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Formally meticulous, even austere, the assured feature debut of Israeli film-maker Lapid announces the arrival of a significant talent. This is a film of masterful control: in the way it shuns the..
posted May 24, 2013 in News | Permalink
Rama Burshtein's Fill The Void (Lemale et ha'halal) is the second film in as many years to emerge from Israel with not only a strong international presence, but a unique perspective on religious as..
Driving home from a screening of the ravishing new Israeli film Fill the Void, I caught sight of a young man in full Hasidic garb, trying to coax his toddler son across a busy Los Angeles street. My..
posted May 23, 2013 in News | Permalink
"Fill the Void," which won Israel's equivalent of the Academy Award last year, is a love story unlike any Hollywood fare and it is set in a Jewish community unfamiliar to most Jews. The movie is by..
posted May 22, 2013 in News | Permalink
Here's "men in black" of a different kind for filmgoers, as first-time feature director Rama Burshtein's characters in Fill the Void, including its females, are highly conservative, humorless and on..
A tragic love story between two Palestinians living under Israeli occupation received a standing ovation at the Cannes film festival on Monday and broke new ground as the first film fully funded by..
posted May 21, 2013 in News | Permalink
With all the hoopla about “The Great Gatsby” as the great American love story, let me suggest that the intimate Israeli foreign film “Fill the Void” goes a longer way to to..
posted May 19, 2013 in News | Permalink
Part live action, part animation, The Congress follows on from the Israeli film-maker's award-winning 2008 work Waltz with Bashir. Empire magazine's online outlet “an in..
posted May 17, 2013 in News | Permalink
Man without a Cell Phone , directed by Sameh Zoabi, is a gently political comedy about an Israeli Arab slacker who is forced by circumstances to take a stand. It’s a rare glimpse into village..
posted May 16, 2013 in News | Permalink
It’s hard not to notice that many of the prizewinners at the 2013 Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival focus on women, be they pole dancers, supermarket cashiers or pioneers in a..
posted May 14, 2013 in News | Permalink
The process of immigration to Israel - of Jewish immigration to Israel, to be precise - is described in English as Absorption; in Hebrew, it is merely reception. It is easy to assume that this is a..
posted May 13, 2013 in News | Permalink
"A Dancer, a Pole and a Movie," directed by Isri Halpern, won the award on Wednesday for best Israeli film at DocAviv, the Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival. The top prize in the went..
posted May 09, 2013 in News | Permalink
Angelina Jolie is a rather unexpected poster-girl (yes, I pick my words carefully) for the Israeli arms industry. I mean, she could be, given that men selling guns like to jazz up their sales with a..
posted May 06, 2013 in News | Permalink
Eran Riklis has completed shooting his new film Dancing Arabs. Sayed Kashua wrote the script based on his eponymous debut novel, and his third novel, Second Person Singular. Starring Tawfeek Barhom,..
After Israel's first horror film, Rabies, was released in 2011 to critical acclaim you would have expected the floodgates to open as other filmmakers followed suit. But it never happened. Instead, a..
posted May 05, 2013 in News | Permalink
Israeli filmmaker Rama Burshtein is receiving a lot of buzz for her award winning film "Fill the Void," which explores the Orthodox Jewish community. The film is about an Orthodox Hasidic family is..
posted May 03, 2013 in News | Permalink
Rama Burshtein's new film, "Fill the Void," takes place in a setting that will be unfamiliar to most viewers: the confined world of the ultra-Orthodox in Israel. In this sphere, gender roles are and..
Before Iran became Israel's No. 1 archenemy, thousands of Israelis stationed in Tehran lived quite the life there. Dan Shadur's film "Before the Revolution," premiering at the Docaviv Film Festival..
posted May 01, 2013 in News | Permalink
Overcoming the challenges of teaching Arab, Jewish Israeli kids to dance together is the subject of the film ‘Dancing in Jaffa'. Ballroom dancing, with its emphasis on formality and decorum,..
posted April 30, 2013 in News | Permalink
In a meta twist that could make one's head spin, Israeli-Canadian filmmaker Igal Hecht latest work, 'A Universal Language,' documents a working tour by six Canadian comics of the Holy Land, in to at..
The three Israeli films at this year's Tribeca Film Festiva, which ended April 28, reflect an eclectic mix of genres, visions, and views about Israeli culture and the world at large. Two of the deal..
Lebanon's interior minister says ministry granted director Ziad Doueiri permit to film movie, but was forced to revoke it after receiving letter of protest from Israel Boycott Office of Arab Ziad in..
