Amos Gitai : 2020
A Night in Haifa

Over the course of one fateful night, we witness the interweaving stories of five women through a series of encounters and situations, defying all categories and labels in their relationships and personal identities. A sensitive and distinctly humanist reflection of life in the region. With an ensemble cast of both Israeli and Palestinian actors, the film 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. Amos Gitai's feature premiered in competition at Venice International Film Festival 2020.

Ruthy Pribar : 2020

Asia and Vika, a pair of Russian immigrants in Israel, are more like sisters than mother and daughter. Young mom Asia hides nothing about her work-hard, play-hard lifestyle, and expects the same openness and honesty from teenage Vika. But Vika is at an age where privacy and independence are paramount, and inevitably begins to rebel against her mom's parenting style. With two stubborn and opinionated women under one roof, Asia finds herself in new territory and stumbles to achieve a balance between asserting her parental authority and respecting her daughter's point of view. When health issues lead Vika to be confined to a wheelchair and her need for romantic experiences and sexual exploration becomes more urgent, Asia must step in and become the mother Vika so desperately needs. Vika's illness turns out to be an opportunity to reveal the great love within this small family unit. Ruthy Pribar's feature debut was winner of the Nora Ephron Award, and the awards for Best Actress and Best Cinematography in the International Narrative Competition section when it premiered at Tribeca Film Festival 2020.

Hilla Medalia : 2019

Four Israeli teenagers undergo the process of life-and-identity-saving gender transformation in a country where military service is mandatory and Orthodox Jewish religion is the law. Sixteen is a riotous age – full of promise and excitement, riddled with hormone explosions and petulance. Four teens let the cameras in to share a crucial juncture in the formation of their identities. Romy is a typical beauty queen, whose secular single mum tried to steer her away from femininity with orthodox school. Liron tried hard to be super girly before realising it was completely wrong for him. Noam is born into a religious family and wants to become a rabbi. And Ofri is a regular tomboy scout who always knew he was different. Delving into its subjects' lives as they divulge the turning points in their transitions, the film examines the impact upon them of the society they live in. Hilla Medalia's documentary was selected to have its UK premiere at BFI Flare 2020.

Ram Nehari : 2017

An intimate love story about two young people in Tel Aviv whose love we will never be able to fathom. Tom's eating disorder and desire to disappear forever means that she is forced to live in a closed institute. But now her period is back and her doctor says that she is getting better. The thought of getting healthy and heavy scares her. Neil roams the streets with a tuba, convinced that he will be able to leave on Monday with the popular band The Misogynists to Germany for a European tour. It takes a while before we notice that Neil's head doesn't work the way most people's do. After a chance visit to the institute, he flees into the streets with Tom and promises her she can go with him to Berlin on Monday. In the 24 hours they spend together, their love grows, but Tom still wants to disappear slowly and Neil will probably never know how the world works. Ram Nehari's feature premiered at Haifa Film Festival 2017, and had its European premiere at Torino Film Festival 2017.

Michal Vinik : 2015

Seventeen-year-old Naama Barash enjoys alcohol, drugs and hanging out with like-minded friends. Her activities are an escape from a home where her parents always fight, and a rebellious, army-enrolled sister, who, one day, disappears. As a new girl, Hershko, shows up at school, Barash falls deeply in love for the first time, and the intensity of the experience at once confuses her and gives her life new meaning. An authentic and sensitive reflection of a contemporary youth that is bored and tired, extremely well-connected in its social bonds but clumsy in its human relations. Michal Vinik's film, her feature debut, premiered at San Sebastián International Film Festival 2015, and was winner of the Script Award, Best Actress and Best Actor for Israeli feature film at Haifa Film Festival 2015.

