Yaël Abecassis

Tshuva

Following his brother's suicide, Avihu encounters a mesmerizing transgender woman who is a vivid mirror image of his brother. Together they embark on a transformative journey, compelling Avihu to confront his deep loss.

Shikun

A diverse cross-section of Israeli society converges in a single multi-use building, the Shikun. As people of different languages, origins and generations come together in highly theatrical encounters, they grapple with the current state of affairs. In a poignant metaphor inspired by Eugène Ionesco’s famous play “Rhinoceros”, some begin to turn into rhinoceroses, while others resist.

Legend of Destruction

What had initially started out as a Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation, quickly turned into a fierce civil war. The combination of religious messianic zeal and the friction between social classes proved disastrous and resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.

Raymonde El Bidaoia

Raymonde - diva, queen, enigma, inspiration, survivor, widow, woman, and mother. Armed with a camera, Yael Abecassis followed her mother and stepped into a world where she had always been a stranger. "You know, daughter, Morocco is a kind of therapy," Raymonde says, and for the first time, they embark on a journey together: from a childhood in the mellah of Casablanca to the dunes of Ashdod and back to Morocco, where the mother became the legendary Raymonde El Bidaoia - a world-famous Moroccan singer. As they journey, Yael discovers a woman who articulates her weaknesses and the complexities of her choices with keen self-awareness, even when mother and daughter are transposed, twined together by guilt, admiration, pain, and above all else - limitless love and music.

A Tramway in Jerusalem

On a tramway that connects several of Jerusalem's neighborhoods from East to West, a mosaic of people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds are brought together.

Driver

A driver in the ultra-Orthodox community takes his daughter on his nightly journey, exposing her to the more questionable members of this pious society in the dark alleys of Bnei Barak.

Atlit

In October 1995 three French sisters gather in Atlit, Israel to sell the family home. Tensions arise between elders Darel and Cali when Darel proves unwilling to sell. That's when the sisters start seeing apparitions of their dead parents.

Words with Gods

The first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series. Comprised of several short films by some of the world's most exciting directors, Words with Gods follows the theme of religion - specifically as it relates to an individual's relationship with his/her god or gods...or the lack thereof. In Words with Gods, each director recounts a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship; including early Aboriginal Spirituality, Umbanda, Buddhism, the Abrahamic faiths, Hinduism, and Atheism. An animated sequence by Mexican animator Maribel Martinez is woven through each of the film segments, with each segment narratively connected as a feature-length film.

That Lovely Girl

Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...

Dancing Arabs

A young Arab is caught between cultures as he is sent to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Israel in the 1980s.

Hunting Elephants

In this hilarious crime comedy, a gifted 12-year-old boy and three elderly men plan a bank robbery in order to seek revenge on the institution for cheating the youngster after the death of his father.

Lullaby to my Father

The film intertwines historical events and intimate memories. I observe how architecture represents the transformations of society and those who give form to this architecture. We follow the journey of Munio, my father, born in 1909 in Silesia, Poland, the son of a tenant farmer of a Prussian junker. At the age of 18, Munio goes to Berlin and Dessau to meet Walter Gropius, Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then deported to Basel. He left for Palestine. Upon his arrival in Haifa, he began a career as an architect and adapted European modernist principles to the Middle East.

The Seven Days

The Ohaion family is mourning the death of one of their relatives. In keeping with tradition, they gather together in the home of the deceased and stay there for seven days. Forced to put up with one another day and night, the brothers and sisters soon let their bitterness and arguments override the sense of communal reverence. The atmosphere becomes unbearable and long-buried truths finally surface.

Comme ton père

1968. La famille Maïmon : Félix, Mireille et leurs deux enfants, Eric et Michel, débarquent à Marseille. Quelques années plus tard, à peine installé à Belleville, Félix fait la connaissance de Serge, un parrain local avec qui il se lie d'amitié. Serge entraîne Félix sur les chemins du grand banditisme, jusqu'à ce que celui-ci se fasse prendre par la police et décide d'endosser, à la place de Serge, la responsabilité de chef de bande.

