Documentary
ADA
Ada Karmi Melamede is one of the most prolific architects of her generation in Israel and abroad. Through her daughter's lens, an extraordinary protagonist is revealed whose life story is intertwined with the story of the turbulent and complicated country she loves. Ada offers an unusually evocative perspective on ideas such as "place," "home," and "state" as someone working toward improving the public sphere while that sphere deteriorates and becomes increasingly fraught.
81min // JFF
Best Cinematography // JFF // 2024
Director / Yael Melamede
Prod. Company / Medalia Productions // SALTY Features
A Magical Substance Flows Into Me
Palestinian artist Jumana Manna travels through Israel and the Palestinian territories in the footsteps of Robert Lachmann, a German-Jewish ethnomusicologist who traveled to Palestine in the 1930s and explored the diverse musical traditions there. Inspired by Lachmann’s musicological studies, Manna revisits the musical traditions and their modern bearers. What do these songs sound like now when performed by Moroccan, Kurdish, or Yemenite Jews, by Samaritans, members of the urban and rural Palestinian communities, Bedouins and Coptic Christians? When a true fascination for history meets the sounds of the rababa, saz, oud and tin cans, a cultural diversity emerges that subverts the distinction between "Arab" and "Jewish". There are no national borders here, only different kitchens where people make music together.
68min // Berlinale // 2016
New Horizons International Film Festival // Grand Prix
Director / Jumana Manna
The Museum
Housing one of the world’s greatest collections of art and antiquities, the Israel Museum poses for its own complex portrait in this elegant observational documentary, revealing its central role in the complicated narrative of the nation. A deconstructive journey into an establishment which enshrines narratives and a series of encounters with the stories of its workers.
74min Documentary // 2017
Director / Ran Tal
Line Producers / Ayelet Kait + Amir Harel
Prod. Company / Lama films
Premiere // Jerusalem International Film Festival
UNKNOWN: Cosmic Time Machine
Unknown: Cosmic Time Machine is an episode of the four-episode 2023 Netflix documentary series Unknown, about NASA's development and launch of the James Webb Space Telescope. The episode Follows a team of engineers and scientists in an ambitious mission to launch the telescope and take the next giant leap in the understanding of the universe.
62min // Netflix // 2023
Director / Shai Gal
Prod. Company / Story Syndicate
Finding Abraham
Written & Directed by Award-winning British filmmaker Malcolm Green, Finding Abraham is a wild, weird, award-winning documentary that follows a group of young Arabs and Israelis on a fast-paced historic road trip across Israel. Quirky, insightful, challenging, and with an outstandingly original musical score, Finding Abraham leads us through an emotional journey where the destination is Peace.
30min // 2021
Director / Malcolm Green
Prod. Company / Yesh Films, Jacob Films
The Jewish Underground
Their target was to blow up the Muslim Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem. Success would have likely led to a world war. This political thriller tells the story of how the members of the largest terrorist organization of Israeli Right-Wing settlers has now become a dominant power within the current Israeli government.
91min // IDFA // 2017
Best Cinematography // Israeli Television Academy
Director / Shai Gal
Prod. Company / July-August Productions
Made Like A Gun
Eight Israeli men, war and combat veterans dealing with PTSD, embark on a motorcycle journey across the Himalayas, searching for redemption and in hope of facing the complexity of manhood and trauma in Israel. Meanwhile, in Gaza, another round of war erupts.
54min // 2016
Directors / Eldad Prives + Eitan Zur
The Garden Of Eden
“The Garden of Eden” is the story of Gan HaShlosha, better known as the “Sakhne”, one of the largest, most famous and most visited parks in Israel. Director Ran Tal (“Children of the Sun”) expresses with exceptional cinematic measures the abundance of conflicted elements in the Israeli soul. With vast humour, beauty and pain, the film provides its viewers an original and piercing look at Israeli society, in a least expected location.
72min // HotDocs // 2013
Best Cinematography // Israeli Documentary Film Awards
Director / Ran Tal
Prod. Company / Lama Productions
Ain't No Mountain
Seven climbers with disabilities attempt to reach the Kilimanjaro peak. What is a challenge worth facing and what is true success?
60min // 2016
Director / Ran Moncaz
Prod. Company / Esther Grego // Adin Communications
Route 90
Route 90 is the longest road in Israel, forming its backbone but also stringing together its most desolate and destitute parts. This series was filmed as a two week journey down route 90, from north to south, from the Lebanese border to the Egyptian. Along the way we explore social, political, environmental and historical issues which shed a light on the forgotten populations and locations of this land.
5x55min // Documentary series // 2014
Best Documentary Series // Israeli Television Academy
Directors / Anat Zeltzer + Modi Bar-On
Prod. Company / July August Productions
Dancing in Jaffa
Renowned ball-room dancer Pierre Dulaine takes his program, Dancing Classrooms, back to his city of birth, Jaffa, to teach Jewish and Palestinian Israelis to dance and compete together.
90min // Tribeca Film Festival // 2013
Director / Hilla Medalia
Prod. Company / Medalia Productions
Long Distance
'Long Distance' tells the stories of migrant workers in Israel and their loved ones, left overseas through telephone. The stories of distant - close relationships, and the struggle to maintain intimacy, love or parenthood under almost impossible circumstances.
62min // DocAviv // 2009
Best Cinematography // DocAviv
Director / Amikam Goldman
Prod. Company / Gum Films
Elish's Notebooks
For 53 years Elisheva Rise kept meticulous journals, one for each of her seven children - written from their perspective, in the first person. After her death, her children return to their now vacant childhood home and, for the first time, read "their" diaries.
74min // DocAviv // 2017
Director / Golan Rise
Prod. Company / Daroma Productions