Falafel Western wrangles opening night of Israel Film Fest

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on April 10, 2013

Israel Film Festival explores unfamiliar territory

By Tom Tugend
Published on April 10, 2013

Among its other benefits, the Israel Film Festival takes even those of us familiar with the country to places and people we know only superficially, or not at all.

Scars of Israel’s ‘Numbered’

By Naomi Pfefferman
Published on April 10, 2013

Israel Film Fest to fete Martin Landau

By Pat Sierchio
Published on April 10, 2013

When he was barely out of his teens, Martin Landau was already a successful cartoonist working for the New York Daily News. In fact, the young artist was being groomed by the paper as its next theatrical caricaturist. Landau knew that if he got the job, he would never give it up.

Israel Film Festival and Hollywood: A match made in Heaven

By Danielle Berrin
Published on November 8, 2012

By now it has become a celebrated fact that the Israeli creative industry is in the throes of a modern renaissance. This makes the annual Israel Film Festival — set to roll out the red carpet for its 27th year next March — a gift to Los Angeles and its two-week film program an anticipated moment on the city’s cultural calendar.

Australian Israeli film festival expanding

Published on August 17, 2012

The annual Israeli Film Festival will for the first time be screened in major Australian cities beyond Sydney and Melbourne.

West Bank shorts added to L.A. Israel Film Festival

By Jonah Lowenfeld
Published on March 21, 2012

In a small Israeli jail cell, a 17-year-old settler hears the air raid siren that signals the beginning of the Sabbath. From her pocket, she pulls out two travel-friendly candles. When the last of the matches in her small box breaks, her cellmate, a vegan left-wing activist who was on the other side of that morning’s protest, hands the young religious girl her lighter.

IFF: Engaging in disengagement—five horrible days in Gaza

By Amy Klein
Published on February 22, 2007

The sight of men in uniform dragging religious Jews away provokes a visceral reaction in any Jew: nausea, cramps, tears. It evokes the images of the Holocaust, no matter how dissimilar the situation may be.

IFF: One Israeli’s ‘War Within’

By Tom Tugend
Published on February 22, 2007

American audiences, in particular, will welcome a film that depicts Israelis as three-dimensional human beings, with strengths and weaknesses, rather than the array of no-goodnicks favored by many Israeli directors harshly critical of their own society.

IFF: Belarus actress returns with a hat trick

By Yana Ivrii
Published on February 22, 2007

When it comes to the country's large community of immigrants from the former Soviet Union, there is perhaps no performer who's succeeded more in entertainment, or conveyed a more fully developed sense of the U.S.S.R.'s former Jews than Dodina.

IFF: ‘Hands’ sends message about kids, not AIDS

By Hannah Brown
Published on February 22, 2007

The idea for "Tied Hands" began to take shape in the 1990s, when he visited director Amos Guttman, who was living with AIDS and had come back to Israel to die.

IFF: Dark ‘Days,’ darker nights in Tel Aviv thriller

By Hannah Brown
Published on February 22, 2007

Although there are moments when "Frozen Days" feels more like a Calvin Klein commercial than a movie, Lerner ultimately manages to capture the raw emotion of a young woman who's desperate to make a connection and unable to do so in the shadowy world she inhabits.

IFF: Personal, not political stories drive lineup

By Avner Hofstein
Published on February 22, 2007

"Israeli filmmakers are not interested in politics," said Katriel Schory, the head of the Israeli Film Fund.

IFF: Tinseltown opens arms and wallets to Israel counterparts

By Robert David Jaffee
Published on February 22, 2007

The upcoming Israel Film Festival represents the culmination of the consulate's developing ties with Hollywood.