Israel’s New Fund for Cinema and TV is commemorating 25 years of funding Israeli entertainment by partnering with IZZY to launch its first-annual international film festival. For three weeks — November 19 through December 9, 2020 — enjoy more than 30 NFCT-supported documentary films below!
Thirteen years after his death, the great actor Yossi Banai comes to life for one final encore, with a cinematic memoir led by his own deep iconic voice. Pieced together from numerous archival sources, Banai directs the spotlight on to his own image.
Year: 2019
Language: Hebrew, English subtitle...
The daughter of the Bishop is going through a high-risk identical twin pregnancy. After discovering that one of the fetuses died, she is recommended to terminate the pregnancy and kill her living fetus.
Year: 2016
Languages: German, Hebrew & English, English subtitles
Director: Ohad Milstein
P...
In the shadow of the flood that took place thousands of years ago, four characters, floating between Heaven and Earth, are confronted with the drought of their land and with the changes of nature.
Year: 2018
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles
Director: Ohad Milstein
Producer: Ohad Milstein
Wr...
After the controversial 2015 terrorist attack in the Beersheba’s bus station, Tali Shemesh and Asaf Sudry set out to tell the story of the people caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. Their testimonies are incorporated into security camera footage to present a surprising and complex pictur...
This instant-classic Israeli documentary unabashedly explores the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the personal loss of two families.
Year: 2007
Language: English, Hebrew & Arabic, English subtitles
Director: Hilla Medalia
Producers: Hilla Medalia, Ed Priddy, John Priddy
Writer: Hilla Medali...
From the writer of "Fauda" comes this intense docu-drama based on the events of May 8, 1972, when four hijackers from the Palestinian organization "Black September" took control of a Sabena commercial airliner from Brussels to Tel Aviv.
Year: 2015
Languages: English, Hebrew, Arabic & French, Eng...
Is the Biblical story of David's Kingdom indeed true? This question divides the academic world. Typical of the Holy Land, this academic argument has come to involve politics, religion, and many emotions. The film sets out on a journey to find the answer, and reveals unexpected findings about the ...
At 80 years of age, Colonel David Rokni is preparing to command a national ceremony for Israel's Independence Day. Just like in each of the last 30 years, he goes through an arduous series of training, routine formation, and foot drills for the traditional military parade, a job no other person i...
Born in South Africa during the apartheid era, Robi Damelin later lost her son, who served in the Israel Defense Forces. At first she attempted to initiate a dialogue with the Palestinian who killed her child. When her overtures were rejected, she embarked on a journey back to South Africa.
Year...
A father and his filmmaker son explore an untold story of 1,000 Jews stranded in the winter of 1941 on the frozen Danube, waiting a life-or-death decision to be taken by their would-be rescuer, senior Mossad agent Ruth, and her agents in a hotel room in Istanbul.
Year: 2006
Language: Hebrew, Eng...
She died 41 years ago, but even today, Lea Goldberg is still an enigmatic figure. She is Israel's most beloved poet, a woman who invented herself from the ashes of the first World War through her magical poetry.
Year: 2011
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles
Director: Yair Qedar
Producer: Yair ...
In a tiny apartment in Jerusalem, surrounded by dolls and cats, Miriam Yalan-Shteklis wrote her beloved children's poems. Director Reuven Brodsky uses miniatures created specifically for the film and interviews with her acquaintances to tell the story of the most loved Israeli children writer.
Y...
"King of the Jews" is a portrait of the most beloved Jew of his day, Chaim Nachman Bialik. By the age of thirty he'd already become the most famous poet in the Jewish world. He spent very few years living in Tel Aviv, but he loved the city dearly.
Year: 2014
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles ...
Very few details are known about Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, but 400 years after his death, Shabazi is as popular as ever and is considered one of the greatest Yemenite poets. The film takes the audience on a journey through the extraordinary life of one of the greatest Hebrew writers.
Year: 2018
Lang...
Rabbi David Buzaglo was the greatest Hebrew liturgical poet of the twentieth century. Born in Morocco in 1903, his literary output had a major impact on a community of hundreds of thousands of people.
Year: 2015
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles
Director: Rafael Balulu
Producer: Yair Qedar
Wri...
Director Rafael Balulu goes on a journey in the footsteps of the Levantine thinker and author Jacqueline Kahanoff. Through encounters with her elderly friends in Paris, leading intellectuals in the Mizrachi discourse in Israel and fascinating Levantine women artists, he not only draws a portrait ...
Man is commanded to procreate, but it is the woman who is the instrument for fulfilling this purpose. This film follows the stories of four Ultra-Orthodox women and the oppression in Ultra-Orthodox society which ignores their spirituality, emotional needs and inner world.
Year: 2005
Language: E...
Ohad is an animal-rights activist. After years of being cut off from his family, he tries to heal the wounds and go home, but their decision to eat meat still stands in his way.
Year: 2014
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles
Director: Eric Daniel Erlich
Producers: Haggai Arad, Elad Peleg
This is a story of a girl who dreamt of being an officer in the IDF, who was a great patriot and who was shot and wounded in a 1978 terrorist attack on an El Al flight crew in London. Now a grown woman with daughters of her own, this mother does not allow them to leave their home for fear of Pale...
This clever and heartfelt mockumentary unfolds like a detective story exploring the disappearance of a fictional Yiddish actor 25 years ago. The only clue, a mysterious inscription on the door of his house reading “schund”.
Year: 2010
Language: Hebrew, English subtitles
Director: Yael Leibovitz ...
The “Impure” was how the Argentinian Jewish pimps were called by the “normal” Jewish community. They were vicious organization leaders and brothel owners who practiced religious lives while trafficking thousands of unfortunate Eastern-European Jewish women. One of them was a relative of mine. Tho...
On Christmas eve 2013, some 10,000 asylum seekers from Eritrea and Sudan gathered in Levinsky Park. From there they marched in an orderly fashion to Ha’Aliya Street, and continued across downtown Tel Aviv, until they reached Rabin Square, where they gathered around Yigal Tomarkin’s looming statue...
