The 23rd Israel Film Festival in NY thru November 13th
Posted by editor@vimooz.com on November 3, 2008 under Israel Film Festival | 
The 23rd Israel Film Festival opened at the Ziegfeld Theater in Midtown Manhattan, New York, last week Wednesday, and continues until November 13th. Michael Douglas was on hand to honor his one-time roommate, Danny DeVito, with the Israel Film Festival Lifetime Visionary Award. Since debuting in 1981 with just half a dozen movies, the festival has become one of the nation’s leading foreign film festivals and the largest showcase for Israeli films in the United States as well as a launching pad for several notable U.S. premieres. The festival will also play in Miami and LA.
The Feature Films include:
Altalena (2008) 77min
DIR: Eli Cohen
U.S. Premiere
STARRING: Yossy Kantz, Yoram Hattab, Sharon Alexander, Dvir Bendekt, Jolia Levi Boeken, Micha Selektar
Eli & Ben (2007) 89min
DIR: Ori Ravid
U.S. Premiere
STARRING: Lior Asheknazi, Yuval Shevah, Tzahi Grad, Nissan Nativ, Yael Hadar, Mili Eshet, Eliran Or-Hen, Adam Keneth, Sigalit Fox. Shimeon Mimran, Asher Tzarfati, Shemuel Edelman
Father’s Footsteps (2007) 95min
DIR: Marco Carmel
U.S. Premiere
STARRING: Jules Angelo Bigarnet, Richard Berry, Gad Elmaleh, Yael Abecassis
Lost Islands (2008) 103min
DIR: Reshef Levy
U.S. Premiere
STARRING: Michael Moshonov, Oshri Cohen, Ofer Schechter, Yuval Scharf, Shmil Ben Ari, Orly Silbersatz, Pini Tavger, Guy Kresner, Asaf Cohen, Michal Levi, Michael Alony
Winner of 4 Israeli Academy Film Awards 2008, including Best Actor & Best Supporting Actor
Out of the Blue (2008) 92min
DIR: Igal Burstyn
U.S. Premiere
STARRING: Alon Aboutboul, Moshe Ivgy, Dorit Bar-Or, Zehavit Passi, Nir Levi, Liat Goren
Restless (2007) 90min
DIR: Amos Kellek
U.S. Premiere
Moshe’s life seems to have hit rock bottom. His many small business ventures are going under. He can’t even afford to pay rent on his disheveled basement apartment. 20 years ago Moshe was a moderately successful poet in Israel, but never got the recognition he felt he deserved. When his son was born, his feelings of entrapment and disappointment prevailed. He left for New York to seek his fortune and never looked back. Tzach is a handsome young man, serving as a soldier in an elite unit of the Israeli army. Tzach lives on the edge, risking his life in every possible way, as though trying to ease some internal wound. After his mother’s death, Tzach finds his father’s address among some papers, and decides to contact him, unleashing years of pent up anger and resentment. The contact with Tzach changes Moshes life, and his carefully constructed world of denial begins to crumble.
The Documentaries include:
Ben-Gurion Remembers (1973) 85min
DIR: Simon Hasera
New York Premiere
Coinciding with Israeli’s 25th anniversary and the Yom Kippur War, this a warm and personal portrait of a man not known for his congeniality pays tribute to David Ben-Gurion, an ardent Zionist who played an instrumental role in the Jewish state’s creation and was its first prime minister. The film, directed by Simon Hesers, includes interviews with Ben-Gurion, Golda Meir, Abba Eban and Moshe Dayan, as well as footage showing Ben-Gurion with U.S. Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman, and French leader Charles de Gaulle. The film’s original poster: “…How a 5000-year-old promise from God became a 25-year-old nation.”
Bridge Over the Wadi (2006) 55min
DIR: Tomer Heymann and Barak Heymann
New York Premiere
For the first time in Israel, a group of Arab and Jewish parents decide to establish a conjoint bi-national, bi-lingual school inside an Arab village. The film follows the school’s first year and portrays through the personal stories of its characters, how complicated and fragile is the attempt to create an environment of co-existence against the backdrop of the complicated reality around.
Children of the Sun (2007) 70min
DIR: Ran Tal
New York Premiere
First prize - Jerusalem Film Festival 2007, Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory Award JFF 2007; editing prize
Dancing Alfonso (2007) 50min
DIR: Barak Heymann
New York Premiere
Alfonso is the lead dancer in a flamenco troupe, which rehearses in a Tel Aviv suburb. The average age of the group-members is over 75. After the death of his wife, he begins to obsessively court Sima, a dancer with the troupe, to the displeasure of his children, who are unwilling to accept the fact that their father might be interested in another woman. Soon after the big performance of the troupe in the Tel-Aviv dance center, we find Alfonso starting his search for a new woman, after having broken up with Sima.
The film “Dancing Alfonso” provides its viewers with a novel and unfamiliar portrait of the inner world of older people, and with a fresh look at our endless, but ever hopeful, search for someone to love.
The film “Dancing Alfonso” provides its viewers with a novel and unfamiliar portrait of the inner world of older people, and with a fresh look at our endless, but ever hopeful, search for someone to love.
