Hunting Elephants centers on a 12-year-old Israeli boy named Jonathan, who is dealt a cruel double-blow by fate. First his father is killed in a freak accident while working at the local bank. Then, not only does the bank deny fault, they also declare they’ll repossess the boy’s home. Pushed to the brink, the boy must find money fast, and so decides to rob the bank that’s offended him. But he needs a team. Unfortunately for Jonathan, the only crew he has access to is three senior citizens.
Archives
Igor and the Crane’s Journey
Fourteen-year-old Igor moves from Moscow, Russia, to Israel with his mother. They leave behind his father, a bird researcher whom Igor hardly knows. Over the Internet, Igor and his father follow the migration of a flock of cranes.
Next to Her
Chelli is raising her mentally disabled sister Gabby all by herself. When the social worker finds out that she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, Chelli is forced to place her in a day-care center. The void left by her absence makes room for Zohar in Chelli’s life. This new romance creates another crack in the sisters’ symbiotic relationship.
The Bentwich Syndrome
From his humble origins in Whitechapel, the eccentric and ambitious 19th century lawyer Herbert Bentwich set out to establish an aristocratic Jewish dynasty. In this brilliantly wry documentary, Bentwich’s great-grandson Gur discovers the truth about his much-maligned and enigmatic family, which, according to its founders, served as God’s gift to Zionism and enlightened Judaism. Along the way, he uncovers a remarkable story, funny, implausible and sometimes tragic, of fervent Zionists, inspired artists, and outrageously determined rebels.
Kicking Out Shoshana
In the conservative city of Jerusalem, Ami Shoshan, an Israeli football player, is forced by a mafia boss to pose as a gay man, a punishment for flirting with the criminal’s girlfriend. Shoshan is banned by players and fans of his team, but becomes a hero of the gay community.
The Wonders
Graffiti artist, mystery man — part con-man, party modern-day prophet — along with a grumpy cynical private investigator, and a neurotic femme fatale, embark on a noirish journey into the very heart of darkness of Jerusalem.
The Man in the Wall
One night, one apartment and one mystery. Rami takes his dog on a walk and disappears. His wife, Shir, wakes up in the middle of the night, clueless as to his whereabouts. Friends, relatives, neighbors and police come round and, with each visit, more marital secrets are revealed. Could one of them hold the key to the mystery? Set entirely during one rainy night, The Man in the Wall is a tense, methodically paced psychological drama with a personal touch.
A Tale of Love and Darkness
Amos Oz chronicles his childhood in Jerusalem at the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the early years of the State of Israel, and his teenage years on Kibbutz Hulda. As a child, he crossed paths with prominent figures in Israeli society, among them Shmuel Yosef Agnon, Shaul Tchernichovsky, and David Ben-Gurion. One of his teachers was the Israeli poet Zelda. Joseph Klausner was his great-uncle. Told in a non-linear fashion, Oz’s story is interwoven with tales of his family’s Eastern European roots. The family’s name was Klausner. By changing the name to a Hebrew one, Oz rebelled against that European background while affirming loyalty to the land of his birth.
Sacred Sperm
The film creates a daring first exposure on the way parents, rabbis, teachers, pedagogues and therapists within the Orthodox Hasidic Jewish Community educating their male children from infancy to adolescence, to avoid spilling their sperm. They target them to keep their seed only after marriage with a female for the purpose of fertilization. “Sacred Sperm” penetrates into one of the most suppressed hidden issues in the Orthodox Hasidic Jewish Community – a Taboo. Throughout the film we follow the emotional and theological struggle of the director who is trying to find a proper way as a father to explain his teenager son logically why he should keep this major Mitzvah (commandment) which perceived by many as unreasonable and seems impossible to fulfill
Touchdown Israel
America’s favorite sport is spreading to Israel and bringing together a diverse cast of characters. Israeli Jews, Muslims and Christians as well as Americans living in Israel, and religious settlers all playing together, shows how sports can be a unifier in a complex, multifaceted society.
