Yuval, a 35-year-old former police officer, lives on an isolated farm with one-hundred pit bull attack dogs that he has managed to rescue from gambling dog fights, illegal breeding, and abuse. At the shelter, Yuval rehabilitates the dogs and finds new homes for some of them. Yuval’s rescue activity is not supported by the authorities and he is forced to finance his endeavors from donations and sales of scraps of iron that he collects in the fields. However, the dog fight organizers are not ready to give up easily on their property and profits. When they break into the farm and steal the dogs, Yuval sets out on a mission to bring them back and to get revenge–a mission that will turn his world upside down.
Ricki divorced her husband three years ago. Together with her daughter Noor, she moved in with her elder brother Yakir and his partner Ran. That temporary living arrangement became an especially alternative family when Ricki, her brother and his partner decide to have a child together and become a parenting trio. They face many challenges along the way and are forced to create their own family rules. Documented over the course of three years, this unique relationship raises fascinating questions about the conventional family. At the same time it depicts a very unusual relationship between a sister and her brother, torn between their mutually dependent relationship and their desire to live autonomous, independent lives.
A poetic journey shot with thermal camera in the Israeli desert. The film follows an archeology expedition in its journey to reveal the biblical Mount Sinai. A fascinating encounter between ancient mythology and political present; between ritual sites and military training targets. The ancient and the modern, the myth and the militarized are merged into one.
Like in many other parts of the world, 15% of adolescents in Israel are considered at risk. We follow the challenging process of healing of three struggling adolescents at the “Garden of Eden,” a rehabilitative farm for young religious girls. The farm is an oasis providing a home for girls who have been rejected by their families and communities.
Born to Ultra-Orthodox parents, Yossi makes a very un-orthodox choice. He joins the Israeli Army. We follow him for eight months of the basic training of the only experimental “kosher” battalion. Can Yossi overcome the deep fracture between the secular and religious populations which threatens to tear apart the Israeli society?
On a small bench on the sidewalk just outside their homes, four elderly Yemenite women meet daily. Their modest immigrant neighborhood, a bit outdated, is like a time capsule. They still share recipes; gossip; aches, pains and troubles; and many stoic silences. If they keep their homes closed to a menacing world, the bench is where they open their mouths and hearts and minds. The bench is like a raft; a lifeboat in the seemingly un-navigable waters of modern alienation and postmodern puzzlement. Captured in the best tradition of engaged cinema verité, filmmaker Ilan Yagoda (Laureate, Israel’s 2012 “Cinema Arts Award”)-their real life neighbor, neither Yemeni nor female nor old-doesn’t “give them voice” so much as he gives us the eyes and ears with which to sense how life might feel on the social, political and cultural margins.
A journey through the life and work of Abraham Halfi, the unsung hero of Hebrew culture whose greatest yearning was to shrink “into an unknown point,” as remarked in one of his poems. He was revealed to the public only in his final years, by the popular singer Arik Einstein, who recorded Halfi’s poem “Atur Mitzchech” (Your Forehead is Decorated) – the most beloved Israeli song of all times. The film tells the story of this song and the man who created it.
Born to a Nepalese father and an Israeli mother, Kaya is a foreigner wherever she goes. In Tel Aviv, she is taken for Asian, while in Goa she is perceived as a white person. A few years ago, as a home-schooled child, Kaya looked for ways to connect with her new surroundings and took up boxing at a small club. There, she met Soniya, a Hindu girl who became her close friend and rival in the ring. Now, Kaya and her mother return to India to part from Goa for good. Their journey raises questions of identity, motherhood and responsibility.
