5th ISRAEL FILM WEEK took place in Zagreb at Kino Europa!
From December 1-6, 2013!
READ THE PROGRAM
HUNTING ELEPHANTS (LOV NA SLONOVE)
Israel, 2013 l 107 minutes
Director: Reshef Levi
Screenplay: Reshef Levi, Regev Levy
Cast: Sasson Gabai, Moni Moshonov, Patrick Stewart,
Moshe Ivgy
Jonathan is a
bright 12 year-old-perhaps too bright, since everyone picks on him at school,
including his teachers. His closest friend in the world is his father, Daniel.
The two of them meet up every day after school when Jonathan visits Daniel
during his work hours at the bank. One day, Daniel is involved in a fatal
accident at work and the bank refuses to take responsibility for it. Suddenly,
Jonathan is forced to cope with losing his father, while preventing his
clueless mother from falling into the arms of the wrong man in order to save
them from losing their house.
With the help of
his cranky grandfather Eliyahu and
Eliyahu’s wily friend Nick, and a disgraced, eccentric British lord,
Jonathan comes up with a crazy plan that will help save his family while
getting even with his father’s sleazy former boss: the four of them are going
to rob the bank!
BIG BAD WOLVES (VELIKI ZLI VUKOVI)
Israel,
2013 l 110 minutes
Directed
by: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Screenplay: Aharon Keshales, Navot Papushado
Cast: Guy Adler, Lior Ashkenazi, Dvir Benedek
A young girl goes missing in the woods. She’s soon found
dead, the latest victim in a string of terrible child murders plaguing the
town. A disgruntled vigilante policeman is absolutely certain that he knows who
is responsible, and that person-of-more-than-interest is a timid and socially
awkward schoolteacher. The policeman pays off a pair of thugs to savagely beat
the teacher in the hopes of getting a confession out of him, but that plan
backfires spectacularly and a viral video of the ultimate example of decidedly
un-civic police brutality tears across Israel, costing him his job. Now, all
bets are off.
2NIGHT (VEČERAS)
Israel, 2012 l 87
minutes
Directed by:
Roi Werner
Cast:
Yaron
Brovinsky, Keren Berger
In a city, where everything is possible, a guy meets a girl at a bar. They
decide to spend the night together and head back to the girl’s home but – they
can’t find a parking space.
They embark on a search for the impossible – a
parking space in the urban jungle, a place for the car and a place for the
heart.
Their seemingly casual, comical conversations
are a reflection of today’s 30+ generation in the big cities: never satisfied,
always looking for something else, always hoping to find but failing to commit.
IGOR & THE CRANES' JOURNEY (IGOR & PUTOVANJE ŽDRALOVA)
Israel/Germany/Poland, 2012 l 90 min
Directed
by: Evgeny Ruman
Screenplay: Dita Guery, Eitan Londner
Cast: Clil Arbel, Avinoam Mor Chaim, Dorin Kaspi
When eleven-year-old Igor witnesses the birth of a crane
along with his ornithologist father Peter, Igor christens the hatchling Karl
and vows to watch over him. Relishing this opportunity to get to know his
father, whom he has hardly seen since his parents divorced, Igor is
understandably upset when his mother tells him that she has decided to
immigrate to Israel, and Peter refuses to let the boy stay with him in Russia.
Having difficulty adjusting to life in his new Israeli school, Igor finds
solace in tracking the migration of a flock of cranes — including Karl — from
Eastern Europe to Africa using his father's website. When Igor discovers that
Karl has become separated from the flock, he joins forces with Peter to find
the young bird — an experience which finally brings the estranged father and
son closer together.
AYA
Israel/ France 2012 l 40 minutes
Directed by: Michal Breziz, Oded Binnun
Cast: Sarah Adler, Ulrich Thomsen
Aya is waiting to meet someone at the airport,
but finds herself picking up a complete stranger instead.
Thomas Overby, who is a Danish music
researcher visiting Israel as a judge for the Rubinstein Piano Competition,
believes Aya to be his assigned driver.
The young woman, intrigued by his presence and the random encounter, does not
reveal the mix-up and mischievously sets off with him for his destination -
Jerusalem.
Their condensed journey to Jerusalem is where
the film takes place. For Aya this “outside of life” situation seems like the
realization of a childhood dream, but Thomas’ introverted and detached way of
socializing hinders the proximity she is longing for.
