Assi Dayan
Love Letters to Cinema is a collection of ten "letters” in the form of short films (4 minutes each), written and directed by ten outstanding Israeli directors. The films and the directors conduct a dialogue, whereas the directors create a short film with their unique voice, bringing to the audience a group of work that reflects on cinema.
After learning that a brain aneurysm will kill him in about 90 minutes, a perpetually unhappy man struggles to come to terms with his fate and make amends with everyone he has ever hurt.
Doctor Yoel Pomerantz is a washed-up, self-loathing psychologist who lives on the 12th floor of a high-rise with his Aspberger's son, Yoav, who spends his days pretending to be a traffic cop and proudly giving out parking tickets. Dr. Pomerantz sees a few patients a week, barely enough to keep he and Yoav in ramen noodles and with a roof over their heads. In addition, he works shifts at a suicide hotline. When he gets desperate financially, he recruits hotline callers to see him privately, which is discovered and results in his getting unceremoniously fired.
Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.
"My Father My Lord" is an intimate and deeply disturbing story of the conflict between a father's love and his deep devotion to religion. A respected Orthodox Rabbi dotes on his only son but his religious strictures leave an emotional gap between the impish child and the stern father. When the father's all-consuming obsession with observing religious ritual inadvertently leads to tragedy, his previously subservient wife rages against both her husband and God. A dramatic retelling of the story of Abraham.
A successful lawyer, who has traumatic memories from his army service, is testifying against his best friend from his unit. His wife, a social-worker, is trying to save a poor family named Siton. The couple's life collapses when the wife get raped by a gang.
Ya'ara, a blind PhD candidate in Mathematics at Princeton University, hears of her cousin Talia's suicide. Ya'ara rushes back to Israel. They were best of friends and twin spirits. Talia saw for both of them, and was always the one who believed and led Ya'ara to believe, that in spite of her blindness, Ya'ara could see everything. Ya'ara joins Talia's family for the traditional 7-day mourning period and there, she discovers the secrets of Talia's life and embarks on an investigation trying to discover the reason that led Talia to commit suicide.
Now that Itzhak's father is in a coma, and dying, Itzhak is finally willing to visit him, thus breaking a ten-year silence. During his visits to the hospital, Itzhak, a beaten and reserved man, is frustrated to find himself neglected by his own family: his wife, a long suppressed artist whose life's dream is fulfilled that same week; his twenty-seven-year-old son - a "philosopher" still living at home; and his twenty-five-year-old daughter - a tormented lesbian who has had no contact with her family for a long time. Itzhak doesn't realize, though, that his ten year old daughter, Didush, neglected and almost invisible to her family, is secretly visiting her grandfather whom she has never met previously and sets out to discover the old family secret.
After discovering that his father has lied to him for years about his estranged sister and his mother, 14-year-old Ilan runs away from home and ends up living with his sister, Dalia, who works on a cruise ship and is having an affair with a married man. While Dalia is at work, Ilan explores her down-and-out neighborhood and discovers and befriends Avram, an elderly holdout Communist living in an abandoned building with his weapons cache and marijuana-growing business, biding his time for the ultimate battle against the capitalists.
BeTipul is an Israeli television drama revolving around the personal and professional life of an Israeli psychologist, Reuven Dagan, played by Assi Dayan. The series portrays a psychologist who treats patients at his clinic five days a week and then seeks psychological treatment for himself. Filmmaker Ari Folman served as the head writer of the series.
A universal anti-religious satire which occurs in the latter of 2001 and deals with the life of God and his son Jesus. While Jesus is trained and sent to bring redemption, God is desperately seeking for the meaning of his only incomprehensible creation - Love.
An Israeli satire show featuring satirical references to current affairs of the past week through parodies of the people involved, as well as the thoughts of recurring characters. One of the most watched and influential shows on Israeli TV.
This beautiful love story that start's in Israel and going through all scene's of India, it's cultural, beauty and religions traditions brings us to the question: "What is this love?"...
A well-known middle-aged director who reached the top of the world cinema, won an Oscar and is now a pathetic drinker who lives in a stale apartment at the expense of a young woman. A brilliant young pianist who in his youth expected him to climb to the top of world music and is now a dangerous and wanted criminal. A senior doctor in the hospital, a drug addict, who must wait patiently for surgery until his hands stop shaking. A young nurse whose parents, in which she nursed, abused her and lamented that she had to die in the place of her soldier brother. Everyone meets when a poor film producer arrives and invites the director out of the gutter and write a script for him. The film, as well as the screenplay written by the director, track these lost souls crossing each other's paths in the no-go paths in which they roam.
Is today's fanaticism tomorrow's policy? In a West Bank settlement, Rabbi Meltzer has a grand design: he's building a movement "to pray at the Temple Mount." His yeshiva has scholars, and the settlement is getting its own military company to be commanded by Menachem, a disciple of the rabbi. He also wants his daughter, Michal, to marry Pini, the yeshiva's best scholar. Michal has no interest in Pini, but she is attracted to Menachem. When she rebuffs Pini, he hatches a bold and secret plan. Is jealousy the motivation or something else? Meanwhile, the army and Moussad are closely watching the rabbi's activities and Menachem's military training. Who is trustworthy?
