Israeli films

Hagit, a young woman with mild mental deficiency, works in a toilet-paper factory. She lives with her mother Sarah, a divorcée who gave up her life for her daughter. Hagit strives for independence and Sarah is torn between her desire to protect her, and her own will to live. When a relationship develops between her and the son of the factory owner, Hagit hides it from her mother. The announcement of the closing of the factory shakes Hagit and Sarah's life and jeopardizes Hagit's love story.

The story takes place during one weekend in Tel-Aviv, in three main spots that lead to Carmel Market. There are three protagonists: 1. Tarek, a young Palestinian man from Nablus. 2. Katz, an embittered old fellow. 3. Keren, a 17-year-old girl who grew up in a strictly religious family and left home to become a secular youngster. The three "heroes" are loners, driven by their past and by their inner conviction.

Life at work becomes unbearable for Orna. Her boss appreciates and promotes her, while making inappropriate advances. Her husband struggles to keep his new restaurant afloat, and Orna becomes the main breadwinner for their three children. When her world is finally shattered, she must pull herself together to fight, in her own way, for her job and a sense of self-worth.

A member of an Israeli anti-terrorist unit clashes with a group of young radicals.

During the summer of 1968 a teenage boy goes to work for a matchmaker who has survived the Holocaust - both their lives are forever altered.

The unexpected death of the family patriarch throws every member of the Ulman clan off course. Widow Dafna takes to bed for three months and when she finally returns to her job at the maternity hospital, she has little time for her children. Eldest son, Yair drops out of school and adopts a fatalist attitude, shutting out his siblings and girlfriend. His twin sister Maya, a talented musician, feels the most guilt and is forced to act as a family caregiver at the expense of career opportunities. Bullied at school, younger son Ido responds by obsessively filming himself with a video camera and attempting dangerous feats. The baby sister, Bar, is woefully neglected. Preoccupied with their own misery, the family is barely a family anymore. When another tragedy strikes, will they be able to support one another?

In the heart of Jaffa, Reuven's garage is a family business. His daughter Mali and his son Meir, as well as Toufik, a young Palestinian, work there. No one suspects that Mali and Toufik have been in love for years. As the two lovers are secretly making their wedding arrangements, tension builds between Meir and Toufik.

A Palestinian-Israeli boy named Eyad is sent to a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem, where he struggles with issues of language, culture, and identity.

Returning to civilian life after twenty-seven years in the army isn't as easy as David had hoped. It's hard to re-establish daily contact with his family, with the dimension of his home and, above all, with the new Israel, an ultra-competitive society obsessed with success. Thus, the opportunity to join a company which produces nutritional supplements seems like a possible escape to be seized without hesitation. But David doesn't know how much his country has changed.

THE FAREWELL PARTY is a compassionate dark comedy about friendship and knowing when to say goodbye. A group of friends at a Jerusalem retirement home build a machine for self-euthanasia in order to help their terminally ill friend. When rumors of the machine begin to spread, more and more people ask for their help, and the friends are faced with an emotional dilemma.

Set in mid-70's, 12-year old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his undermined mother, whom the Kibbutz members will to denounce.

In a world that does not appreciate artists, where sensitive souls don't stand a chance, a poetry-loving kindergarten teacher discovers a child poet and decides to take it upon herself to nurture him. To save his greatness from the world, to salvage him from the banal, the mediocre and the crude - to save him from life itself. It is the story of a female Don Quixote, who strives to save the world through the poetry of a child, and of a pensive child who has no desire to be saved.

Cheli, 27, is raising her mentally challenged 24yo sister, Gaby, alone. When the social worker finds out that Cheli leaves Gaby alone in the house while Cheli is at work, Cheli is compelled to place Gaby in a day program. For the first time in her life, Cheli shares Gaby's care with someone else; her daily routine collapses and the huge void left by Gaby's absence makes room for a man in Cheli's life in the shape of Zohar, who inadvertently creates a chink in the sisters' symbiotic relationship. While Cheli hangs on to Zohar's love for all she's worth, her inability to have 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 crossed.

The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.

The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.

In Israel there is neither civil marriage nor civil divorce. Only rabbis can legitimize a marriage or its dissolution. But this dissolution is only possible with full consent from the husband, who in the end has more power than the judges. Viviane Amsalem has been applying for divorce for three years. But her husband Elisha will not agree. His cold intransigence, Viviane's determination to fight for her freedom, and the ambiguous role of the judges shape a procedure in which tragedy vies with absurdity, and everything is brought out for judgment, apart from the initial request.

Rebellious and outgoing Smadar can't stand types like Mirit. Mirit, introverted and frightened, keeps away from the likes of Smadar. But the two are thrown together as they are assigned to a patrol in Jerusalem as part of their compulsory military service. Their job is to stop Palestinian passersby, to ask for their identity cards, and to write down their details on special forms. You don't move from this place, don't sit down, don't smoke, don't eat, don't talk on your cell phones, says their commander, leaving them alone on the street with their patrol forms. What will they do now? This is the story of two 18-year-old girls who are busy with their own worlds--falling in love, break-ups, and the volatile relationship between the two--in an attempt to ignore the political reality in a city that slowly makes its way into their lives. As women, this film is our own way of soul searching, about our army service and the occupation

Tells the story of the complex relationship between an Israeli Secret Service officer and his teenage Palestinian informant. Shuttling back and forth between conflicting points of view, the film is a raw portrayal of characters torn apart by competing loyalties and impossible moral dilemmas, giving an unparalleled glimpse into the dark and fascinating world of human intelligence.