Israeli Film: A Reference Guide
From the book "Israeli Film: A Reference Guide" by Amy Kronish and Costel Safirman.
Missing from the IMDb:
82. Hasamba ve'Na'Arei HaHefker (aka "Get Zorkin") (dir. Yoel Zilberg)
193. Shalosh Sha'ot Be'Yuni (aka "Three Hours in June") (dir. Ilan Eldad)
Missing from the IMDb:
82. Hasamba ve'Na'Arei HaHefker (aka "Get Zorkin") (dir. Yoel Zilberg)
193. Shalosh Sha'ot Be'Yuni (aka "Three Hours in June") (dir. Ilan Eldad)
List activity
2.6K views
• 0 this weekCreate a new list
List your movie, TV & celebrity picks.
218 titles
- DirectorOded KotlerStarsYahli BergmanNathan DattnerEfrat LavieA highly successful lawyer realises, after a cardiac warning, that he may have squandered his life when he left his first wife and all the ideals of youth she stood for, to marry a neurotic poet and join the rat race for money & success.
- DirectorAmos GuttmanStarsSharon AlexanderAki AvniDvora BartonovAgainst the backdrop of AIDS, the film explores two families, each with a gay son. Jonathan is splitting from Miki because the more experienced Miki is playing around. Then Jonathan sees Thomas, the son and grandson of his neighbors, who is back in Israel after failing to make it as a musician in New York: Thomas is ill, detached, in search of hard drugs. Jonathan tries to connect with him. Meanwhile, Thomas's grandmother, facing old age, has become bitter, particularly toward her hard-working daughter. They worry about Thomas. A few blocks away, Jonathan's mother, brother and sister maintain their sometimes bickering relationships, watching Jonathan brave adulthood.
- DirectorEitan GreenStarsSeffie AdirIcho AvitalChaim BanaiAn Israeli sports journalist befriends an American basketball pro playing in Israel. Although from very different backgrounds, their love for the game deepens their friendship. Each learns to value the other's culture.
- DirectorDaniel WachsmannStarsRonit ElkabetzShuli RandShabtai KonortiA rabbi's son rebels against his roots and becomes a magician. A woman enters his life and turns his tricks into metaphysical phenomena. The son is forced to choose between love and living up to his father's expectations.
- DirectorGeorge ObadiahStarsDassi HadariGabi AmraniArieh Elias
- DirectorTzvika KertznerAkiva TevetStarsMichal Bat-AdamYftach KatzurDan TorenAtalia is a 40-year-old widow who lost her husband in the Six-Day War and lives on a kibbutz with her adolescent daughter. Lonely and feeling outcast, she enters into a forbidden affair with her daughter's classmate, Matti, an idealistic 19-year-old rejected by the army.
- DirectorNaftali AlterStarsIrit AlterRon ApplebergLiat Farris
- DirectorHagai LeviStarsRami HeubergerAvigail ArielyYa'ackov Banai
- DirectorAvraham HeffnerStarsHanna MaronRuth SegalShmuel BunimClara, a Polish born Jew, living in Tel Aviv of the 1970's, has her ideas about how people should behave, and runs everybody's life accordingly: her husband, her sisters, their husbands, their children, her brother who lives in London (probably because it was the only way to get away from her...). Whenever something "improper" does happen, Clara's way of handling it is simply to shove it under the carpet and ignore it completely, as if it never happened. 3 basic rules, are, of course: 1. Never marry some one "under" your class (Or the class you think you are). 2. Never become pregnant out of wedlock and 3. No Abortions. As one may expect, everything crumbles when her niece gives her no option, but to break at least one of those rules.
- DirectorRafi BukaiStarsSalim DawSuhel HaddadTuvia GelberJune 11th 1967, the Six-Day War is over and the cease fire has just begun. We follow the journey of Gassan and Haled, two Egyptian soldiers whose only wish is to make their way through the Sinai desert and safely reach the Suez Canal. Thus begins a comical, almost surrealistic saga during which they meet various groups of people across the desert, including Israeli soldiers on patrol and a pushy news reporter.
- DirectorHelmar LerskiThis documentary celebrates the pioneering labors of early Jewish settlers in Palestine, recording the technological and agricultural accomplishments of the pioneers and the idea of a socialist Jewish state.
- DirectorMichal Bat-AdamStarsMichal ZoharetzShira Lew-MunkLiat GorenAya is a woman who, since early childhood, has been driven by her father's ambition to see her become successful. Now she is shooting a film and fragments of dreams ad fantasy alternate with reality.