Guy Meirson : 2015
Awakening

A pickup truck runs along a road in rural Galilee. A cow crosses the road. The driver hits the brakes. Just in time. Or maybe too late. Nothing will be the same again. He tries to return to his old life, his home, his wife; but all that was hidden beneath the surface is now out in the open. Death is everywhere, in his chicken coop, in his marriage, inside of him. With three chickens on his shoulder and a forged Louis Vuitton suitcase he leaves for the outdoors, in order to find either his life or his death. Guy Meirson's feature debut premiered at Haifa Film Festival 2015.

Hitorerut – trailer (vimeo)

Tova Ascher : 2015

Maya Goldwasser is happily married to Yoav, a senior official at the Ministry of Justice. She is a successful choreographer and they have two lovely children. But one evening Maya spots a figure from her past and her world starts to unravel. She is scared and panicked but doesn't dare say a word to anyone, terrified that her past has caught up with her. She once was Nadia Kabir, a 17-year-old Arab girl just graduated from the Jewish-Arab girls' school in Jerusalem. She was having a secret affair with Nimer, an activist in a Palestinian Liberation Movement. When Nimer is sent to London on assignment, they secretly marry. In London, Nadia realises the meaning of the step she has taken, severing her ties with her family and beloved mother, as she embraces a life of exile and escape. When the authorities catch Nimer, Nadia is left on her own. She knows there is no option of returning to Israel: she's a terrorist to the authorities and a disgrace to her family. But she meets a man who is able to create a new life and a new identity for her as Maya. Now, more than 20 years since she abandoned her previous identity, her past rears its head again. Can a person reinvent herself without dealing with consequences from her past? The connection between the two lives, Maya and Nadia, forms the core of the film. It raises questions of identity: about when the private becomes political and the political becomes private, without the means to separate the two; about the ability of society to accept the Other and forgive their Otherness. It's a story about innocent individuals who pay a terrible price, the victims of a society that has gone awry, and how life seems to repeat itself and not learn from past mistakes. Tova Ascher's directorial debut was winner of the Israel Critics' Forum Award for Best Feature Film when it premiered in competition at Jerusalem Film Festival 2015.

Natalie Portman : 2015
Sipur al Ahava ve Choshech

A drama based on the memoir of Amos Oz, writer, journalist and advocate of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The story of Oz's youth at the end of the British Mandate for Palestine and the early years of the State of Israel. The film details the young Amos's relationship with his mother and his birth as a writer, looking at what happens when the stories we tell, become the stories we live. Natalie Portman's directorial debut premiered in competition in the Séances Spéciales at Festival de Cannes 2015.

Efrat Corem : 2014

The Ben Zaken family lives in the small Israeli city of Ashkelon on a rundown housing estate. The family is made up of single father Shlomi with his eleven-year-old daughter Ruhi, his brother Leon and the mother of the two brothers. Their living situation is somewhat precarious. The austere apartment is cramped and everyone's nerves are pretty frayed. Social services has its eye on the motherless Ruhi, who is bullied in school and is not an easy child. Is a shared name and a shared roof over your head enough to define a family, or is it more about having feelings of altruistic responsibility for each other? Ruhi's father is forced to find a very concrete answer to this general question and to find what his role as a father is supposed to be. A sensitive portrait of an environment marked by stagnation and a lack of economic and emotional resources. Efrat Corem's film, her feature debut, premiered at Cinema South Film Festival 2014, and had its international premiere in the Forum section at Berlin International Film Festival 2015.

Evgeny Ruman : 2015
Haish shebakir

The story of Shir and Rami, an Israeli couple from Tel Aviv. One night, after walking their dog, Rami disappeared without his phone or wallet. Behind closed doors we will witness the sequence of events in the apartment, where a number of visitors join Shir: friends, family, the police and some unexpected guests, and with each visit more humiliating secrets come to the surface. Throughout the scenes, we discover the complex nature of Shir and Rami, as well as the nature of their relationship, which was nowhere near as harmonious as initially suggested. The long night, during which the mood in the apartment changes, as does Shir's, will come to an abrupt and unexpected end. Evgeny Ruman's psychological drama, his third feature, premiered in the Bright Future section at International Film Festival Rotterdam 2015.

