Maariv-BestIsraeli
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- 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.
- DirectorAri FolmanStarsAri FolmanRon Ben-YishaiRonny DayagAn Israeli film director interviews fellow veterans of the 1982 invasion of Lebanon to reconstruct his own memories of his term of service in that conflict.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsShaike OphirZaharira HarifaiAvner HizkiyahuOne of Israel's most beloved films, this film centers around the policeman Azulai, who is as kind as he as inept.
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsGila AlmagorAkram TillawiSmadar KilchinskyThe 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.
- DirectorEphraim KishonStarsTopolGeula NuniGila AlmagorThe sharp, often hilarious satire that became the most successful film in Israeli history (until that time) is about new immigrants Sallah and his family, who are left in a shack near their promised apartment and are abandoned for months. A Yemenite Jewish family that was flown to Israel during "Operation Magic Carpet" - a clandestine operation that flew 49,000 Yemenite Jews to Israel the year after the state was formed - is forced to move to a government settlement camp. The patriarch of the family, portrayed by Chaim Topol, tries to make money and get better housing, in a country that can barely provide for its own and is in the midst absorbing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
- 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.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsArik EinsteinUri ZoharSima EliyahuGote and Eli are two aging friends who don't want to age. Gote is a lifeguard who's fighting peepers on the Tel-Aviv beach. Eli is a guitar player who dreams of building a night club in Altman's restaurant.
- DirectorSamuel MaozStarsYoav DonatItay TiranOshri CohenDuring the First Lebanon War in 1982, a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town.
- DirectorJoseph CedarStarsShlomo Bar-AbaLior AshkenaziAliza RosenEliezer and Uriel Shkolnik are father and son as well as rival professors in Talmudic Studies. When both men learn that Eliezer will be lauded for his work, their complicated relationship reaches a new peak.
- DirectorDavid VolachStarsAssi DayanIlan GriffSharon HacohenA respected rabbi is forced to come to terms with the demands of his faith and the welfare of his own family.
- DirectorAssi DayanStarsYisrael PoliakovGavri BanaiShaike LeviSwindler Sergio Konstanza owes money to Mr. Hasson. He escapes to the desert where he joins a wacky Army reserve unit whose Sergeant has his eye on one of Mr. Hasson's daughters, although Mr. Hasson won't let her get married until her older sister is safely married and situated.
- DirectorUri ZoharStarsAlona EinsteinArik EinsteinSima EliyahuBenny Furman is a basketball headcoach who can't decide what he realy wants.
- DirectorEran KolirinStarsSasson GabayRonit ElkabetzSaleh BakriA band comprised of members of the Egyptian police force head to Israel to play at the inaugural ceremony of an Arab arts center, only to find themselves lost in the wrong town.
- 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.
- 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.
- DirectorScandar CoptiYaron ShaniStarsFouad HabashNisrin SiksikElias SabaAjami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.
- DirectorJoseph CedarStarsOshri CohenItay TiranEli EltonyoThe story of a group of Israeli soldiers stationed in an outpost prior to the withdrawal of forces of 2000.
- 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'.
- DirectorTawfik Abu WaelStarsHussein Yassin MahajneAmal BweeratRuba BlalA family of five, their two goats and donkey live in the middle of nowhere far from their village home. They earn meager living by producing & selling charcoal, made from the surrounding trees. The father and son are the only ones who ever return to their native village. The Mother & two daughters have not left this place since the day they abandoned home, 10 years ago. One day the father decides to provide running water for the family by illegally diverting water onto their land. The three women recoil from the idea but the teenage son obeys submissively anything to be allowed to continue attending school. The water surging through the pipe parallels the surging resentment the family feels towards the father. He brought them to this place against their will and they know the reason they left their home is also the reason they can never return, but the newly free-flowing water on their land re-awakens the instinctive desire for freedom they have been repressing all these years.
- DirectorDover KoshashviliStarsLior AshkenaziRonit ElkabetzMoni MoshonovZaza is a 31-year old Israeli bachelor, handsome and intelligent, and his family wants to see him married. But tradition dictates that Zaza has to choose a young virgin. She must be beautiful and from a good family, preferably rich. Zaza's parents, Yasha and Lily drag Zaza to meet potential brides and their families. Zaza has no choice. He plays along with his family, advocates of the suffocating traditions of their Georgian Jewish heritage. But Zaza always manages to somehow get out of being engaged. What his parents don't know is that Zaza is already in love. Judith is sensuous, strong and intriguing. She's also a divorcée with a 6-year-old daughter. So Zaza has kept Judith a secret from his family. He will have to choose between respect of the strict confines of family and tradition, or the love of his life.
- 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.