- DirectorAmos GuttmanStarsSmadar KilchinskyJuliano Mer-KhamisAda Valerie-TalAfter the mother's death, the siblings leave the family home and go to Tel Aviv. They both intend to start a new life. They meet the transgender Apolonia, the owner of Bar 51, who offers them help and work.
- DirectorEllida GeiraStarsArieh EliasRina GanorRuth HarrisComposed of two short films. The first one "Spring" (26 minutes) is about a young couple falling in love. Almost dialogue free and shot in an experimental style. The second film "Fall" (46 minutes) is a more traditional comedic love story between a lonely old Jewish-German lady and a lonely old Iraqi Falafel seller.
- DirectorAmos GitaiStarsLisa KreuzerRivka NeumanMarkus StockhausenTwo interconnected stories in the 1930s, one set in Berlin, the other in Palestine: Mania Vilbouchevich Shohat (1880-1961), called Tania, a Russian Jew and revolutionary, goes from Minsk to Palestine to live on a collective. She promotes feminism and laments a shift in the men from self-defense to aggression. Her friend, Else Lasker-Schuler (1869-1945), expressionist poet and German Jew, is in Berlin, writing, caring for her son, watching Hitler's movement take power. She goes to Jerusalem and imagines a park for Arab and Jew. Her poems, voiced from within, capture her experience. The film meditates on the violence at the root of Israel's birth: of the Nazis and of the Zionists.
- DirectorJoseph PitchhadzeStarsRyan EarlyCarmel BettoEli DankerThis is a film about the lifes of a few people, living in south Tel-Aviv, and slightly connected to the life of crime. Each of'em has his dreams his complections, his.. beauty. So they form this beautiful idea to steal an icon from a heavy Mafia guy they knew for years, sell it in Paris, and begin a new flashing life of dream-fulfillment. This is one of these movies that you can at the same time call 'art' and also enjoy them.
- DirectorUri BarbashStarsArnon ZadokMohammad BakriHillel Ne'emanIn Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri's daughter and Issan's wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsBomba TzurNissim AzikriShraga FriedmanA slapstick comedy lampooning bureaucracy and the madness of everyday life in Israel centers on an escaped lunatic who digs up the streets of Tel-Aviv with a drill.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsAlona EinsteinArik EinsteinSima EliyahuBenny Furman is a basketball headcoach who can't decide what he realy wants.
- DirectorZe'ev RevachStarsYigal AdikaDalia BegerZahava Ben
- DirectorBenjamin HayeemStarsNazim JabrinDanny KinrotGenia MaimonAvram, an Hassadic hippie; Hassan, an Arab inventor; and Tex, a nonchalant Jew, with so different backgrounds and characters, share a liberal view about sexuality. In a world abiding by the strict moral derived from the Dybbuk (sacred book), the three men will go through a number of tribulations concerning marriage.
- DirectorRaphael NussbaumStarsDaliah LaviGert Günther HoffmannAbraham EisenbergA group of adventurers search for a treasure of ancient biblical scrolls that the;y believe are hidden in the lost city of Petra, somewhere in Jordan. According to legend, no one has ever come back from seeking this treasure. It's not long before they begin to understand why.
- DirectorAner PremingerStarsHagit DasbergNicole CaselGedalia BesserBased on a novel by Lilly Perry Amitai, Blind Man's Bluff takes a bittersweet look at the life of a young Israeli woman. Trying to distance herself from her Holocaust survivor parents and ex-boyfriend, pianist Micki Stav moves out of her parents' house in search of her own identity. She moves into a small apartment but remains caught in a lattice of demanding relationships. Tension increases as Micki tries to succeed in the classical music world. Her eclectic new neighbors, though, introduce her to a new world of desires in which Micki finds the courage to confront her problems and emerge as an independent and mature woman.
- DirectorJudd Ne'emanStarsAssi DayanLiora RivlinMotti BarkanThree short stories of life in Tel Aviv; A girl meets a boy in a library and has to decide what to do next; A young husband comes home to meet his wife's boyfriend; A young clerk opens a letter and finds the photograph of an unknown young girl who he then tries to locate.
- DirectorYitzhak HalutziStarsHanna Azoulay HasfariTchia DanonArieh EliasBased on a true story, Braids tells the tale of So'ad, a 14-year-old Jewish girl imprisoned by the Iraqi government in 1947 for her participation in the Zionist movement.