Tali Shalom Ezer : 2014

Adar, a bright and sensitive 12-year-old girl, must manoeuvre amid the tempestuous and fiery relationship between Alma, her workaholic mother and Michael, her young stay-at-home stepfather. While her mother is away from home, Adar is left in Michael's care, who gradually turns their strong love and attachment into risky role-playing games. Roaming the city streets, Adar meets Alan, a dreamy boy who keenly resembles her, and brings him into the family. Alan's presence seems to have a positive effect on their lives, until the relationship between Michael, Adar and Alan takes a sinister turn. After failing to enlist her mother's help, Adar finds she has no one to depend upon but Alan, and the two young friends embark on a dark journey between childhood and adolescence, reality and fantasy, which will forever change the rules of the game in the household. Tali Shalom Ezer's second feature was winner of the Haggiag Award for Best Israeli Feature at Jerusalem Film Festival 2014, and had its international premiere in competition at Sundance Film Festival 2015.

Ester Amrami : 2014
Anderswo

Years ago, attracted by its culture and lifestyle, Noa moved to Berlin. At present she is collecting material for her grant-sponsored master's thesis: a dictionary of untranslatable words. But she hasn't been feeling well of late and, on top of that, she is waylaid by the news that her boyfriend Jörg has entered a competition in Stuttgart. As a sudden inspiration, Noa decides to fly home. But the joy of reunion with her parents and siblings is quickly replaced by her aversion to the monotony of customs and rituals and to the incessant fear of danger. Tel Aviv and her extended family begin to get on her nerves. But where else to go? Ester Amrami's feature debut was winner of the Independent Camera Award when it premiered in the Forum of Independents at Karlovy Vary International Film Festival 2014.

Keren Yedaya : 2014
Loin de mon père

Moshe and Tami share a modest apartment. But this is no ordinary couple. Moshe is aged 60; Tami is 22, and she feels adrift, restless and irritable. Her only emotional outlets are binging, purging and self-mutilation. Their unconventional relationship is infested with a deep-seated malaise from which she seems unable to set herself free, as if confined in a prison. Moshe and Tami are father and daughter. Tami can do nothing without her father, with whom she lives in this cruel and violent relationship and whose intimidation is so complete that she believes he is the only person who can love her. Loosely inspired by the book Far from his Absence by Israeli author Shez, whose sensitive and jolting treatment of an incestuous relationship made such a deep impression on the director. Keren Yedaya's third feature premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Asaf Korman : 2014
At li layla

Chelli, 27, is raising her mentally disabled sister Gabby, 24, all by herself. When the social worker finds out she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, she is forced to place her in a day-care centre. For the first time in her life she shares the upbringing of her dear sister with someone else, her daily routine collapses and the huge void, left by her sister's absence, makes room for a man in Chelli's life. That man, Zohar, tears another crack in the symbiotic relationship of the two sisters. Chelli hangs on to his love as if it was a life belt. But her inability to lead a normal, intimate and emotional relationship with anyone but her sister, forces them into a twisted threesome, where boundaries between love, sacrifice, nurturing and torturing are broken. Asaf Korman's feature debut premiered at the Quinzaine des Réalisateurs at Festival de Cannes 2014.

Jonathan Sagall : 2011

Lara is Palestinian. She left Ramallah thirteen years ago to begin a new life in London where she married Michael and had a child. She, her husband and her seven-year-old son James lead a pleasant, albeit somewhat dispassionate life in one of the city's better districts. But then, one day, Inam turns up at Lara's front door. She is a childhood friend from Ramallah. Inam surges into the apartment, asks Lara about her husband and showers attention on her little boy. It's not long before Lara realises that everything she has created for herself is endangered by Inam's brusque intrusion. The two women share a secret, a life-changing event which occured when they were teenagers in Jerusalem. Something that began as a youthful prank but took an unexpected turn. What really happened depends on the way each individual perceives those events. Your memory can play tricks on you – especially when it concerns your deepest fears.