EVERYWHERE BUT HERE (SVUGDJE OSIM OVDJE)
Israel, 2013 l 46 minutes
Directed by: Michal Zilberman
Cast: Ania Bukstein, Ali Suliman, Yana Goor, Eldad Prives
From around the world, a group of thirty
somethings return to their homeland of Israel to attend a mutual friend's
wedding. They all stay at the same Tel Aviv beach side hotel for a long
weekend. The drama unfolds behind the closed doors of their rooms and in their
chance encounters with each other in the hallway and elevator, as they
reexamine their relationships and desires.
GOOGLE BABY (GOOGLE BEBA)
Israel, 2009 l 59 minutes
Directed
by: Zippi Brand Frank
Cast:Naina Patel, Doron Mamet-Meged, Gad Levy
Google Baby is a journey
across three continents telling the story of the up and coming baby production
industry in the age of globalization. Doron, an Israeli entrepreneur with a
high- tech background proposes a new service - Pregnancy producing. The pregnancy producer (as he introduces
himself) provides customers with a cost effective solution using outsourcing of
the surrogacy element to India as a way to lower prices. The preferred genetic
material is selected by the clients from their computer: sperm and eggs are
purchased on-line and multiple embryos are produced, frozen, packed and shipped
by air to India - where they are implanted into the wombs of local surrogates.
THE BALLAD OF THE WEEPING SPRING (BALADA O JECAJUĆEM PROLJEĆU)
Israel, 2012 l 105 minutes
Directed
by: Beni
Torati
Cast: Uri Gavriel, Dudu
Tassa, Nir Levy, Adar Gold, Ishtar, Yigal Adika
Yosef Tawila was
once the legendary tar player for "The Turquoise Ensemble". On the
opening night of The Weeping Springtime Ballad, a lethal car crash took place.
Yosef Tawila was rescued alive out of the wrecked vehicle, along with his lover
Margaret and his best friend Avram Mufradi. Two other band members were killed
andTawila, who had been behind the wheel, was found guilty, and sentenced to
several years in jail.
Twenty years later Amram, Avram Mufradi’s son,
bears bad news to Tawila: his father is dying of lung cancer and wishes to hear
The
Weeping Springtime Ballad, the piece they both composed, before he
leaves to meet his maker.
THE HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGER (VODITELJ KADROVSKE SLUŽBE)
Israel, 2010 l 103 minutes
Directed
by: Eran Riklis
Writers: Abraham B. Jehoshua, Noah Stollman
Cast: Mark Ivanir, Noah Silver, Reymond Amsalem
The film tells the story of a bakery's human-resources manager who
reluctantly travels to Eastern Europe to bring the body of a deceased former
employee, a recent immigrant to Israel, back to her family, in order to prevent
a public-relations disaster for his company. The first half of the film is set
in, and was filmed in, Jerusalem, while the second half was filmed in Romania.
The Human Resources Manager won five
Ophir Awards, for Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Supporting Actress (Rosina
Kambus) and Soundtrack.
TORN (RASTRGAN)
Israel, 2011, documentary l 72 minutes
Directed and produced by:
Ronit Kertsner
Can one be a Catholic priest and an Observant
Jew at the same time?
12 years after he was ordained as a Polish
Catholic priest, Romuald Waszkinel discovers that he was born to Jewish
parents, and that his name was Jacob Weksler.
The film follows his amazing journey: from
conducting mass in a church in Poland to life as an observant Jew in a
religious kibbutz in Israel. Romuald is torn between two identities, between
being Romuald Waszkinel or Jacob Weksler. He is unable to renounce either, and
therefore is rejected by both religions and the state of Israel. He is required
to choose.
THE WONDERS (ČUDA)
Israel, 2012 l 112 minutes
Directed by:
Avi
Nesher
Cast: Adir Miller, Ori Hizkiah, Yehuda Levi, Yuval
Scharf, Efrat Gosh
Inspired by a true story, Avi Nesher’s new
film The Wonders combines genres, moods and influences –
everything from film noir to Alice in Wonderland – to
create a unique and compelling movie that mixes mystery, comedy, psychological
thriller, political intrigue and romance.
The story focuses on Arnav, a graffiti artist and bartender, who lives near the
Old City of Jerusalem. Wearing a mask, he paints walls at night and hopes that
Vax, his former girlfriend who recently “found religion,” will come back to
him. But when Arnav sees a mysterious stranger forced into an abandoned
apartment across the way by three bearded men, he becomes involved with a
hard-boiled investigator, a gorgeous mystery woman, and the conflicted,
mysterious captive himself.
WELCOME AND…
OUR CONDOLENCES (DOBRODOŠLI I...NAŠA SUĆUT)+
Israel, l 30 minutes
Directed by: Leon Prudovsky
Cast: Ola Schur Selektar, Gera Sandler, Rosa
Lifshitz
The year is 1991, the beginning of the
massive Jewish immigration wave from the USSR to Israel. 12 years old Misha is
documenting his family's journey on a home-video camera. The already traumatic
immigration experience is enhanced up to absurd proportions, when the family's
old aunt dies on the plane just before they reach the land of their ancestors.