- DirectorRam LoevyStarsEtti AnkriRivka BaharRami Danon
- DirectorNir BergmanStarsOrly SilbersatzMaya MaronNitai GvirtzDaphne and her four children try to cope with the abrupt death of husband/father. As the family seems to fall apart, a sudden incident gives them a chance to heal their 'broken wings'.
- DirectorSerge AnkriStarsJacques OvadiahGerard Ben-ImoMiriam Nataf
- DirectorYossi SomerStarsDani RothPoly ReshefEtti AnkriA man walks amongst an inferno of flames, shell-shocked. When he's back home, he starts group therapy in a military rehab center, meeting all kinds of fellow soldiers who, like him, have lost some of their beliefs or peace of mind in the battlefield.
- DirectorAvraham HeffnerStarsLior YieniyYishai ShaharEsther Zewko10 years after he left Israel and "played it big-time in America", Benny Shpitz returns for a visit, self-exploring his youth, friends, dreams, beliefs and idol, Daniel Wax, who symbolized the "beautiful Israeli". Shpitz finds out his friends are melancholic, unsatisfied with marriage life, hiding a vast hole in their sole. In a wider context, Israel post 67' will no longer be the society that it was meant to be.
- DirectorAmram AmarStarsRoger AttaliEli BeharYitzhak FrejGideon was wounded in battle near Jerusalem by an Arab sniper. He was saved by a woman, and then evacuated to recovery in the hospital. After recovering, he decides to return to his kibbutz and his girlfriend, but soon he realizes that he prefers the woman who rescued him.
- DirectorNatan GrossStarsZaharira HarifaiHannah KahaneDavid Smadar
- DirectorBoaz DavidsonStarsYehuda BarkanZe'ev RevachArieh EliasCharlie passes himself off as a rich businessman but gets by through fleecing suckers with 3-Card Monte. Miko is a street kid who spends his time with Charlie instead of going to school; his sister unsuccessfully tries to raise him on her own. The plot follows Charlie's attempts to conquer the heart of Gila, a rich girl whose parents are trying to get her married to an American millionaire, something she doesn't want.
- DirectorTsipi ReibenbachStarsFruma GrinbergYitzhak Grinberg
- DirectorIdit ShehoriStarsNoa Cohen-RazMotti DichneGalit Gil
- DirectorEyal HalfonStarsEvgenia DodinaYoram HattabAmos LaviWhen a small, run-down circus comes to a Palestinian town, it changes the lives of the West Bank villagers.
- DirectorIlan EldadStarsYiftach SpectorEhud BanaiDina DoronA Bedouin woman hides an Israeli pilot from Egyptian soldiers. While the Egyptian soldiers torture her to get information, the Israeli soldiers rescue her.
- DirectorAvraham HeffnerStarsHazi CarmelDov FeiginShimon Finkel
- DirectorGideon GananiStarsAlan BergreenJohn DeeksArieh Elias
- DirectorEran RiklisStarsMoshe IvgyMohammad BakriSalim DawAn Israeli soldier is taken hostage by a small PLO squad in lebanon. The soldier planned to go on vacation and to fly to the world final soccer cup (mondial), he and his capturers share the love to soccer and toward the (not so happy) end a relationship is made.
- DirectorNitza GonenA documentary that follows Mordechai Vilozny, who travels back to Auschwitz from which he was liberated nearly 50 years ago. He travels back to Poland with his Israeli-born son, who is a stand-up comedian. Father and son have an alienated relationship. Will the trip help to repair this relationship?
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsBenny AmdurskiMordecai ArnonYa'ackov Ben-SiraDaliah sneaks into a cargo ship bound to Israel. The sailors will do anything to hide from the though captain her and catch her attention.
- DirectorMoshé MizrahiStarsShaike OphirZaharira HarifaiYosef ShiloachA man with eight daughters, and no hope of an heir, takes a mistress to console himself. He finally consults a magician who gives him a list of instructions on how to make a son. Soon his wife is pregnant again.
- DirectorAmos GitaiStarsMoshe IvgyHanna MaronJuliano Mer-KhamisA slice of life - day after day - in Haifa, where Moshe and Didi's marriage is on the rocks, affairs are casual, and Moshe's angst about health, his parents, sex, communication, and business are pervasive and existential. Moshe's mother is Jewish, his father an Arab; his father may or may not sell ancestral land; his wife and mistress have lovers, one is a close friend; much of Moshe's surroundings seem under construction or in renovation. A cousin watches a security monitor without comment. Is there allegory in this portrait of an anxious Israeli approaching middle age?