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.
A story of an army colonel who is fighting the accusations in committing war crime but his only witness is comatose in the hospital.
After being called for his mandatory yearly Israeli army reserve duty, Arik Schwartzman finds himself looking for a uniform wearing serial rapist. He is aided by Natalie, a young female soldier who looks for her lost father.
The prisoner sentence to a very long time gets visitation home in order to meet his wife. The only problem is that he got a company - one of the prison guards.
A funny comedy about a battle for a chairmanship of condo association. AKA Condo Mishmash
A 707 aircraft jetliner, en route from Athens to Rome and then to New York City, is hijacked by Lebanese terrorists, who demand that the pilot take them to Beirut. What the terrorists don't realize is that an elite team of commandos have been called in to eliminate all terrorists on the jetliner.
In Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri's daughter and Issan's wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.
A pair of high school kids in love, Ronnie and Orna tangled up in an unplanned pregnancy. For this reason there has been a clear dilemma between the different options: abortion, adoption or leavng the child on their own growth.
Anne, a Parisian, visits her friend Yola in Tel Aviv, where Yola lives with her husband Avi and their son. There's tension in the air and the attraction between the two women is palpable. Flash back five years to their meeting, on a train to Jerusalem. Yola invites Anne to stay at her hotel, and over the next five days, their friendship builds from talk about their lives to an explosive menage a trois when Avi joins them on fourth day. Back in the present, can Yola have both Avi and Anne, or are the women futilely chasing rainbows?
Dr. Shuki Chaftziva is a ballroom dancing instructor who tries his hand at match-making. He follows the obituaries and takes his client, Zigi Fuchsman, an auto mechanic and childhood friend, to comfort the mourners and check out the widow and her property. At the same time, Ben Gurion Shemesh, a grease monkey who wants to be a singer, tries to win the heart of Dina, the disco floozy and also Zigi's daughter
In July 1976, an Air France flight from Tel-Aviv to Paris via Athens was hijacked and forced to land in Entebbe, Uganda. The Jewish passengers were separated and held hostage in demand to release many terrorists held in Israeli prisons. After much debate, the Israeli government sent an elite commando unit to raid the airfield and release the hostages.
Sergio Konstanza, a Swindler, owes money to Mr. Hasson. He escapes to the desert where he joins a wacky army reserve unit whose Seargent is engaged to one of Mr. Hasson's Daughters.
A funny romantic comedy about the 25 years of marriage of the couple Zion and Ziona who emigrated to Israel from Yemen.
This action drama centers on a former CIA operative who grudgingly rejoins the spy game due to the machinations of his one-time student - a screw up who goes to work for the Soviets. As his job drags him deeper into a dangerous and under-handed world, the student wants out of the agency and oout of the U.S.S.R. But the man's choices have made him a target and now both the United States and Russia want him dead, sending their mos able hit men to do it.
A man traumatized by war memories works as a tour guide on the sea. He starts a relationship with a young woman from the nearby hippie commune.
In this Israeli comedy, the baker has half a winning lottery ticket, and his deceased partner has the other. In order to benefit from winning, somebody needs to put the two together. The baker searches stealthily for the missing half, so do the dead partner's son-in-law and a group of thieves who hear of this potential windfall. There is some slapstick as this group chases one or another of its member through the streets and shops of Tel-Aviv
Nina is a former silent-film star from Russia who abandons her career to care for her son. She is a single mother -- the boy's father is a famous actor who wants nothing to do with either Nina or her child. She joins an acting troupe where she impersonates a famous French fashion designer, but she leaves the group in Krakow, Poland, when her true identity is discovered. She travels to France, taking several odd jobs in Nice to support her son. When the boy grows to young adulthood, he is recruited to fight during World War II for the French and later the British. He is decorated for valor and returns to locate his estranged mother after two years have passed. Upon arriving home, he finds that his mother had died several years earlier but that she meticulously wrote over 250 letters to give her son moral support and encouragement in the years to come.
Attempting to evade the turmoil of France's Hundred Years' War, Parisian student Heron of Foix decides to journey to the sea. En route, he meets the pretty aristocrat Lady Claudia, and the couple begin a romance amid the intense conflict. As the struggle between peasants and noblemen rages on, Heron and Claudia take shelter at a monastery -- but even their newfound love can't completely keep the horrors of war at bay.
During the Six Day War between Egypt and Israel a crack team of soldiers are sent on a dangerous mission and end up getting stranded in the desert, where they are forced to fight off numerous attacks by the enemy.
Uri, the first son of a "kibbutz", comes home from 2 years of studying. He finds his father has joined the British army, and his mother is with another man. He meets Mika - a new immigrant from Poland - and quickly falls in love with her. He is then torn between his commitment to his home family and girl, and between the "Palmakh".