- DirectorRenen SchorrStarsDor ZweigenboimYoav TzafirShahar SegalA group of close friends celebrate the bittersweet changes coming to their lives during the summer of their high-school graduation: adult responsibilities, adult romance -- and the soberingly adult fact that some of their number are being drafted into the Israeli army. This has very much the feel of a high-school beach-party movie -- with music, and in Hebrew -- until a sudden and disturbingly realistic reminder of their own mortality finally slashes through the kids' cheerful, close-knit obliviousness.
- DirectorHaim BouzagloStarsShlomo Bar-AbaIrit ShelegAdib JahschanEldad is about to go abroad, but changes his mind at the last minute. Instead of going home to Jerusalem, he disguises himself and takes a cheap hotel room in Tel Aviv. There he meets the receptionist Judy who he makes believe he'll marry so she can go to American with him and get a working visa there. In another disguise he is mistaken for a deaf-mute Arab and joins a group of them both at their Israeli construction site and back in their village.
- DirectorAvi NesherStarsGidi GovLiron NirgadSassi KeshetComedic musical about an army singing group.
- DirectorKeren YedayaStarsDana IvgyRonit ElkabetzMeshar CohenOr shoulders a lot: she's 17 or 18, a student, works evenings at a restaurant, recycles cans and bottles for cash, and tries to keep her mother Ruthie from returning to streetwalking in Tel Aviv. Ruthie calls Or "my treasure," but Ruthie is a burden. She's just out of hospital, weak, and Or has found her a job as a house cleaner. The call of the quick money on the street is tough for Ruthie to ignore. Or's emotions roil further when the mother of the youth she's in love with comes to the flat to warn her off. With love fading and Ruthie perhaps beyond help, Or's choices narrow.
- 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.
- DirectorNissim DayanStarsVictor AtarShlomo BassanBaruch Berkin
- DirectorSavi GabizonStarsAvigail ArielyAsher AtlasHanna Azoulay HasfariThe touching story of Victor, who lives with his mother in the REALLY bad part of town and runs an illegal TV cable station. One day he sees the beautiful Michaela and falls madly in love with her. So desperate to make her love him back he finally snaps, and sits in the rain, all night, waiting for her. Placed in a mental institution for his own sake he meets several colorful characters, such as the mysterious Levanah with whom he becomes sexually involved. Finally, one day, Michaela comes to visit him...
- DirectorAvi NesherStarsJuliano Mer-KhamisRoni PinkovitchHanna Azoulay HasfariAn avowed anarchist and Stern Gang hitman is sent to Jerusalem to assassinate a senior British officer creating much tension within the already troubled cell and almost brings its collapse, as the British operatives are closing in. Heralded by the Film Society of Lincoln Center as one of the most important films in fifty years of Israeli cinema.
- 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.
- DirectorEli CohenStarsGila AlmagorKaipu CohenEli CohenA ten year old girl spends her summer with her overly protective mother, a mentally scarred holocaust survivor, while hopefully trying to find her real father in the newly established state of Israel.
- 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.
- 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.
- DirectorRonit ElkabetzShlomi ElkabetzStarsRonit ElkabetzMoshe IvgyYaël AbecassisWhen one of the brothers (Ohayn) dies, all the whole family comes for Shiva (Jewish tradition,when the family sits seven days at the home after the death one of their family). A large family with a lot of problems and conflicts between them.
- DirectorEitan GreenStarsAssi DayanYosef MilloOrna PoratA common crisis changes the complicated relationship between a father and his middle-aged son, both trapped in unhappy marriages.
- DirectorJudd Ne'emanStarsGidi GovMoni MoshonovShlomo Bar-AbaNot everyone is born to be a soldier. Not even in Israel, where universal conscription is the tradition. This movie is about a Sad Sack in the Israeli army, incompetent to complete training and yet incompetent to extricate himself.
- DirectorElia SuleimanStarsElia SuleimanNazira SuleimanFuad SuleimanA Palestinian expatriate filmmaker (Elia Suleiman) documents the loss of national identity in Israel's Arab population.
- DirectorShmuel HasfariStarsGila AlmagorRonit ElkabetzEti AdarA Westernized teenager struggles to come to terms with the white magic practiced by members of her family.
- DirectorJoseph PitchhadzeStarsYussuf Abu-WardaJack AdalistSarah AdlerThis film takes us into the world of strangers whose lives change forever when they finally meet: a young mother with a 10-year-old tries to make ends meet after she's fired; a blind man's seeing-eye dog is killed by a hit-and-run driver; a married couple in their 40s fight over an unplanned pregnancy; a radio producer faces his past as he creates a historical radio program about his father; an unethical businessman is forced to come home to Israel to take care of his aging dad.
- DirectorMenahem GolanStarsYehoram GaonEfrat LavieArieh EliasAn embittered gang leader seeks the respect of his neighbors and the love of a young woman.