- DirectorYaky YoshaStarsAnat AtzmonYehoram GaonGila AlmagorBased on a true story. Alice, a young street walker, receives an opportunity of a lifetime when a television crew casts her to star in a documentary about prostitution in Tel-Aviv. Alice, a 17 year old girl from the gutters of the city, is exposed for the first time to the glitzy world of make believe. For her personal safety and the crew's convenience, Alice is invited, during the shoot, to stay in the home of Yoram, the director and Mary, his producer-girlfriend. Alice's presence exceeds all expectations as she lays out her gloomy life story in front of the cameras. When Mary notices that Yoram gets more then just professionally involved with Alice, she wraps the production as quickly as possible. Alice doesn't want to go back to the streets, but she doesn't belong in the 'decent' world either. Alice finds herself in a dead end.
- DirectorChris MarkerStarsAliPère GauthierMonsieur KleinA documentary about the then only twelve year old country of Israel, caught amidst the tensions of the Middle East and the ongoing Cold War.
- DirectorBenny ToratyStarsYosef ShiloachYona ElianMohammad BakriIn ha-Argazim, a neighborhood that time forgot, the one-year anniversary of Morris Mandabon's death is approaching, and his youngest son, Nissim has had a dream in which his father orders him to re-open the old neighborhood movie theater, thus breaking the vow that Morris had made years before never to screen movies again. Nissim and his brother George, together with Aharon Gabardine, who was the projectionist back in the old days, are determined to fulfill Morris' request. The same day Nissim has his dream, Avram Mandabon, Morris' brother, returns for his brother's memorial after a 25-year absence. His reappearance causes old family feuds to resurface. Seniora Mandabon, late Morris' wife, won't even speak to Avram. Following the advice of Yisrael "the Indian", considered the neighborhood authority on films, the brothers decide to screen the Indian-made local hit from years before, "Sangam", to which Seniora objects ("Nobody cares to watch old Indian movies!") and tries to convince them to screen another movie, but they insist. They eventually find out that the only print of "Sangam" is in the hands of Avram, their uncle, who refuses to give it to them. And so, as the time for Morris' memorial approaches, as well as the screening date, it seems that a clash is inevitable. In the tense days that follow, the past resurfaces and the brothers learn the secrets of their family history and the real reason why their father closed down the theater.
- DirectorDavid PerlovStarsDavid PerlovMira PerlovYael PerlovShot over a ten-year period, Diary is not only the political, professional, and personal diary of a man, but is a testimony on the turbulent reality of a war-torn country, Israel. In six chapters, Perlov travels to Tel Aviv, Paris, London, and finally to Brazil, where he was born. The film is also a family diary in which Perlov records the coming of age of his two daughters, Yael and Naomi.
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsChaim HadayaGenia ChernikYitzhak ShilohA 35-year-old architect returns from America to his native home in Israel to visit his ageing parents. He watches as a young Russian woman fills the void he has left in his parents' life.
- DirectorAvi NesherStarsGidi GovGali AtariAnat AtzmonIn the easy-going, sexually-liberated 1970's Tel Aviv, three young friends, struggling filmmaker Nati, his impressionable girlfriend Ossi and his geeky friend Mushon, move in together in a small apartment in Dizengoff Street number 99. By day, they work a boring desk office job but by night the city is their playground. Their overall goal is to make their way into the commercial movie making business, but harsh realities and romances often sidetrack them. Their fourth friend and Nati's older other girlfriend is aspiring musician, Miri.
- DirectorShmuel ImbermanStarsIka ZoharAnat WaxmanShmuel Vilozni
- DirectorAsher Tlalim
- DirectorAmos KollekStarsFaye DunawayAmos KollekShmuel ShilohUpon arriving Israel on her first foreign assignment, American photojournalist Faye Milano is greeted by David, an Israeli officer and writer who's also the nephew of Jerusalem's mayor.
- DirectorAmatsia HiuniPuchuStarsYehuda Gur-AryehYehuda FuchsDvora KedarA group of children embrace an eccentric old man, and working together, build a ship on a rooftop.
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsTuvia TaviLiora RivlinBerta LitwinaThe love story of a young man who is attached to an older woman until the appearance of a younger girl interrupts him. He has an affair with the younger girl but his love for the older woman makes him return to the nursing home.
