New Historical Drama about the 1970s Black Panthers of Israel

A new Israeli feature film, Double Panther, directed by Marco Carmel, deals with the Israeli Black Panthers of the early 1970s which was a protest movement of Sephardi young people who rose up to fight the systemic discrimination and marginalization that they suffered at the hands of the Ashkenazi leadership in Israel.  Their demands included equality, better education, and assistance in lifting their people out of poverty.  They took their name and their ideas from the American Black Panther movement. 

This new compelling film, Double Panther, is based on a true story about Elbaz, a criminal who after being released from prison, is recruited by the police into becoming a spy, infiltrating the Black Panthers and reporting back on their activities to the police. 

At first, Elbaz is inciting the young Panthers, telling them, “You want to be liked or you want them to listen to you?”  He does this in order to have juicy information to provide to his police handler.  But as time goes by, he becomes more and more involved in the Panthers and their values, and he comes up with some creative and non-violent activities to draw press attention.  This story was taken directly from the police archives that had been closed for 30 years and only recently came to light.

At the screening last night at the JCC on the Upper West Side in Manhattan, filmmaker Marco Carmel talked about how this was a “very personal and historical story”.  It is the story of his parent’s generation who came from North Africa and met with extreme discrimination in Israel.  Like Elbaz, his father was a criminal, and the character of Elbaz’s wife, is based on his own mother.  According to Carmel, the story is still relevant today -- Israeli society still discriminates against its minorities, specifically the Druze and the Ethiopians.

This was a tragic story of police brutality and terrible racism within Israeli society.  There was, however, a successful conclusion to the movement and two of the better-known Panthers, Charlie Biton and Saadia Marciano, eventually went on to become Members of Knesset.

Double Panther (feature film, 97 minutes) was produced by United King films.

Wild Things (Stav) opens the Women's Intl Film festival

This week, I attended the opening ceremony of the Women's International Film Festival at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.  It was an exciting event because it is a festival directed by two young women – Lihi Sabag and Shira Meishar -- and it celebrates films by up-and-coming women filmmakers in Israel.  An award was given to the theater and film actress Hannah Azoulai-Hasafari (well-known for her roles in Nadia, Sh'chur, Lovesick on Nana St.), who spoke candidly about her beginnings in Beersheva, about her Moroccan mother who was illiterate but filled with wisdom, and about her own filmmaking.  She is well-known for her activism concerning issues of social justice. Her mother was forced into a marriage at the age of 13 and Azoulai-Hasafari’s feature film, The Orange People, is a condemnation of child marriage. The audience loved her, myself included!

A new Israeli film was chosen for this opening night.  The film, Wild Things (Hebrew title: Stav), by Klil Kovesh, is a debut film about compassion, friendship, and hope for the future.

Stav, a young woman who lives on a kibbutz in the north of Israel, was recently released from prison for having a stash of weed.  She is unable to find anyone willing to employ her on the kibbutz, so she takes a job as an assistant teacher, helping a boy named Yonatan, whose mother has had a breakdown and is living in an institution. Stav and Yonatan do some crazy things together, drawing them closer, all of which helps Yonatan to come out of his shell.  

No spoiler intended, but the ending is highly unexpected and adds a surprising critical element to the film. Although not a complex story, the film is well done—it should be commended for its directing, pacing, and compelling characters.

Wild Things is available from Go2Films.

 

Films dealing with October 7th

In honor of the third anniversary of the October 7^th war, I am presenting here a listing of the films that deal with this subject that have already been reviewed on this blog. Hot links are provided to my blog posts. Viewing one of these films during this week would be an appropriate way to commemorate those who died during this war.

Feature Film

• ·       Our Loves directed by Avi Nesher – the film tells the stories of families and couples during the days leading up to the war and on October 7^th itself.  Currently playing in the Israeli cinemas. 

