After eight years, a boy awakens a big secret from the past. Meanwhile, Jordana, a travel agent, discovers she is pregnant, though she has been celibate for years. At the same time, Golan, a radio host decides to revive Israeli comedy group, HaGashash HaHiver, in order to save his love. These characters and many other are part of a writers workshop in a public library in Tiberias, which weaves them into the story as one family, one city and one world.
Azulai is a policeman in Jaffa, whose incompetence is only matched by his soft-heartedness. His superiors want to send him to early retirement, but he would like to stay on the force, and the criminals of Jaffa don’t want to see him leave either.
After fleeing Europe for Uruguay during WWII, Jacob Kaplan built a quiet life. Now 76, and in the middle of an existential crisis, Jacob believes that a German man who runs a café by the beach is actually a Nazi fugitive. He devises a plan to kidnap the German and smuggle him to Israel for trial.
Curmudgeonly widower Nat Dayan (Jonathan Pryce) clings to his way of life as a kosher bakery shop owner in London’s East End. Understaffed, Nat reluctantly enlists the help of teenager Ayyash (Jerome Holder), who has a secret side gig selling marijuana to help his immigrant mother make ends meet. When Ayyash accidentally drops his stash into the mixing dough, the challah starts flying off the shelves, and an unlikely friendship forms between the old Jewish baker and his young Muslim apprentice. Director John Goldschmidt tells a warmhearted and humorous story about overcoming prejudice and finding redemption in unexpected places.
When the women’s balcony in an Orthodox synagogue collapses, leaving the rabbi’s wife in a coma and the rabbi in shock, the congregation falls into crisis. In this Israeli comedy, gender rifts unfold as the women stand up to the new ultra-Orthodox Rabbi.
A new season of the award-winning Israeli series, following the exploits of four students who dropped out of their prestigious Yeshiva and are searching for their place in the world. In this season they’ll open a yeshiva on a central, non-religious street in Jerusalem – to the chagrin of the neighbors – and not only that, but right across the street from a co-ed secular seminary. Disagreements and differences will crop up soon enough, but there’ll also be moments of harmony and bridge-building between the two worlds.
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Award-winning director Daniel Burman returns with The Tenth Man, a well-observed comedy that wrestles with notions of identity, home and the intricacies of the father son relationship. After years away, Ariel returns to Buenos Aires seeking to reconnect with his father Usher, who has founded a charity foundation in Once, the city’s bustling Jewish district where Ariel spent his youth. In the process of trying to meet his father and getting entangled in his charitable commitments, Ariel also reconnects with his own Jewish roots.
When aspiring filmmaker David (Brandon Polansky) is mandated by a judge to attend a social program at the Jewish Community Center, he is sure of one thing: he doesn’t belong there. But when he’s assigned to visit the Brooklyn Bridge with the vivacious Sarah (Samantha Elisofon), sparks fly and his convictions are tested. Their budding relationship must weather Sarah’s romantic past, David’s judgmental mother (Jessica Walter), and their own pre-conceptions of what love is supposed to look like. Under the guise of an off-kilter New York romantic comedy, Keep the Change does something quite radical in casting actors with autism to play characters with autism, offering a refreshingly honest portrait of a community seldom depicted on the big screen. Rarely has a romcom felt so deep and poignant. Thoroughly charming and quite funny, the film’s warmth and candor brings growth and transformation to the characters, and ultimately, to us.
A boorish Israeli-American couple plan a Sabbath dinner party for a group of fellow ex-pat friends and family in their Hollywood Hills mansion. What could possibly go wrong? Well, start with a deadly mix of alcohol, add inflated egos, some inappropriate lust and top with raging jealousy and the result is of cauldron of murderous mayhem. A shot gun, garden sheers, kitchen knives and even a garbage disposal are used as weapons of choice as these deranged guests turn on each other in director Michael (“Out in the Dark”) Mayer’s outrageous and bloody comedy. Think “Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf” meets “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.”
Winner of the Golden Bear at Berlinale, the latest from Nadav Lapid (The Kindergarten Teacher) features a dynamic lead performance from newcomer Tom Mercier, whose feral intensity practically bursts out of the frame. Mercier plays Yoav, a disaffected young Israeli who flees Tel Aviv for Paris to start a new life. Desperate to erase his origins, Yoav sees becoming French as his only hope for salvation. Step one is to replace his language. From now on, he will not utter a single word of Hebrew and his dictionary becomes his constant companion. His work at the Israeli embassy is a burden, but studying for his naturalization test also has its pitfalls. And the young French couple he befriends has some rather strange ideas about how to help him. Based on writer-director Nadav Lapid’s own experiences, Synonyms explores the challenges of putting down roots in a new place. Yoav’s attempts to find himself awaken past demons and open up an existential abyss in this tragicomic puzzle that wisely knows how to keep its secrets.