- DirectorDina Zvi-RiklisStarsEfrat AvivMaya De-FriesTomer EvenLittle Benjamin and Margalit are raised in the boondocks of Israel by their long-suffering mother, but they have in them something of their father, who can't stay in a place with no prospect of riches and excitement.
- DirectorAmos GuttmanStarsJonathan SagallAmi TraubBen LevinA young gay Israeli man works in his grandmother's store while dreaming of becoming a film-maker.
- DirectorOrna Ben-Dor NivStarsYehuda PolikerYa'ackov GiladYael BirenbaumDocumentary about the life experience of the Holocaust generation and its own second generation - children born in Israel, who grew up in the shadow of their parents' memories of the Holocaust.
- DirectorYossi SomerStarsYehezkel LazarovAyelet ZurerIgal NaorFrom birth, Hanan and Lea were destined to be together, a promise made by their fathers and heard in Heaven. But Lea's father betrays this promise, kindling a conflict that will pit the modern against the secular and the devout against the divine. Mystical visions of the Holy Apple Field convince Hanan that their love can be the perfect "spiritual match", and to achieve it he unleashes untold powers of the Kabbala. Not even death can divide them; a powerful affirmation of love's infinite potential to transcend all obstacles.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsYa'ackov BanaiGeula GillRuth GolanA charming film about a group of children on a kibbutz in Israel who foil a plot by spies to blow up a Mirage jet during a military parade.
- DirectorDavid BergmanJacques EhrlichHaim GouriHistorical documentary made up of footage and stills shot by the Nazis. A compilation of testimony from witnesses who appeared at the Eichmann trial provides a telling narrative.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsTopolGila AlmagorYossi Yadin
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsRivka NeumanShmil Ben AriUri KlauznerThe second chapter in Assi Dayan's trilogy centers on three marginal characters from "Life According to Agfa". Malka, a whore with a Romanian accent who dreams of becoming a singer, Levi, her pimp and Moshe, a homeless man who dreams that Malka will love him and follows Malka and Levi. Levi navigates the trio in a grotesque and turbulent world in which people have lost the purpose of their existence.
- DirectorEli CohenStarsMenashe NoyAyelet ZurerLior AshkenaziCohen takes an elliptical approach in telling the story of Pinchas Rutenberg, a visionary, complex, and larger-than-life figure, who, amongst other things, brought electricity to Jewish Palestine in the early 20th century by building a hydroelectric power station in Nahararyim.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsTopolGila AlmagorAvner HizkiyahuA good-natured but incorrigible layabout becomes embroiled in a plot to rob the Israeli lottery, all the while indulging in his boundless zeal for mischief and romance.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsLaurence HarveyJosephine ChaplinJohn IrelandTwo young university students wish to escape the oppressive Soviet Union. But their plans are monitored by the KGB, who try to intimidate them. One of them is taken into custody and tortured, which spurs them to make an escape attempt that could cost them their lives.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsYehoram GaonOded KotlerPier AngeliDuring the Six-Day War, an Israeli pilot, hoping to bring peace to his country, fly his plane towards Egypt to hopefully commiserate with Abdel Nasser. Shot down en route, he finds himself halfway between the Egyptian and Israeli armies.
- DirectorJoseph LejtesStarsJamie SmithBen JosefJohn SlaterProduced in Israel in English with an international cast, "The Faithful City" depicts some of the courage, patience, bravery and understanding that attended the birth of Israel as a free and independent nation. The larger story is told within the framework of a simple story regarding the rehabilitation of orphaned-children from war-ravaged Europe. Sam, a counselor from a boy's camp in New York state, is at first confident that children are children no matter what their backgrounds. He soon finds the young refugees to be mature, tough, and living by the creed of 'survival at any cost.' One of the children,Max, frustrates Sam by his dishonesty and cockiness.
- DirectorVitek TraczStarsNissim AzikriYehuda FuchsYardena Gurevitz
- DirectorJudd Ne'emanStarsGidi GovYossi PollakShmulik Kraus
- DirectorAmos GitaiStarsAmos GitaiIn 1982, Amos Gitai and a film crew travel around the occupied territories of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank as tensions mount, leading to the Israeli army's invasion of Lebanon. Gitai contrasts Palestinian refugee camps with new Zionist settlements; he goads Israeli soldiers with his camera, he visits a strawberry field where Palestinian women work and the home of Bassam Shak'a, the mayor of Nablus on the West Bank, who is under house arrest. He interviews a Palestinian wheat farmer and some protesting women. Gitai asks if there's a solution, can people live together? He gets various answers.
