The
Consulate General of Israel, San Francisco
presents our:
-- Israeli Feature Film Series--
In addition, the Israeli Consulate has experienced speakers available to lead a discussion after the film screening on a variety of Israel-related topics. Please contact the Public Affairs Department at 415-844-7504 or via email at projects@sanfrancisco.mfa.gov.il for further details and to borrow one of the following Israeli feature films:
Dir:
Rafi Bukai84 minutes
Based on a true story, AVANTI POPOLO follows two Egyptian soldiers, one of whom is a Shakespearean actor, stranded in the Sinai desert during the final hours of the 1967 Six Day War, as they make their painful way toward the Suez Canal. Delirious from thirst and later from the first taste of liquor, the two fall into situations ranging from the comic to the surreal. Skewering the stupidity and wanton destructiveness of war, AVANATI POPOLO generated considerable controversy as well as critical acclaim when it was released.
The Barbeque
People (Hamangalistim), 2003
Dir:
Davis Ofek and Yossi Madmoni
98 minutes
The Ida family, is celebrating Israel's 40th independence day. Around
the barbeque, a story of two generations unfolds taking us from Iraq where
the parents new their first loves and losses to New-York where their children
get entangled in an awkward murder. The strings of this strange encounter
lead back to the Mediterranean port city of Ashdod where the family is
trying to come to terms with its past and carve its way into the future.
Dir: Joseph Pitchhadze114 minutes
A modern love story laced with elements of the Film Noir. Ten loners from Tel Aviv are involved in a robbery of a stolen Christian icon from an international crime syndicate. The brutal outcome of this theft will alter their understanding of love forever.
http://www.besamemucho.co.il/
Dir:
Ephraim Kishon89 minutes
Blaumilch is a mental patient who escapes from the insane asylum and decides to turn Tel Aviv into Venice. He gets a hold of some roadwork equipment and starts digging a canal down Allenby Street, one of the city's main thoroughfares. Instead of anyone stopping him, Blaumilch becomes the center of a battle between groups of rival bureaucrats at the government and municipality. Each one thinks the other initiated the canal project. They all hate the idea, but none of them wants to find himself on the wrong side of Progress. So they try to outdo each other in providing Blaumilch with support and financing.
Bonjour
Monsieur Shlomi (Ha’Kochavim Shel Shlomi), 2003
Dir:
Shemi Zarhin
94 minutes
This is a heartening family comedy and surprising love story
focusing on the captivating character of 16 year old Shlomi. Although
not doing well in school, Shlomi is a gifted cook and takes care of most
household chores. One day, the school's principal finds out Shlomi is
actually a genius and tries to get him into a more suitable curriculum.
However, Shlomi is more interested in taking care of his family and his
new love interest, the beautiful girl next door.
* There is a small screening fee for this film
Dir: Amit Leor87 minutes
Yutz, a frustrated poet past his prime, and his aging bohemian friends frequent Café Braun. The café was once a home to artists and intellectuals, now it is a haven for oddballs and outcasts including: a violent Arab painter fresh out of an insane asylum, an alcoholic mama’s boy who stutters, a macho heartbroken musician and an outcast Belgian immigrant photographer. The landlord puts the squeeze on the café owner and threatens to demolish the building. Through a bizarre chain of events, Yutz and his friends band together to try to save the café. An off beat comedy about people struggling to maintain their sanity in an insane reality.
Desperado
Square (Kikar Ha-Halomot), 2001
Dir:
Benny Tiryati
90 minutes
Winner of the Israeli Oscar for Directing (Fall 2000). The Israeli version
of Cinema Paradiso. Rather than a story about Tel Aviv's Hatikva Quarter's
crime rate, it is a story about love and nostalgia. Set and shot in Tel
Aviv's Hatikva Quarter, it is a sentimental film about a movie theater
in Tel Aviv that has been closed for many years. When the theater owner
passes away, his sons decide to reopen the theater for one big gala and
select the theater's most popular film, an Indian film about a love triangle,
SANGAM.
Dir: Assi Dayan92 minutes
Three reservists in the Israeli army can't seem to stay out of trouble in this riotous comedy starring the Hagashash Hachiver trio, a popular comedy team in Israel. Romantic mischief complicates the search for an AWOL soldier, which escalates to a madcap adventure.
The top-grossing Israeli comedy of all time.
Dir:
Shmuel Imberman 102 minutes
PAL System Only
Like many young Israelis, Rafi never gave much thought to the fact that when he reached a certain age, he would be expected to serve in the Israeli Army and may experience active duty in combat. It certainly never occurred to him that he might be injured, and if so, it never occurred to him that he would be crippled, as he was. Now he must try to learn to cope with a life which is vastly different from anything he ever imagined, and at first he has nothing but bitterness. An older veteran tries to help him learn to cope, and his relatives work hard to adjust as well.
Life
According to Agfa (Ha’Haim Al Pay Agfa), 1992
Dir: Asi Dayan
102 minutes
1993's most talked-about and award-winning Israeli movie. The complex
Israeli social and political fabric is captured in a Tel Aviv pub owned
by a middle aged woman who, along with her patrons, is looking for love.
