A rare look at the interactions between inmates and wardens over a period of two years, the Neve Tirza prison for women in central Israel is the setting for a story seen through the eyes of three women: one Jewish, one Muslim and one Christian. Ethnic diversity is confined to a stifling existence in tiny cells for what seems like an eternity. These women are locked down and shut out from society – and from themselves. Strong and yet vulnerable, the relationship between the prisoners and the staff, and between the women themselves is a mixture of collective distrust and mutual respect.
“On the Left” is a 4 chapters’ documentary series that tells the story of the Israeli left (Zionist and non-Zionist, Marxist and non-Marxist), from the founding of the state of Israel in 1948 until present time. The series investigates, among other things, how Israel evolved from a nation that at least rhetorically was built from a leftist majority into a proud right wing majority nation and how the compliment “Leftist” turned into a curse word. The narrative of the series is chronological, while it conveys the changes, upheavals, and dramatic turn points along the years.
THE GO-GO BOYS: The Inside Story of Cannon Films is a documentary about two Israeli-born cousins, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, who in pursuit of the American Dream turned the Hollywood power structure upside down–producing over 300 films and becoming the most powerful independent film company in the world. Up close and personal, the film examines the complex relationship between two contradictory personalities whose combined force fueled their success and eventual collapse.
In 1998, recent Miss Israel winner Linor Abargil was abducted and raped at knife-point. Just seven weeks later, she was crowned Miss World. Brave Miss World follows this amazing young woman’s path to healing as she speaks to other survivors of sexual assault, confronts the possibility of her rapist’s parole, and gives voice to those who are too often silenced.
This excellent documentary follows the lives of five different and totally diverse gay men and women in Israel whose common link is the fact that they all hang out in Shushan, Jerusalem’s only gay bar.
At its best, art is about connection. A new Israeli-Palestinian documentary short film exploits the natural three-way relationship between artist, audience and subject to reveal an unexpected source of real-life intimacy: that between occupier and occupied.
In this documentary mosaic of a continued social disintegration, seven filmmakers bring to the screen protagonists and stories that live in an abyss of despair, in the chasm between those who have and those who do not.An old man rummaging for food in bins; a father who cannot give water to his infant daughter because he’s been cut off; an overcrowded ER that cannot cope under the pressure; a man who nearly buys an expensive Lexus and may yet decide to buy a Mercedes; a realtor in a well-fenced villa; and a mother sitting in a small crowded house with a hungry baby in one arm and a canister of gas in the other.
If life is a play and all the world’s a stage, actor and activist Juliano Mer-Khamis epitomized the famous quote to its bitter end. On 4 April 2011, Mer-Khamis was assassinated by a masked gunman in the city of Jenin, where he’d established the Freedom Theatre. The shooter was never caught. “Juliano died as he’d lived, the stuff of Greek tragedies,” mourned filmmaker Avi Nesher.
On the edge of Israel’s Negev Desert, half a mile from Gaza, and directly in the path of thousands of Hamas rockets lies Sderot, a city of factory workers and rock musicians – the children of refugees from North Africa and the Middle East who grew up in a transit camp. Despite being pummeled for years by homemade missiles known as Qassams, the people of Sderot persevere. In raucous Moroccan celebrations, they embrace newcomers. In quiet family dinners, they voice their dreams. And in underground bomb shelters, they create music – a unique Sderot sound that has transformed Israeli music by injecting Middle Eastern influences into traditional Western beats.
