When the older sister of Shira, an 18-year-old Hasidic Israeli, dies suddenly in childbirth, Shira must decide if she can and should marry her widowed brother-in-law, which also generates tensions within her extended family.
When her fiancé bows out on the eve of her wedding, Michal refuses to cancel the wedding arrangements. An Orthodox Jew, she insists that God will supply her a husband. As the clock ticks down.
Zaza 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 ... See full summary »
Director:
Dover Koshashvili
Stars:
Lior Ashkenazi,
Ronit Elkabetz,
Moni Moshonov
After a lukewarm marriage of over twenty years, a woman appeals to her husband's compassion to obtain the desirable divorce document in front of a court, which proves to be more challenging than she would expect.
Directors:
Ronit Elkabetz,
Shlomi Elkabetz
Stars:
Ronit Elkabetz,
Simon Abkarian,
Gabi Amrani
Cheli, 27, is raising her mentally challenged 24yo sister, Gaby, alone. When the social worker finds out that Cheli leaves Gaby alone in the house while Cheli is at work, Cheli is compelled... See full summary »
Director:
Asaf Korman
Stars:
Liron Ben-Shlush,
Dana Ivgy,
Yaakov Zada Daniel
Residents of a retirement home build a machine for self-euthanasia in order to help their terminally ill friend, though they are faced with a series of dilemmas when rumors of the machine begin to spread.
Enrico Giusti works to help agencies getting out of bad management situations. The sudden death of two entrepreneurs leaves their young children in charge of the family business. This will be a huge challenge for Enrico.
Director:
Gianni Zanasi
Stars:
Valerio Mastandrea,
Giuseppe Battiston,
Hadas Yaron
Eliezer 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.
Daphne 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'.
A devout 18-year-old Israeli is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. Declaring her independence is not an option in Tel Aviv's ultra-Orthodox Hasidic community, where religious law, tradition and the rabbi's word are absolute.Written by
Sundance Film Festival
Israel's official entry to the Oscars this year is probably too minimalistic and low-key to make it to the final five, but it's a film well worth watching and is in fact one of the best films I've seen so far emerge from the growing Israeli cinema. Fill the Void is of particular interest to Israeli viewers because it's a rare window into the very closed-community lifestyle of the Orthodox Jews, giving very rare insight as the film was made by an Orthodox director but with a secular audience in mind, which is something never seen before. For foreign viewers too, it may be a fascinating glimpse into an anachronistic, static religious community that hardly ever opens itself up like this to the general public.
Cinematically, Fill the Void is startlingly minimalistic; the story is a very brief glimpse into a very simple lifestyle. The gorgeous cinematography compliments that, constantly focusing on the contrast between Hadas Yaron's white face, the black clothing and the gray-brown backgrounds, but with a soft focus that makes it very easy to get lost inside. The cinematography itself is so aesthetic that it often conceals just how simple the story and the characters are - the film revolves around one moral question without giving too much insight into the thought processes of any of the characters. Its real achievement however is in enabling the viewer to be immersed in the environment and the lifestyle of a culture so different from what we're used to, and in that sense it's a triumph.
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Israel's official entry to the Oscars this year is probably too minimalistic and low-key to make it to the final five, but it's a film well worth watching and is in fact one of the best films I've seen so far emerge from the growing Israeli cinema. Fill the Void is of particular interest to Israeli viewers because it's a rare window into the very closed-community lifestyle of the Orthodox Jews, giving very rare insight as the film was made by an Orthodox director but with a secular audience in mind, which is something never seen before. For foreign viewers too, it may be a fascinating glimpse into an anachronistic, static religious community that hardly ever opens itself up like this to the general public.
Cinematically, Fill the Void is startlingly minimalistic; the story is a very brief glimpse into a very simple lifestyle. The gorgeous cinematography compliments that, constantly focusing on the contrast between Hadas Yaron's white face, the black clothing and the gray-brown backgrounds, but with a soft focus that makes it very easy to get lost inside. The cinematography itself is so aesthetic that it often conceals just how simple the story and the characters are - the film revolves around one moral question without giving too much insight into the thought processes of any of the characters. Its real achievement however is in enabling the viewer to be immersed in the environment and the lifestyle of a culture so different from what we're used to, and in that sense it's a triumph.