- DirectorBoaz DavidsonStarsZeev BerlinskyNissim AzikriAliza YitzhakiFifty Fifty is a comedy that takes place in Tel Aviv during the early 70's. Grossman is a bakery owner who wins the lottery, however, he holds only half of the winning ticket. The other half is in the possession of his partner Levi, who dies unexpectedly. The plot gets complicated when two crooks break and settle in Levi's apartment.
- DirectorUzi PeresStarsGila AlmagorYftach KatzurDebby HessThe ex-lover of a middle class woman appears on her birthday after 20 years. Both the mother and the daughter are romantically attracted to him.
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsAvraham ChalfiLula YackobovitzOfra DoronFloch, a seventy year old man loses his son, daughter in-law and grandson, who are all killed in a car accident. He goes into deep depression and feels that he can't leave this world without leaving an offspring, a descendant to carry on his name. He divorces his wife Gerda who is too old to bear him a child and sets out to find a younger woman with whom he can fulfill his dream.
- DirectorRami Na'amanStarsYigal AdikaMosko AlkalaiGabi AmraniA Jewish professor, an Arab trash collector, and a novice Catholic nun encounter each other in a junk yard. Together the threesome decide to rebuild a statue of a flying camel that was the symbol of Tel Aviv's renewal at the 1934 Eastern Fair.
- DirectorRaphael RebiboStarsAnat AtzmonUri GavrielTzadok Tzarrom
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsTamar YerushalmiAskala MarcusZvi SaltonFifty-year-old Naomi is a woman who has everything, including a handsome husband and nice kids, but she is collapsing under the ordinariness of her successful life. She loses herself in the circle of housework and children. Just before the breaking point, she agrees to take Nigist, an Ethiopian Christian illegal worker, as a maid. The encounter between the two women channels Naomi's life in a new direction and exposes her to the world of migrant workers living among us. Paradoxically, parallels emerge between the problems of the two women, though their hardships have entirely different origins. This makes possible a temporary friendship between two women who represent two entirely different worlds. The events take place against the background of Israeli society, in which some 300,000 foreign workers live. Since the beginning of the 1980s, some 80,000 Ethiopian Jews have arrived in Israel. This unique wave of immigration attracted great public attention. Few are aware, however that among the workers who arrived to Israel from various African countries, there is also a community of several thousand Ethiopian Christians. The film Foreign Sister tells the story of this small and little known group.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsShaike OphirSeffy RivlinZaharira HarifaiAmitz Dolniker, an Israeli politician who speaks way to much has a heart attack in the middle of his speech. In the ambulance on the way to the hospital the doctor orders him to "go someplace quite, rest, and don't make speeches". His young assistant immediately suggest they go to Switzerland, however Dolniker had taken a vow not to leave Israel unnecessarily, so he comes up with a different idea - going to a remote village where they have never heard of him, so he would not be asked to make any speeches. As they arrive, it turns out that not only the villagers have never heard of Dolniker, but they have also never heard of running water, electricity, phones, and most importantly: TV, Radio, and newspapers... so its only a matter of time before Dolniker or the villagers go bananas....
- DirectorRon HavilioDocumentary about the history of Jerusalem.
- DirectorJoel SilbergStarsShlomo ArtziZe'ev RevachDubi GalA group of girls and boys set up a secret society called "Hasamba"; their adventures take place, first during the British Mandate and the struggle for statehood of Israel, and then as they battle their country's enemies: infiltrators, spies, criminals and other offenders.
- DirectorTzahi GradStarsMeital DohanLiat GlickTinkerbellOne dramatic evening mixes the fates of three young women who live in the same apartment building in a big city.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsAhuva GorenGila AlmagorGavri BanaiThe tragic story of a girl who has been promised to a wealthy aristocrat at the age of four. Horrified by her prospective husband, she runs away with her lover, but she is pursued by her father and brothers.
- DirectorIsaac Zepel YeshurunStarsJohnny ArbidSharon BrandonLia DultzkayaFrom legendary writer-director Yitzhak Yeshurun comes a drama about the true meaning of flag and family. The so-called Israeli war of attrition forced Shmuel Braverman to leave Israel and abandon his family. Secure with a new family and business in his new home, the United States, Shmuel returns to Israel to celebrate his son's completion of basic army training. But a tense trip with the whole family in a cramped supply van shakes up Shmuel's easy life and forces everyone to face hard truths in this award-winning drama.