I’m a Civil War (2007) 45min
DIR: Omri Lior
New York Premiere
This 45-minute documentary depicts the extraordinary life and work of Israel Prize winner Chaim Guori as a reflection of Israel’s history. Born in 1923, the 84-year-old Tel Aviv native made his mark as an author, journalist and filmmaker whose first book, “Flowers of Fire,” was published in 1949 when he still was a soldier. Guori, who takes a critical look at the political and social reality of his beloved homeland, mourns from the northern border next to Mettula that “everything has changed and the feeling of hatred and being under siege continues and the land continues to bleed.”
It Kinda Scares Me (2001) 57min
DIR: Tomer Heymann
Best Short Documentary - Melbourne International Film Festival 2002
Best Documentary Film - Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2002
Audience Award, Best Documentary - Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2002
Best Documentary Film - Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2002
Audience Award, Best Documentary - Torino International Gay & Lesbian Film Festival 2002
Out of Focus (2007) 52min
DIR: Tomer Heymann
New York Premiere
The director Tomer Heymann follows the creative work process of the choreographer Ohad Naharin (Bat Sheva Dance Company). For the first time Naharin agrees for his creative work process to be observed and documented. The film follows Naharin’s work with the dancers of the modern dance company Cedar Lake at their studio in New York. During the shooting we are exposed to Naharin’s complex character and his ideological objection to the documentation of his work. The film is the result of the unique encounter between cinema and dance.
Praying in Her Own Voice (2007) 60min
DIR: Yael Katzir
East Coast Premiere
The new documentary Praying in her own Voice is a thought provoking powerful piece about Feminism and Judaism . It depicts the struggle of the Women of the Wall in the last few years for the right to pray like men do at the Western Wall. It includes commentary from some of the top women rabbis in LA: Rabbi Laura Geller, Rabbi Naomi Levy , Rabbi Sharon Brous, Rabbi Denise Eger , Rabbi Lisa Edwards and Rabbi Lynn Brody. Rabbi Levy, Rabbi Edwards, and Executive Producers Dan Katzir and Ravit Markus will attend a panel discussion after the film, moderated by Rabbi Brody. The film was directed by award winning director Yael Katzir and is an hour long, Hebrew and English, with English sub-titles.
SNEAK PREVIEW SCREENING AT THE ISRAELI FILM FEST
The Quest for the Missing Piece (2007) 52min
DIR: Oded Lotan
Oded Lotan, a young Jewish gay man living in Tel Aviv with his German partner, pieces together the story of his own bris while reflecting on the complex role his sexuality and time abroad has played in shaping his Israeli identity. Presented as a gently humorous fairy tale bridging the gap between tradition and modernity, the film sheds light on feelings toward the male-circumcision ritual, fear of exclusion and the need to belong. Aided by wonderful animated sequences, Lotan negotiates an emotive topic with considerable wit and panache, proving to be an endearing presence and filmmaking talent to watch.
DocAviv Israel 2007, Montreal IFF 2007, Tallinn Black Nights Estonia 2007, AFI Los Angeles 2007, UK JIFF 2007, Leeds IFF 2007, Palm Springs IFF 2008
The True Story of Palestine (1962) 80min
DIR: Joel Silberg
East Coast Premiere
The True Story of Palestine features the work of numerous Israeli-entertainment legends, with excerpts from hundreds of hours of film shot by Nathan Axelrod, a pioneer of Israeli cinema who documents the building of a Jewish state in Palestine. Joel Silberg and Uri Zohar shape this material into an 80-minute film, with Haim Hefer’s narration read by Haim Topol.
Waiting for Godik (2007) 60min
DIR: Ari Davidovich
East Coast Premiere
Nominated for the 2007 Jerusalem Film Festival’s Best Documentary award, this intimate look at the rise and fall of legendary producer and impresario Giora Godik examines the Israeli King of Musicals’ quest to bring the American dream to Tel Aviv. That vision ended when Godik unexpectedly fled to Germany on the eve of his last premiere and ended up selling hotdogs for a living at the central railway station in Frankfurt. The film glimpses into the gap between glittering lights and a life in the shadows, bringing to life the story of a man who believed that life was a musical.
STARRING: Shlomo Bar-Shavit, Haim Hefer, Joel Silberg, Yehoram Gaon, Tiki Dayan, Meni Peer, Zeev Godik, Edith Godik, Yafa Yarkoni, Dan Almagor, Rivak Raz, Moti Giladi, Emma Godik
You Never Know (2008) 63min
DIR: Boaz Shahak
Shlomo Carlebach was a brilliant young torah scholar sent by the Lubavitcher rebbe to deliver the good word from scripture to hippies in the San Francisco Bay Area for whom he once performed on guitar and vocals at a festival in 1966 wedged between Pete Seeger and the Jefferson Airplane. When his love for flower power crossed the boundaries of Jewish law, the Orthodox establishment shunned him. Carlebach, who once boasted about having composed 4,000 original melodies, died penniless 13 years ago. But his music still fills concert halls and his followers live in nearly every Jewish community.
Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival, 2007
