Quote:
With an ensemble cast of both Israeli and Palestinian actors, “Laila in Haifa” explores the interweaving stories of five women set over one night in a club in the port town of Haifa. Laced with wry humor, Amos Gitai presents a candid snapshot of contemporary life in one of the last remaining spaces where Israelis and Palestinians come together to engage in face‐to‐face relationships.Read More »
1. House
At a stone quarry above Hebron, Arab stonecutters work without explosives to cut away slabs shipped to cities to build houses. We visit a site in an old Arab quarter of Jerusalem where Palestinian laborers are enlarging a house for a Jewish family that had been an Arab family’s home until 1948. We meet the house’s present owner, a Jewish professional. We meet a stonemason at work on the addition; he talks about his hatred of Jews. We meet an older man who had built the original house, and we meet the physician who had lived in the house until he and his family evacuated it. He explains why they left. History, class, labor, and attitude on display at a construction site.Read More »
Filmed in one sequence shot of 81 minutes, this virtuosic film draws back the curtain on a moment in the life of a small community of outcasts, Jews and Arabs, who live together in a forgotten enclave surrounded by mass public housing near Jaffa. A young journalist (Yuval Scharf, intelligent and glamorous) visits them and discovers, among the dilapidated shacks and an orchard of lemon trees, a range of characters far removed from the usual cliches of the region. Compelling performances by Sarah Adler, Assi Levy, and Yussuf Abu-Warda shed light on private dreams and desires. From internationally acclaimed director Amos Gitai (Berlin Jerusalem NYJFF 1993, Kedma NYJFF 2003, Alila NYJFF 2004, News from Home / News from House NYJFF 2007).Read More »
Set in the Mea Sherim quarter of Jerusalem, an enclave of the ultra-Orthodox, Kadosh explores a hermetic world almost never seen on the screen. Here, for ten years, the pious Rivka (Yael Abecassis) has devoted herself to her husband Meir (Yoram Hattab), but their marriage remains childless. Presumed barren, she is rejected by her community, which prizes children above all else.
The story that follows relates the harrowing fate of Rivka, and also here beloved sister Malka (Meital Barda), in love with a young man who has fled the community to lead a secular life.Read More »
A young couple marry in France in the 1940s and the film follows the arc of their marriage over the next decade. As France recovers from the trauma of the war, the wife finds herself increasingly caught up in acquiring material possessions while the husband prefers a more traditional lifestyle.Read More »
Synopsis:
The film takes place in 1973 during the Yom Kippur War in which Egypt and Syria launched attacks in Sinai and the Golan Heights. The story is told from the perspective of Israeli soldiers. We are led by Weinraub and his friend Ruso on a day that begins with quiet city streets, but ends with death, destruction and devastation of both body and mind. Various scenes are awash in the surreal, as Weinraub’s head hangs out over a rescue helicopter’s open door, watching with tranquil desperation as the earth passes beneath, the overpowering whir of the blades creating a hypnotic state. It is not a traditional blood, guts and glory film. There are no men in battle, only the rescue crew trying to pick up the broken pieces.Read More »
Quote:
As the 1987 trial of Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie unfolds on television, Victor Bastien (Hippolyte Girardot — Lady Chatterley) reviews old family documents and finds a distressing “Aryan declaration” authored by his late father, a discovery that throws Victor’s conception of his family’s history into darkness. His mother, Rivka (legendary actress Jeanne Moreau — Jules and Jim, Eva), keeps a stubborn silence about the past, while Tania (Dominique Blanc), his sister, defends their father’s declaration. At the same time, Victor’s wife (Emmanuelle Devos — Kings and Queen) and children grow concerned about his increasing distraction. Burning with the need to unearth the truth, Victor takes his family to the tiny village where Rivka’s parents were forced to hide during the war.Read More »
Plot:
A political drama centered around Israel’s pullout from the occupied Gaza strip, in which a French woman of Israeli origin (Binoche) returns to the West BankRead More »
Plot
Filmed in one sequence-shot of 1:25, Ana Arabia is a moment in the life of a small community of outcasts, Jews and Arabs, who live together in a forgotten enclave at the “border” between Jaffa and Bat Yam, in Israel. One day, Yael, a young journalist, visits them. In these dilapidated shacks, in the orchard filled with lemon trees and surrounded by mass public houses, she discovers a range of characters far removed from the usual clichés offered by the region. Yael has the feeling of having discovered a human goldmine. She no longer thinks of her job. Faces and words of Youssef and Miriam, Sarah and Walid, of their neighbors, their friends tell her about life, its dreams and its hopes, its love affairs, desires and disillusions. Their relation to time is different than that of the city around them. In this tinkered and fragile place, there is a possibility of coexistence. A universal metaphor.Read More »