This summer the Jerusalem Film Festival celebrates its 30th anniversary. So many wonderful Israeli films have premiered at the festival over the years, as audiences discovered new directors and actors. Providing a platform and venue for viewing and lively discussion of film, the festival has played an important role in the development of Israeli cinema. Recognizing and encouraging excellence in film, the Jerusalem Film Festival presents an exciting line-up of Israeli feature films in competition for the Haggiag Award for Best Full-Length Feature Film.
Past winners include Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon, and Nir Bergman’s Intimate Grammar; last year’s winner was Sharqiya, director Ami Livne’s first full-length feature. Here is a first glimpse of the new Israeli films we can look forward to seeing at the festival this summer:
Israeli Feature Film Competition
Hora 79/ Eli Cohen
A comedy about dance and growing older. Thirty five years ago, Israel’s mythological folk dance troupe “Hora ’79” ceased its activity following a traumatic event, and the dancers went their separate ways. Now, after several decades, the Carmiel Dance Festival initiates a one-time event – a tribute to the legendary dance troupe. Upon receiving this surprising invitation, the troupe decides to reunite.
Will they succeed in overcoming the dark shadows of the past, the old rivalries and conflicts, and the betrayals of an aging body? Will they enjoy a moment of grace, returning, if only for a moment, to their lost youth? Cast: Hora ’79 dancers, Gila Almagor, Natan Datner, Yossi Graber. Producers: M. Slonim.
Youth/ Tom Shoval
Yaki and Shaul are teenage brothers who share a deep, almost telepathic bond. After their father loses his job, the family sinks into financial difficulties and heavy debt. Yaki and Shaul feel that they can’t stand on the sidelines watching their family fall apart. The fact that Yaki recently began his military service and has a gun, lets them take destiny into their own hands and make the leap from boy to man. Cast: David Conio, Eitan Conio, Moshe Ivgy, Shirly Deshe, Gita Amli. Producers: Green Productions.
Arabani/ Adi Aduan
Arabani – the word means a combination of Arabic and Hebrew. Yosef, a Druze man, returns to the village of his birth after an absence of 17 years, with his son and daughter from his former marriage to a Jewish woman. His decision to settle in the small Druze village leads to conflicts between the conservative, closed Druze community, Yosef, and his mother Afifa, who embraces her son and his children, because according to the Druze tradition, only someone born to Druze parents is considered a Druze. Despite the problems and difficulties, Smadar, Yosef’s daughter, finds an unexpected love. Cast: Iyad Shiti, Daniela Nidam, Tom Klarich, Zohaira Sbag, Lucy Aharish. Producer: Itai Tamir – Layla Productions.
White Panther/ Dani Reisfeld
Alex Mansheyev, a boxer of Russian background, becomes a Neo Nazi as a response to the Israeli society’s rejection of him and his family. Meeting David Ohana, a boxing coach of traditional Mizrahi background from Tiberias, who dreams of returning Tiberias to its former glory as the home of boxing champions, proves meaningful to Alex, leading him to become a professional boxer with potential.
Growing closer to David, Alex begins a romance with Yasmin Ohana, David’s daughter, and for the first time in his life, he feels that he belongs to Israeli society.
Alex is torn between his loyalty to the Neo Nazi group headed by his brother Yevgeny, and his identification with the values of David Ohana, his new guru. Cast: Yevgeny Orlov, Zeev Revah, Meytal Gal, Zora “Vulcan” Kartevlishvili, Natasha Manor. Producer: Artza Productions.
Plasticine/ Vidi Bilu
Jerusalem 1966. In an old building at the center of town, on the third floor, lives a small, quiet family. Eli, the father, is away from home most of the day. Ruti, his wife, is enclosed within her own world, she spends most of the day in bed, reading thick romance novels that her husband brings her from the library. Michal, their eleven year old daughter, is lonely and bored, and forced to seek interest and attention from the other residents of the building. One day when Ruti decides to get out of bed and find a job, the apparent calm and quiet of the home is disrupted. Cast: Reymond Amsalem, Yehezkel Lazarov, Hana Laslow, Yael Ben Dor, Anna Dobrovitzky, Kobi Marziano. Production: Marker Films Elad Gavish.
She’s Coming Home/ Maya Dreyfus
After the break-up of a long term relationship 33 year old Michal returns to live in her parents’ small, crowded apartment in Herzliya, a sleepy, petit-bourgeois suburb. Michal is a young and promising director who should be writing a new screenplay but instead spends her days locked in her room feeling frustrated, and sleeping most of the time. Things begin to change when Michal meets the principal of the local high school, a 50 year old married man, and falls in love with him. The forbidden passion and storm of emotions that develops between Michal and the principal within the school walls recall the first love of youth. Without noticing, Michal becomes an adolescent once more. But this time, as opposed to her first teenage years, she rebels, and the small apartment, that is too narrow to contain a pair of parents and their 30 year old teenager, becomes a pressure-cooker full of conflicts. When the affair with the principal becomes serious, Michal finds herself torn. Cast: Tali Sharon, Alon Abutbul, Liora Rivlin, Eli Cohen. Producer: Amir Harel, Lama Productions.
