Jerusalem Film Festival announces Israeli programming - Israel Culture

When Lia van Leer created the Jerusalem Film Festival 41 years ago, she envisioned it as a showcase for Israeli filmmakers as well as international films. Competitions for the best new Israeli films are the highlight of the festival, often showcasing films that receive top honors worldwide, including Oscar nominations.

This festival, which will be held at the Jerusalem Cinematheque from July 18 to 27, has just announced the Israeli films which will compete in the narrative, documentary, short and experimental film competitions.

The Haggiag Competition for Israeli Feature Films is arguably the most anticipated of all the festival’s programs. This year it will include both Israeli films that have won acclaim at festivals abroad, as well as world premieres.

The films illustrate the diversity and professionalism of the Israeli film industry and show that even in times of war and tragedy, Israeli creators continue to work.

Get closer

That of Tom Nesher Get closer recently won the Viewpoints Award at the Tribeca Festival in New York. Partly inspired by the death of Nesher’s brother, Ari, in an accident in 2018, it tells the story of a troubled young woman who becomes obsessed with her late brother’s girlfriend after her sudden death.

“COME CLOSER” and “Eid” will be screened at the Jerusalem Film Festival next month. (credit: Shai Peleg/Edan Sasson)

Starring Lia Elalouf and Darya Rosen, this is Nesher’s first feature film, although she has directed several short films and participated in the Jerusalem Film Festival’s Wim van Leer competition for high school students years ago. She follows in the footsteps of her father, famed director Avi Nesher, who also began making films in his 20s.

Omer Tobi Tropicana will take part in the prestigious Karlovy Vary International Film Festival, which opens on June 28, before being screened in Jerusalem. It stars Irit Sheleg as a cashier at a supermarket in a Negev town who is drawn into an underworld she never knew existed after the head cashier is murdered.

Dani Rosenberg, whose previous film The missing soldier won first prize at last year’s Haifa International Film Festival, has already made a new film set in the aftermath of October 7: Of Dogs and Men. It tells the story of a 16-year-old girl who returns home to Kibbutz Nir Oz to look for her dog after the massacre that took place there.

The Milky Way

THE latest film by MAYA KENIG, The Milky Way, has just been screened as the closing film of the Israel Film Center Festival in New York. It is a dystopian black comedy about a single mother in Tel Aviv who supports her child by selling her breast milk at a high-end milk dispensary. Among his previous films is Off-White Lies.

Youthful Grace by Yuval Shani, who co-directed the Oscar-nominated film Ajami, tells the story of two teenagers trying to make sense of their lives in a world without functioning adults as the Passover holiday begins.

Tali Sharon, who was in Srugim, stars in Maya Dreifuss’ latest film Highway 65, about a policewoman from Afula investigating the disappearance of a war widow. Sharon also starred in Dreifuss’ previous film, She is Coming Home.

Eid by Yousef Abo Madegem is the first feature film directed by a member of the Bedouin community. It tells the story of a young man who was sexually assaulted as a child and who dreams of opening a theater, and who faces a crisis when his parents tell him they are arranging a marriage for him.

Neither day nor night

Neither day nor night by Phinehas Veuillet tells the story of a high school student from a practicing Mizrahi family in France who is not accepted by an Ashkenazi yeshiva, and this rejection sets off a chain of events that changes his life.

Eight films will participate in the Diamond Competition for Israeli documentary films. These films include Taboo: Amos Guttman by Shauly Melamed, a look at the late Israeli filmmaker who chronicled the gay community and died of AIDS; Desert Laws by Ilan Moskovitch and Dan Bronfeld, about a Bedouin who devotes his life to mediating between rival clans and must fight against the expulsion of his own tribe from his land; And Acclaimed and shamed – the story of Yamin Messika by Yaniv Segalovich, about a director and social activist who led a cultural revolution by creating music videos featuring Mizrahi singers.

There will be a Diamond Competition for short films, special screenings of documentary films and the Wim Van Leer Competition for high school students.

The festival will also feature a digitally restored print of Shimon Dotan’s 1986 film. The lamb’s smilean adaptation of the novel by David Grossman, with Makram Khoury, Tuncel Kurtiz and Rami Danon.