Now, the family will have to go through various levels of bureaucracy with an
immigrating corpse. Using his great comic talent, director Leon Prudovsky, who
immigrated to Israel from the USSR, is coping with his own immigration traumas.
ISRAEL: A HOME MOVIE (IZRAEL: KUĆNO KINO)
Israel 2012, documentary l 93 minutes
Directed by:
Eliav Lilti
Produced by:
Arik Bernstein
Israel: A
Home Movie weaves
together stunning home movie footage from the early years of Israel up until
the late 70's, to offer a critical look at the history of the Jewish state.
Showing the birth of one nation and the exile of another, the film goes on to
capture the development of Israeli society within the first 30 years of the country.
The images recount history from a complex Zionist perspective, revealing
Israel's tangled past.
Over the last decade, hundreds of
hours of home movie footage have been gathered, captured by amateur
photographers for the sole purpose of documenting the most important moments in
their families' lives. Searching through locked drawers, dilapidated cellars,
and cluttered attics, reels upon reels of original 8mm, 16mm and Super 8 film
have been salvaged; all tell the story of Israel from the early part of the 20th
century.
SLOWER THAN A HEARTBEAT (SPORIJE OD OTKUCAJA SRCA)
Israel, 2012 l 90 minutes
Directors: Yanai Goz and Yoni Zicholtz
Cast:
Guy Loel, Roni Hadar, Pini Tavger, Shalom Shmuelov
Lily is looking for a hero for her new novel.
When she finds Nino, a romantic street artist by day and a peeping Tom by
night, she decides to seduce him and turn him into the subject of her book -
without him knowing it.
She meets Nino's close friend Freddy, an ultra-orthodox Jew and a gay drag
artist, who is Nino's muse in the same way that Nino is Lily's. Lily sees
Freddy as a threat to her manipulation of Nino and realizes she must make Nino
give him up. However, the tables begin to turn on Lily when Nino uncovers her
true motives, and when she finds herself falling for Nino, this time for real.
WHITE PANTHER (BIJELA PANTERA)
Israel, 2012 l 88 minutes
Director: Danny Reisfeld
Cast: Ze'ev Revach, Limor Shmila,
Evgeny Orlov, Meital Gal, Shachar Smith, Mor Salmon
The deceivingly peaceful Sea of Galilee is the
backdrop for this story of violence, hope and the rebirth of a young man and of
the people who love him.
In the 1990's a million Jews from the USSR
arrived in Israel. These immigrants dreamed of a better future but were often
shunned by the local population who were suspicious of the newcomers. While
many of the immigrants embraced the Israeli lifestyle, others became angry and
shut themselves off in self-made Russian ghettoes. These ghettoes were fertile
ground for the creation of self-hating Jewish skinheads.
White Panther is the story of Alex, a young Russian immigrant,
whose family falls apart after his father dies while serving in the Israeli
army. In retaliation Alex joins a skinheads' gang led by his older brother.
An unexpected meeting with David (Ze'ev Revach),
a religious Moroccan Jew, gives Alex a chance to pursue his longtime dream of
becoming a boxer like his father. Alex finds himself torn between his two
father figures – the violent older brother and the new Jewish trainer –until he
finds out the truth about those he so admires
A
STATE BEHIND THE SCENES (DRŽAVA IZA SCENE)
Israel, 2010 l 50 minutes
Directed by: Avi Weissblei
Research: Gil Weissblei
On a Friday afternoon more than sixty years
ago, a special gathering took place in a small hall in Tel Aviv. The brief
ceremony, lasting only 32 minutes, concluded with the birth of a tiny state
called Israel.
A State behind the Scenes is a ‘last chance’ opportunity to see the
backstage events of May 14th, 1948 which lead to the signing of the
Declaration of Independence resulting in the creation of the nation-state for
the Jewish people.
The viewer gets to meet witnesses of the
ceremony who recreate the event by revealing rare documents and fading
photographs depicting the moments that made history then and influence Israel
now.
ISRAEL - A COUNTRY ON THREE SEAS
Croatia, 2013 l 30 minutes
Directed by: Miro Branković
Screenplay: Miro Branković
Thousands of years of history found its place in Israel. It is a holy place for pilgrims, trough history a place of wars, trade...Israel is today a modern country, a tourist destination. This film is an impression of Israel during a 7-day journey from north to south, connecting three seas.