Israel

Quote:
Working Woman is a beautifully performed drama about the everyday struggles of being female in the workplace. Orna (Liron Ben Shlush) is the mother of three young children whose husband is struggling to start his own restaurant. To help support her family Orna lands a job with a former army superior, Benny (Menashe Noy), who is now a successful real estate developer. While Orna embraces her new position and tries to balance its demands with her home life, she begins to experience escalating sexual harassment from her boss. Her rapid rise through the ranks and her increasing financial success seem to parallel a pattern of predatory behavior which ultimately brings her career and marital relationship to the brink. This timely and devastating story is expertly told by long time feminist filmmaker Michal Aviad.Read More »

Successful doctor Artur Planck, his wife Clara and their two daughters are seeking shelter from the Nazis storming Poland. They find a safe house in the farm of Emilia, their local grocer who is all alone after her husband fought for his country and never returned. Amidst the horrors of the war that surrounds them, an impossible love triangle erupts as Emelia uncontrollably falls in love with Artur. Such a fragile arrangement is sustained by love – or is it just the will to survive? The answer to that question may not even be made known to those who make it out alive.Read More »

Synopsis:
A journey from the harbor town of Jaffa to the Jaffa orange, a fruit through which the Israeli filmmaker examines the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Review:
Despite certain limitations, Jaffa, the Orange’s Clockwork, a feature-length documentary by Israeli-born filmmaker Eyal Sivan, has a good deal to recommend it, particularly in light of events now unfolding in the Middle East and North Africa.Read More »

Last film by Assi Dayn.
Dr. Yoel Pomerantz, 64, is an unemployed clinical psychologist who lives in poverty with his 30 year old son Yoav in a 12th floor apartment. Pomerantz volunteers at ANA, the psychology hotline and is an expert at dialoguing with potential suicide callers. Occasionally he suggests that they come to his clinic for private therapy sessions.Read More »

The film follows Avi, Kobi and Yaniv, three young men who belong to the Breslev Hassidic community and place themselves in charge of supervising the codes of modesty, without hesitating to use violence to convey the message. When Miri moves into the neighborhood, Avi is torn between his feelings for her and the codes of the gang.Read More »

Aaron (Shtrauss), a respected butcher and a family man in an Ultra-Orthodox Jewish neighborhood in Jerusalem, leads a conservative life of community devotion and spiritual dedication. Aaron’s life undergoes a series of emotional changes following the arrival of a young apprentice (Danker) to his shop. Consumed with lust, the handsome “Yeshiva” student irreversibly transforms the intricate beliefs in the once-devoted butcher’s life – leading Aaron to question his relationships with his wife, children, community, and God.Read More »

Synopsis: Israel 1953. At a kibbutz boarding school, Aviya is the only Israeli-born pupil. Her friends are all survivors of Nazi persecutions in Europe. As the students follow current events, it triggers traumatic memories in several of the classmates, who are simultaneously dealing with the challenges of transitioning into adult life. Very few have the support support from parents and the majority lost one or both parents. Aviya herself is determined to find the tomb of her father, who died before she was born. Meanwhile her mother is staying at a mental hospital and refuses to recall her painful past. A film about young orphaned people in the new-born, traumatised yet hopeful state of Israel.Read More »

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Thomas, a young and talented German baker, is having an affair with Oren, an Israeli married man who dies in a car crash. Thomas travels to Jerusalem seeking answers. Keeping his secret for himself, he starts working for Anat, his lover’s widow, who owns a small café. Although not fully kosher and despised by the religious, his delicious cakes turn the place into a city attraction. Finding himself involved in Anat’s life in a way far beyond his anticipation, Thomas will stretch his lie to a point of no return.Read More »

new york times review (january 1995)
If “Tsahal,” opening today at the Walter Reade Theater, initially seems to admire that toughness unquestioningly, it eventually grows into a thoughtful exegesis of a troubling, complex subject. This film provoked a tear-gas bombing at a Paris movie theater last November, but it isn’t inflammatory on its own merits. Mr. Lanzmann, whose background in philosophy shapes his film making in palpable ways, is more pensive than judgmental. He seeks the essence of Israel’s embattled existence during “46 years of perpetual alarm.” Slowly, doggedly, he arrives at a profound understanding of it by the time “Tsahal” is over.Read More »