When we think of political dramas our mental image usually involves high-powered men and women expounding on their visions, swaying the masses or forcing through legislation (Gandhi, The Iron Lady,..
posted April 29, 2013 in News | Permalink
It's been over sixty years since the Holocaust, but time has not faded the memories for those who survived it. And as part of this year's 27th Israel Film Festival, a tribute will be made to the and..
posted April 26, 2013 in News | Permalink
The Academy-Award-nominated documentary The Gatekeepers, commercially released last week in the UK, is a visceral experience. Its combination of technical brilliance, political urgency and moral me..
posted April 24, 2013 in News | Permalink
Raphael Nadjari's film A Strange Course of Events has been selected for screening in the prestigious Director's Fortnight (Quinzaine) at the Cannes Film Festival. The program runs from May 2 - 26, a..
posted April 23, 2013 in News | Permalink
If you haven't been paying attention to the Israeli film industry, you're screwing up. Given that the country is two-for-two at this year's Tribeca Film Festival, it'd be foolish to overlook the is..
When conversing about the sexual exploitation of woman in male-dominated societies, the female sex is usually victimized while the male sex is relegated to the status of human rights violator. of of..
posted April 18, 2013 in News | Permalink
‘Six Acts,' one of three Israeli films at Tribeca fest, offers a clichéd and voyeuristic look at adolescent promiscuity. This year's Tribeca Film Festival includes three new films from..
posted April 16, 2013 in News | Permalink
NEW YORK - "I'm proud to say we're the first Israeli film festival to start on time!" So joked director and co-founder Isaac Zablocki at the opening night screening and reception for the inaugural a..
posted April 13, 2013 in News | Permalink
The past few years have brought tremendous achievements to documentary films focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. From Academy Award nominations (5 Broken Cameras and The Gatekeepers) to top..
posted April 11, 2013 in News | Permalink
"I knew I had dynamite on my hands," says director Dror Moreh. He is talking about his documentary film The Gatekeepers, which, it is fair to say, has had an explosive effect on the Israeli since a..
Aharon Keshales was a film critic and lecturer at Tel Aviv University when a student of his, Navot Papushado, came to him and asked him a life-changing question: "If you know so much about films and..
posted April 10, 2013 in News | Permalink
In "Numbered," the new documentary by Dana Doron and Uriel Sinai, a journalist and Holocaust survivor named Ruth Bondy describes how in the early days of the Jewish state, sabras condescendingly at..
The drama opens in a smoky saloon somewhere in a remote corner of Israel. A young stranger, Avram (Dudu Tassa), enters the bar, where he is regarded suspiciously by the tough-looking musicians back..
Among its other benefits, the Israel Film Festival takes even those of us familiar with the country to places and people we know only superficially, or not at all. Three of this festival's movies -..
DROR MOREH, an Israeli film-maker, has interviewed plenty of important and influential figures, including Ariel Sharon, a former prime minister of Israel, and Condoleezza Rice, previously US of But..
posted April 09, 2013 in News | Permalink
That Israeli cinema has grown, in the last ten years or so, into a confident industry capable of producing world-class films is hardly news. With habitual trips to the Oscars-and no less than two to..
posted April 08, 2013 in News | Permalink
This week, The Israel Film Center Festival opens in New York City with over a dozen premiere Israeli films. Over the last decade, Israel has become a major international player in the world of film...
New York, NY APRIL 5, 2013 - The Israel Film Center at The JCC in Manhattan is proud to announce an unprecedented lineup of premiere films and star guests for the inaugural Israel Film Center in a..
posted April 05, 2013 in News | Permalink
Youths violently assault Yariv Horowitz, director of "Rock the Casbah" after screening of film last week, 'Commentator' reports. French Arab youths assaulted Israeli film director Yariv Horowitz at..
posted March 28, 2013 in News | Permalink
New York, NY March 20, 2013 - The Israel Film Center at The JCC in Manhattan is proud to announce the inaugural Israel Film Center Festival, premiering in New York City from April 11 - 18, set to be..
How quirky is the 2012 Israeli comedy "The Ballad of the Weeping Spring"? Not until 40 minutes in does writer-director Benny Toraty make clear his film is a comedy and, if not for the spoken Hebrew,..
Within the many, sometimes obscure, selections of the Tirbeca Film Festival, one can always find a few groundbreaking films. Tribeca Film Festival is a much-needed institution. As our American film..
posted March 26, 2013 in News | Permalink
Israeli filmmaker Oded Adomi Leshem traveled from Tel Aviv to the Hillel on Florida Atlantic University's Boca Raton campus recently to answer questions about his latest documentary, "Voices from a..
