Asia

Asia tells the story of a single mom, Asia, whose relationship with her daughter, Vika, is more of a sister relationship rather than mother-daughter. Asia’s expectations of honesty and openness begin to negatively impact her relationship with Vika, who strives for privacy and independence. When Vika’s health begins to decline, this only increases her desire for exploration, and Asia finds herself at a crossroads between her own parenting style and respecting her daughter’s point of view. It is a story of navigating relationships and motherhood.

Sublet

Following a personal tragedy, Michael, a travel columnist for The New York Times, goes to Tel Aviv to write. His grief has caused problems between him and his husband, leading him to want to do his research and go home. But when he sublets an apartment from Tomer, a young film student, he finds himself drawn into the life of the city. The unlikely and intense bond they form transforms their lives in unexpected ways.

Yossi

Yossi, a closeted gay doctor, has his quiet world turned upside down when a woman from his past shows up. Their emotionally charged reunion causes Yossi to leave Tel Aviv and he finally wants to awaken from his emotional slumber.

Sequel to Yossi & Jagger.

Zaytoun

In 1982, amid the Lebanese Civil War, Israeli pilot Yoni (Stephen Dorff) is shot down over Beirut and is taken prisoner by inhabitants of a Palestinian refugee camp. Among the captors is ten-year-old Fahed, whose father obsessively tends to his prized, but sickly olive tree, refusing to replant it until they return to their ancestral land. Despite his deep-rooted hatred for Yoni, Fahed realizes he can use him to get past the border and into “Palestine” to plant his father’s olive tree. The two embark on a harrowing and dangerous journey – one that tests the very boundaries of humanity. Zaytoun is a story of survival, reconciliation and friendship.

Cupcakes

A group of friends in a Tel Aviv suburb get together to watch Universong, a Eurovision-like television song contest. They’d all like to forget the stress of their daily lives. Yael is a former beauty queen who is unfulfilled by her job as a corporate lawyer; Dana is a stressed-out aide to a cabinet minister and timidly tries to please her traditional father; Anat , has a successful bakery but an unsuccessful marriage; Keren is a shy blogger; Efrat is a frustrated singer- songwriter whose career has stalled; and Ofer is a nursery-school teacher who is upset that his boyfriend, a spokes-model for his family’s famous brand of hummus, is still in the closet and won’t publicly acknowledge their romance.
When the night of the Universong final rolls around, they gather to watch and are depressed by the lifelessness of the Israeli entry, a parody of many recent offerings, a flashy, grating song about “amour.” After they realize that Anat is distraught over the crisis in her marriage, they compose a song to cheer her up. As a lark, Ofer enters their cellphone video of it in next year’s contest, and it becomes Israel’s entry.

Wedding Doll

Hagit, a young woman with an intellectual disability, works in a toilet-paper factory. She lives with her mother Sarah, a divorcée who gave up her life for her daughter. Hagit strives for independence and Sarah is torn between her desire to protect her, and her own will to live. When a relationship develops between her and the son of the factory owner, Hagit hides it from her mother. The announcement of the closing of the factory shakes Hagit and Sarah’s life and jeopardizes Hagit’s love story.

Baba Joon

Yitzhak runs the turkey farm his father built with his own two hands after they emigrated from Iran to Israel. When his son Moti turns thirteen, Yitzhak teaches him the trade, hoping that he will continue the proud family tradition. But Moti doesn’t like working in the turkey barn; his passion is fixing up junkyard cars and bringing them back to life. Moti’s mother Sarah tries to reconcile between the two, while his grandfather pushes Yitzhak to take a firm hand with his son. Yitzhak takes Moti’s refusal to work in the turkey barn as a personal rejection. Though he loves his son dearly, he makes it his mission to impose the family farm on Moti. The arrival of Darius, the uncle from America, sets off a chain of events that will undermine the familial harmony. Soon enough Yitzhak will learn that his son is just as stubborn as he is. The conflict is inevitable.

The Kind Words

In the wake of their mother’s death, Dorona (Rotem Zissman-Cohen) and her brothers Netanel (Roy Assaf) and Shai (Assaf Ben-Shimon) stumble across some unexpected intrigue regarding her past — namely the revelation that her husband, the man who raised them, is not their biological father. The ensuing search for the mysterious Muslim man who sired them takes them from Israel to France. The film truly belongs to Dorona, a young woman longing for a love so idealized, so notional, that she can’t see the full heart of the man in front of her: her own husband. Briskly paced and threaded throughout with wry humor, Zarhin’s film asks us to confront our own ideas around identity and walking the emotional tightrope between lies and truth.

A Borrowed Identity

Based on the books of Sayed Kashua. Eyad, who grew up in an Arab town in Israel, is given the chance to go to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Jerusalem. He desperately tries to fit in with his schoolmates and is isolated until Jewish classmate Naomi befriends him. Eyad’s other lifeline is Yonatan (Michael Moshonov), whom Eyad is assigned to help with schoolwork. Both are “misfits”: one in a wheelchair, the other an Arab. Through love, friendship, tradition, and conflict, Eyad struggles to find his identity.

The Last Suit

Abraham Bursztein, an 88 year-old Jewish tailor, runs away from Buenos Aires to Poland, where he proposes to find a friend who saved him from a certain death at the end of World War II. After seven decades without any contact with him, Abraham will try to find his old friend and keep his promise to return one day. Comedic and poignant in equal measure, The Last Suit approaches its weighty themes with a light touch that illuminates a serious story.

Israel Film Center

Archives