Washington and San Francisco but also a football game, as well as American television – suggests both the growth of Israel’s relationship with its mega-ally and the large developmental difference between the two countries.
Foul Gesture follows a week in the life of Michael Klienhouse, your typical next-door neighbor, married with a child, the one you think you figured out already. One day, on the morning of the Holocaust Memorial Day, minutes before the siren is due to be heard, Michael runs into Dreyfus. Tamar, Michael’s wife, has just flipped Dreyfus the finger, and Dreyfus deliberately hits the gas paddle of his black car and runs into Michael’s open car door, almost hitting her. A law-abiding citizen, Michael hopes to resolve the situation with the help of the authorities, only to find out that the 60-year-old Dreyfus, an old war hero, is a violent man with connections and friends in high places.
A personal film about the drama of conscientious objection, from the point of view of a refusenik’s mother.
German journalist Dirk-Martin Heinzelmann arrives to Israel to make a reportage about the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the place where according to Jewish tradition the last Jewish Temple stood before it was destroyed 2000 years ago. Since the 7Th century CE until now it’s the sacred place for the Muslims with two major mosques on it. For Jewish people it means that the Temple will never be restored on the same place it used to stand until one of the mosques – Dome of the Rock – is there. Dirk-Martin meets several specialists who convinced that the Temple stood between two mosques and he decides to check this out. With the help of old English maps and the team of the speleologists he starts to explore the underground Jerusalem. Despite the threat of Islamists, warnings of the rabbis and extremely difficult conditions of the expedition journalist reaches the goal and discovers the tunnel leading to the ancient Temple sewerage system. The system is still filled with water, but it won’t stop the fascinated researcher..
Hundreds of hours of raw material shot by Nathan Axelrod, a pioneer of Israeli filmmaking before the State of Israel who documented the building of the Jewish Yishuv in Palestine – are the building blocks of the film before us: Meir Dizengoff riding his horse, Hannah Maron as a young girl trying to sell us shoelaces, the inauguration of the new port in Tel Aviv, settlers breaking ground in Hanita, the Habima Theater and Hannah Robina, the stars of the Matateh Theater, two kids tap-dancing, Ben Gurion and Shlonsky`s hair-dos, a Tel Aviv soccer match, the illegal immigration, scenic shots (swamps and desert), and more and more from the never-ending treasures of the “Carmel Films” archive.
In making Etz o Palestine, Axelrod and his partners, Yoel Zilberg and Uri Zohar, aided by Haim Hefer`s narration (read by Topol), reflect the spirit of innocence in the days before the Six Day War.
46 years since it was first screened in August 1962, the freshness of the film still remains and even young audiences will be able to enjoy this gem that is presented in a new print fresh out of the lab.
Filmed at the Shaar Menashe Hospital in Israel, this heartbreaking film examines the plight of elderly Holocaust survivors whose war-time experiences have left them unable to find inner peace. Abandoned by their families, Iosefina, Hana and Fira – the three patients featured – have spent the last few decades in this hospital, and the film combines an account of their daily routines and lives with the painful journey faced by their respective daughters as they visit their mothers and try to bring them back to family life.
Following a newspaper advertisement “Wanted, for a documentary film – people with a true story that has to be made into a movie”, the director finds hundreds of personal, moving, surprising and incredible, happy and sad stories. The best of these stories finds it’s way into this film, which attempts to link documentary and feature film-making, between the personal and the distant, reality and dreams.