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsYisrael PoliakovGavri BanaiShaike LeviSergio Konstanza, in debt to Mr. Hasson, flees to join an Army reserve unit led by a Sergeant interested in one of Hasson's daughters. However, Hasson demands his older daughter marries first before allowing the younger one to wed.
- DirectorDaniel WachsmannStarsShlomo TarshishYasein ShawafRuth GellerNamed after the hot desert wind that periodically blows through the Middle East sending temperatures and tempers soaring to potentially explosive heights. Set in an old farming village in the Galilee, the story revolves around inherited land ownership of Israelis and Arabs, of disappointed dreams, political tensions, and torn emotions as the clash between love and nationalism.
- DirectorYosef MilloStarsAssi DayanIris YotvatShraga FriedmanBased on the novel by Moshe Shamìr.
- DirectorDan WolmanStarsGila AlmagorBenyamin ArmonChaim HadayaTwelve year-old Uri reports his teacher Balaban as a suspected spy when he observes him meeting with a young arab man. Only later does he discover that Balaban's interest in the young arab is romantic rather than political.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsYehuda BarkanGila AlmagorMiriam Bernstein-CohenA story of a street walker, who tries to leave the world of prostitution when she gets pregnant.
- DirectorThorold DickinsonStarsEdward MulhareHaya HarareetMichael ShilloIn 1948, four Israeli soldiers recount the events that led them to take up arms while preparing for a final mission in the hours leading up to a truce.
- DirectorAmos GuttmanStarsIcho AvitalShay CaponAmiram GabrielAdapted from Yoram Kaniuk's best-selling novel, this heart-rending love story unfolds during the siege of Jerusalem in 1948. A young and beautiful volunteer nurse is drawn to the enigmatic Himmo, a mortally wounded and mutilated soldier who cannot speak or move.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsUri ZoharAvraham HeffnerArik LavieA new immigrant, Tzelnik, arrives at the port of Jaffa. He goes to live in the Negev desert where he opens a kiosk in the middle of nowhere. Mizrachi comes along and opens a competing business across the way. The two make a living by selling to each other. As there is nothing there, they decide to create a world out of their imagination. They build a cardboard film set, which slowly takes on real dimensions- the buildings turn to concrete, people come to audition for parts in the "film" (cinema 'verite' style, with Zohar mocking viciously the pretensions of the "actresses") and builders come to void apartment buildings (mocking the glorification of concrete and "heroic" settlement). In one sequence, Arab actors come and ask the filmmakers turn positive to negative, and they're given the role of pioneers who plow the land and sing Zionist songs. The imagined world of the filmmakers becomes so real eventually they lose sight of the thin line between fantasy and reality.
- DirectorMoshé MizrahiStarsGila AlmagorShaike OphirYosef ShiloachA fatherless family immigrates to Israel from Egypt during the British Mandate period. The film traces the hardships the family suffers in the politically unstable country.
- DirectorPeter FryeStarsBatya LancetGideon SingerZeev BerlinskyAn Israeli woman wants her daughter to marry Mike, the rich American son of an oil tycoon. However, she is already in love with a poor soldier, and Mike only has eyes for a Yemenite whose picture he sees in the paper.
- DirectorMoshé MizrahiStarsMichal Bat-AdamGabi OttermanMoshe TalThe love of Nissim for his widowed sister-in-law, Rosa, in the Old City of Jerusalem at the turn of the century. Under a (very old) Jewish religious law, Nissim has the duty to marry his childless sister-in-law on the death of his brother.
- DirectorYehoram GaonStarsYehoram GaonRahel ZimmermanHanny NahmiasJerusalem-born singer Yehoram Gaon takes a musical tour through his native city, highlighting its attractions, culture and people.
- DirectorNadav LevitanStarsChava AlbersteinGilat AnkoriPeter FreistadtReveals at close range the two levels of emotions existing in individual lives in a kibbutz. An atmosphere of warmth and concern is expressed as Leah's repeated miscarriages cause the breakdown of her marriage. But the deeper, unspoken reasons unfold, and the close, scrutinizing aspect of the kibbutz community offers no privacy. She and her husband blames the other wordlessly, while individually beset with feelings of self-doubt and blame.