Surviving with Wolves

In 1942, the young Jewish girl Misha, her Russian mother Gerusha and her German father Reuven hide from the Germans in a small house in Ardennes, Belgium. Misha is very connected to her mother that advises her that if one day a person comes to her saying "love of my life", she would follow him or her without any question. When her parents are captured by the Nazis, Misha is delivered to a German family and the abusive matriarch gives a bad treatment to the girl. However, she finds support in the family of Ernest and his deranged wife Marthe that supplies groceries to foster family. Misha loves Ernest's dogs and the old man gives a compass to her and tells that her parents have been sent to East to forced labor. When the old couple is denounced for sheltering the girl and arrested by the Germans, Misha flees through the woods heading east. Along her journey seeking out her parents...

Without Me

Anna, a divorced single mother, employs a mysterious young woman called Lise to care for her children.

Papa

Louis and his Daddy are driving back home. Daddy is a past master at clowning, which does not necessarily make Louis laugh. At times Daddy gets awfully mad, picking on people who don't deserve it. That also does not make Louis laugh. But Daddy IS sweet. He knows how to soothe Louis when he is very very upset. And he can rock-a-bye his baby with a song by Niagara. Daddy has been rather slipshod lately. And ill-shaved. And has had hair-raising nightmares. Louis can burst into tears just because a little girl refuses a sticker he wants to give her. What's wrong with Louis and his Daddy? Written by Guy Bellinger

Live and Become

In 1980, the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Three-Step Dance

Four separate-but-interconnected stories - one for each season - about life in Sardinia.

Miss Entebbe

Jerusalem 1976, a coming of age story about a confused girl, set against the Entebbe airplane hijacking.13- year-old Noa, is convinced she can free her friend's mom by kidnapping an Arab boy. Instead, she finds herself involved in a dangerous adventure that quickly develops a life of its own, and becomes deadly serious. Noa and her neighbor friends try to follow the adults patterns of behavior but, while entering the turmoil of political conflict and hatred, they discover that the solution is not to be found in the violent adult arena, but rather within their own hearts.

Alila

Life in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, an urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces. Gabi, a bobbed haired sexpot, and her lover Hezi—who's older, balding and married—rent a room to have an affair, while Ezra, a pot bellied divorcee, supervises an illegal construction site next door. All this racket drives Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, to a mental breakdown. Other characters include illegal Chinese immigrants, a teenage boy who's afraid to serve in the army, and a corrupt police detective.

Hibuki

A fairy helps children face their fears and gives them a friend.

Bella ciao

A man struggles to support his family while remaining true to his ideals in this drama set in Europe during the 1930s. Orfeo Mancini and his wife Nella are a pair of working-class Italians who years ago swore allegiance to the Communist party. With Mussolini on the rise, Orfeo and Nella come to the conclusion that they are no longer welcome in their native land, and they decide to pull up stakes and move to America with their two children. As a result of some confusion en route, the Mancinis end up in Marseilles rather than the United States; needing work, Orfeo takes a job working as a manual laborer for a wealthy landowner. This requires a serious amount of pride-swallowing on Orfeo's part, since his new boss is an Italian expatriate who once courted Nella. The situation becomes all the more difficult for Orfeo when his employer throws his allegiances behind the growing fascist movement.

Maria Figlia del Suo Figlio

This téléfilm film on the life of Mary, Joseph's wife and Jesus' mother, from the conception of Jesus to the Assumption into heaven at the side of her son, is a biblical story.

Kadosh

The year 2000 approaches in Jerusalem's Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter, where the women work, keep house, and have children so the men can study the Torah and the Talmud. Rivka is happily and passionately married to Meir, but they remain childless. The yeshiva's rabbi, who is Meir's father, wants Meir to divorce Rivka: "a barren woman is no woman." Rivka's sister, Malka, is in love with Yakov, a Jew shunned by the yeshiva as too secular. The rabbi arranges Malka's marriage to Yossef, whose agitation when fulfilling religious duties approaches the grotesque. Can the sisters sort out their hearts' desires within this patriarchal world? If not, have they any other options?

Why War

In 1932, Albert Einstein was invited by the League of Nations to address a letter on any subject to any person. He chose to correspond with Sigmund Freud about avoiding war. To this day, the correspondence about war of two great thinkers of all time proves to be more relevant than ever. Inspired by this correspondence between Albert Einstein and Sigmund Freud almost a century ago, the film Why War traces the roots of war, and embarks on a search for an explanation of the savagery of wars that inhabit our world.

Tel Aviv Stories

Three stories about three women: one is trying to find the right guy; one is trying to get a divorce from her runaway husband so she takes hostages; one turns Tel Aviv upside down in order to save a kitten trapped in a storm drain.