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Apollonian Story

Forty years ago, searching for his place in the world, Nissim Kahlon made his home in a limestone cliff under Apollonia National Park, north of the Hertxliya coast. For years he lived without electricity or running water. Today Nissim continues to work on the home that he built ou of rocks, trash, and sand, while the sea, which he loves dearly, constantly gnaws at the house. After years of estrangement, Nissim suggests that his 18-year old son, Moshe, move in with him and inherit the cave. A complex relationship between father and son is revealed.

Duma

Duma (dolls in Arabic) is based on stories of sexual abuse in Arab society in Israel. Abeer, the creator of a puppet theater show which deals with the subject of sexual abuse during childhood, decides to take her camera and journey from the north to the south of the country and document women who have experienced sexual violence. In her journey she meets four women who dare to reveal the sexual abuse they endured in their close circle of family and friends. They all look for a way to express their pain and to break the silence that was imposed on them by their relatives and by society.

Manfred

A profile of Manfred, a 90-year-old Olympic swimmer.

Farewell Herr Schwarz poster

Farewell, Herr Schwarz

Winner of the Best Documentary Prize at the Haifa International Film Festival, director Yael Reuveny’s Farewell Herr Schwarz is a cinematic journey about buried family secrets, the Holocaust (from a third generation perspective) and how it is never too late to reclaim your heritage.

Siblings Michla and Feiv’ke Schwarz survived the Holocaust but never reunited after the war. Michla moved to the soon-to-be-founded Jewish state in the Middle East and started a family there. Her brother Feiv’ke considered dead returned to East Germany, married a German woman and inexplicably lived amidst the concentration camp ruins where he was once a prisoner. The Israeli and German sides to the family lived unaware of each other for half a century until first time filmmaker Yael Reuveny probed exactly what happened to her family in 1945.

The Holy Gathering

The Holy Gathering documents the fascinating journey of three men brought up completely secular on Kibbutzes and their search for a more spiritually fulfilling life. The world from which they came, the agricultural collective communities of Israeli Kibbutzim, created a void in these men. They sought out spirituality by exploring the Eastern methods, only to end up discovering the Jewish religion instead. Filmed over the course of six years, we see the ups and downs of these mens’ lives as they struggle to integrate religion into their way of life while being pulled by family and society to do the opposite.

The Lesson

After 200 driving lessons and numerous failed tests, Egyptian born Layla is about to give up on her dream to drive. An encounter with Nimer, a Palestinian driving expert, rekindles her hopes. Gradually, the car turns into a “confessional,” and Layla shares her secret life story.

Mom, Dad, I’m Muslim

Like any devout Muslim, Maor goes to the mosque, studies the Qu’ran, and prays towards Mecca five times a day. But there’s something which sets Maor apart – she was born May Davidovich, to a Jewish family in a small Israeli town called Karmiel, and converted to Islam when she was 18 years old. Mom, Dad, I’m a Muslim picks up four years later, when Maor has begun to look for a husband who’s observant of her adopted faith. This informal domestic portrait illustrates Maor’s plight of being torn between two worlds, longing to find a place in the Arab community while dealing with the shunning she faces from her own. Maor and her family’s journey towards a new synthesis, illustrated in humble everyday moments, is a testament to the triumph of human values over institutional walls.

443

Highway 443 begins at the shore and ends in Jerusalem; therefore it has always been a main axis, important in terms of geography, security and spirituality. The film focuses on the small moments that make up life surrounding the highway.

77 Steps

This is the personal journey of the director who leaves her Arab-Muslim village and moves to Tel Aviv. While searching for an apartment, she encounters discrimination by most landlords because of her Arab origins. She finally finds an apartment, and meets her neighbor – Jonathan, a Jewish-Canadian man who immigrated to Israel. A love story ensues. Ibtisam joins a left-wing political party (Meretz) and runs for the Knesset. On New Year’s Eve 2009, Israel invades Gaza. Hundreds are killed. Ibtisam resigns from her party because of its support of the War. She struggles over her Palestinian identity, but does not relinquish her relationship with Jonathan. Yet something has gone sour. Jonathan’s family refuses to meet his girlfriend. Jonathan says: “They can’t forgo their image of their future daughter-in-law – Jewish, white and English-speaking.” Ibtisam is also unable to reveal her relationship to her mother. One day, Jonathan’s grandfather comes from Canada on a nostalgic trip to Kibbutz Ein-Dor, which he helped found in 1948. Ibtisam and Jonathan join him. It becomes an individual journey for each one of them – one that takes them back in time and into the unknown, to memories and dreams, Nakba and independence, love and hate, longing and loss.