Yossi is an early spring breeze of a film - too delicate to be substantial but definitely holding the promise of warmth. That's the trademark of Israeli director Eytan Fox who, a decade ago, brought..
posted March 22, 2013 in News | Permalink
WASHINGTON - Standing at the forefront of Israeli PR, Israeli Ambassador to the US Michael Oren has felt in recent weeks that he is being undermined from within. "The Gatekeepers" - former Shin Bet..
posted March 17, 2013 in News | Permalink
In a major first for this little country, two Israeli-helmed films received Oscar noms this year, both in the documentary category, and both for films that take a critical and sometimes searing look..
posted March 15, 2013 in News | Permalink
"One day, someone told us, 'This is my house.' Since then, we have been suffering." -- Rifkah El Kurd, Palestinian grandmother in the film "My Neighbourhood" Julia Bacha believes violent and have a..
posted March 14, 2013 in News | Permalink
Two Israeli documentary films were nominated this year for an Academy Award: The Gatekeepers by Dror Moreh and 5 Broken Cameras by Guy Davidi and Emad Burnat. The Gatekeepers is about the conflict 5..
"Regrets are the natural property of gray hairs," Charles Dickens opined. And while the six men in Dror Moreh's haunting and daunting documentary "The Gatekeepers" have gray hair - or no hair at all..
posted March 08, 2013 in News | Permalink
Michael Mayer has lived in Los Angeles for the past 17 years. He has spent many of those working in Hollywood, making trailers for movies and American television series. From time to time he a or a..
The recent Academy Award nominations for the films "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" managed to anger not only Culture and Sports Minister Limor Livnat but also Israel's Ambassador to Serbia..
posted March 07, 2013 in News | Permalink
Now a cardiologist at a Tel Aviv hospital, Yossi works long hours, eats take-out food alone in his apartment, and watches online porn. He avoids the interest of a female co-worker and shuns the of a..
The documentary, and the debates in Israel, Palestine and America, show the need to think strategically. "Argo" won Best Picture. "Zero Dark Thirty" best illustrated just how controversial policies..
posted March 02, 2013 in News | Permalink
Everyone who has a human soul should be moved by a Palestinian and an Israeli making the film '5 Broken Cameras' together. A photo my daughter sent me from Facebook on Tuesday shows Emad Burnat, in..
A photo my daughter sent me from Facebook on Tuesday shows Emad Burnat, who directed (with Guy Davidi) and appeared in the film "5 Broken Cameras," standing on the red carpet in a tuxedo on his way..
This action-packed yet surprisingly tender 2012 Israeli film had a better Hebrew title, HaMashgichim, or "The [Kosher] Supervisors" - like the rabbis whose business it is to maintain the kashrut of..
posted February 28, 2013 in News | Permalink
he Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers of "The Gatekeepers" and "5 Broken Cameras" were snubbed by Israel's emissaries in Los Angeles ahead of Sunday's Academy Awards. Both films, which were dubbed..
posted February 25, 2013 in News | Permalink
Yaron should know: She is the chairwoman of the festival, which will take place March 2-17 in different venues across the Delaware Valley. Working together with Mindy Chriqui, who has been involved..
JERUSALEM - Not one but two Israeli-made documentaries are finalists for an Oscar this Sunday. But instead of being a cause for celebration, both movies are giving the state's prime minister, a a of..
posted February 24, 2013 in News | Permalink
Yigal Alon, the army general and politician once said, "A nation that doesn't respect its past will have a dull present and an uncertain future." By extension, a culture that doesn't preserve the a..
posted February 23, 2013 in News | Permalink
"The Gatekeepers" is a French-Israeli production which sheds light on the Israeli regime's 46-year-old occupation of the West Bank through interviews with six former heads of the Israeli security to..
posted February 22, 2013 in News | Permalink
Co-directed by Palestinian Emad Burnat and Israeli Guy Davidi, the film documents the story of Bil'in village and the struggle of its residents to protect their land from Jewish settlers and giant a..
Michael Moore, the American film director, posted a message Wednesday on his Twitter page saying that the Palestinian co-director of the film "5 Broken Cameras," Emad Burnat, had been detained early..
posted February 20, 2013 in News | Permalink
Israel's Academy Award-nominated documentary "The Gatekeepers" has won rave reviews for the candid soul-searching of its chief protagonists _ the six living former directors of the country's shadowy..
posted February 20, 2013 in News |