The apocalyptic end finally brings peace to the decadent city.
Dir: Shmuel Hasfari
93 minutes
Winner of six Israeli Film Academy Awards and the 1995 Berlin Film Festival Special Jury Award, Sh'chur, working in the `magic realist' tradition, paints a vivid portrait of a family caught between two worlds: that of traditional Morocco and modern Israel. While on air one night, Rachel, an Israeli TV personality, learns of her father's sudden death. Her journey home conjures memories of growing up in a different world rooted in Moroccan-Jewish custom, where her mother used ritual magic (sh'chur) as a solution to every problem. The world of spirits and demons has a true physical existence within their home and her mentally-disturbed older sister, Pnina, fills Rachel with fears. At the heart of Sh'chur lies a dark and ugly secret that threatens to destroy Rachel's life.
DocumentaryDir: David Ofek
76 minutes
In June 2002, a bus on its way from Tel Aviv to Tiberius, was bombed and 17 people were killed. Of the dead, 16 were identified. Number 17 wasn't. The filmmakers document the search to identify the man no one identified as missing.
* There is a small screening fee for this film
Dir: Jacob Goldwasser
91 minutes
A charming comedy, winner of 9 Academy awards in Israel, about a struggling family suddenly confronted with the possibility of great wealth. A Holocaust survivor family is visited by a friend from the concentration camp who lives in Canada. They face the dilemma of whether to leave Israel for an easier life abroad, or remain in Israel.
Passover
Fever (Lelayseder), 1995
Dir:
Shemi Zarhin
100 minutes
A middle-class Israeli family has a reunion for Passover and find themselves
feasting on a smorgasbord of dysfunction as they try to cope with their
innumerable problems in this drama. Yona and Michael are hosting the Passover
festivities. It is a sadder than usual gathering because one of their
sons was recently killed in a military accident. Nathaniel, twin brother
of the deceased, creates a stir when he shows up with his new girl friend.
His ex-wife Gila bears this well and she and the girl friend become better
acquainted. Dorona is the eldest and is constantly plagued by allergies,
something that has helped kill the romance in her marriage to Rikki. Shai
is anorexic while Dalia is morbidly obese. Meanwhile the bratty son of
Nathaniel and Gila creates all sorts of malicious mischief.
Dir:
Uri Zohar90 minutes
Gutte is an ambitionless middle-age lifeguard living in a shack on one of Tel Aviv's beaches. Gutte enjoys spying on his friend having sex. All the while, ironically, he regularly chases away the local kids trying to peep into the women's changing rooms on the beach. After being humiliated by his superior, a couple of teenagers and a beloved whore, he understands that the world is moving on, with or without him. The film has become a serious cult classic in Israel.
Dir:
Dror Shaul 97 minutes
Sima is an older women who discovers she has supernatural powers after a curse that she puts on her neighbor comes true. She becomes famous overnight as a psychic and is driven by her greedy and in debt son in law to make as much money as she can with her new powers. Her psychic popularity grows and she is talked into backing some corrupt Russian politicians who buy her support. As she enters politics everything seems to fall apart and she is overwhelmed with conflict. Sima is about to learn many lessons until she finds love and peace. A broad comedic farce with slapstick humor.
Something Sweet (Mashehu Matok), 2004
Dir: Dan Turgeman
97 minutes
A heart warming romantic tale of inopportune love between Tamar, a witty, beautiful pastry baker and the oldest of three daughters in a Jewish-Moroccan family, and… her youngest sister’s fiancée.
Set against the backdrop of a small agricultural village in northern Israel, on the day of the middle-sister’s wedding. Maya, the youngest, arrives to the celebration with her fiance Alon. Alon’s enchantment with the close-knit family, the simplicity of village life and serene landscape, opens his heart to an almost unattainable closeness with Tamar, and re-acquaintance with his alienated father.
Dir:
Avi Nesher120 minutes
A musical comedy about a dozen young men and women, who are members of an Israeli Army entertainment troupe in the period immediately following the Six Day War. Although the performers are not at the frontlines, they, too, suffer tensions, learning to get along, making and breaking romances -- all while competing to become the best performer in the troupe.
Dir: Arik Kaplun
90 minutes
This beautifully crafted romantic comedy, set against the backdrop of the Gulf War, is a bittersweet comment on the hopes, dreams and travails of Israel's Russian immigrants.Yana (Evelyne Kaplun), newly arrived in Tel Aviv, is young and beautiful. She speaks very little Hebrew and, without work, money or friends, faces the challenges of immigrants everywhere.
The threat of poison-gas missile attacks forces her into the only sealed room in the house, in close contact with her roommate Eli (Nir Levi), an irresistibly charming, if roguish, wedding videographer.
Yossi & Jagger (Yossi v'Jagger), 2003
Dir: Eytan Fox
71 minutes
Based on a true story, Yossi & Jagger portrays the love affair of two Israeli officers in an IDF position on the Israeli-Lebanese border. They are commanders, they are in love, and they try to find a place of their own in an oppressing and rigid system, which sends them to defend a cause they do not necessarily believe in.
* There is a small screening fee for this film