Documentary Films

• ·       Good Morning, Gaza (alternate title: Over and Out) directed by Hanan Brandes and Matan Sacofsky – Or Brandes, a reserve tank driver, creates a podcast using the communications equipment in his tank, bringing together the other tank soldiers and giving them all a chance to talk, revealing their stories, feelings, and worries.  
• ·       The Last Recording (Hebrew title: Death Shelter: The Last Recording) directed by Assaf Liberman and Nadav Ben Zur -- about a terrible massacre that occurred at a roadside shelter near Kibbutz Re’im on that terrible day.  
• ·       We Will Dance Again directed by Yariv Mozer – a documentary about the Nova festival, highlighting individual stories of young people, some murdered, some taken hostage, and those who lived to tell the story. A wonderful tribute to those who died at the Nova that day.
• ·       On Thin Ice directed by Udi Kalinsky and Irit Hod – a film about a young Druze woman, living on the Golan Heights, who desperately wants to play ice hockey for the Israeli international team. The film includes a large segment dealing with the war against Hezbollah, as result of October 7^th, and in 2024, a Hezbollah rocket landed on a playground in the middle of the Golan Druze town, Majdal Shams, and tragically killed 12 children.  

TV series

• ·       Red Alert, directed by Lior Hefetz – tells four parallel stories of what happened on October 7^th.  Very hard-hitting. Streaming on Paramount. 
• ·       Fauda is a thriller, gritty, hard-hitting, and extremely well-made with complex characters and an authentic script. In its current season, on Netflix, it includes counter-terrorism activity against the background of October 7^th. 

Our Loves, a new film by Avi Nesher

Our Loves is a film about October 7^th, 2023, which focuses on love and resilience. Although it is a bit sentimental, the film is hard-hitting, emotional and meaningful. I viewed the film at the opening event of the Haifa Film Festival, which is held every year during Succot for the past 42 years, and I am thankful to the people at the Gesher Film Fund for providing my husband and myself with invitations to this event. This year, the event gave homage to Avi Nesher as he was presented with a life achievement award. 

Avi Nesher is well-known for many films made during his long career – Image of Victory, Past Lives, Secrets, Turn Left at the End of the World. During his early years, in the 1970s, he made two hits about young people in Israel – Sing Your Heart Out or The Troupe (הלהקה) and Dizengoff 99. As part of the homage to him at the film festival, there was a full orchestra and a group of singers, including Sassi Keshet (who was one of the stars in Sing Your Heart Out, 50 years ago!) who sang a medley of songs from these two early films.  The audience loved it!

When called upon to speak, Avi Nesher remembered when he was in his 20s and he directed these first two films. He recalled how shy he had been on the set, and when he called for “action”, Gidi Gov yelled, “what did you say?” just to taunt him! 

The new film, Our Loves, opened at the Toronto Film Festival, just two weeks earlier.  Nesher related that due to Canadian anti-Israeli sentiment, the Toronto Film Festival takes almost no Israeli films any longer.  But he was lucky that his film was chosen to be screened as part of this prestigious festival. The screening was set for Rosh Hashanah, so there weren’t any Jews from the Toronto community there.  But the 500 plus people in the audience loved the film and gave him a standing ovation!

At the Haifa Film Festival screening, the master of ceremonies of the evening was the famous Israeli actor, Lior Ashkenazi, which seemed so appropriate for the opening of a major film about October 7^th, because Ashkenazi had been the master of ceremonies for so many of those Saturday night protests in Hostage Square since October 7^th.

The film is made up of a series of stories about families and couples, and it is quite beautiful to see how the stories come together at the end.  Liri’s father, Shabi, has left her mother and she is very resentful.  Shabi’s story and his heroism become the central link tying everyone together in the story.  Sapir is a young religious woman who attended the Nova with a girlfriend.  There is Sandy, an Ashkenazi woman, and her Moroccan girlfriend, Milly, who is a cop on the Ofakim police force. Alfasi is considering leaving Israel to work for his uncle abroad.  There are four young army recruits, providing a bit of comic relief.  Rita lives on a border kibbutz in the Gaza envelope. Her son, Matan, is Liri’s boyfriend.

The review in the Hollywood Reporter criticized the film for being told only from the Israeli perspective.  This is true -- the film portrays the human stories behind this immense Israeli tragedy.  In a completely different style, Nesher’s earlier film, Image of Victory, was told both from the Israeli and Egyptian perspective of the 1948 war.  But in this film, that is clearly not intended. In fact, we don’t really see the human faces of the terrorists who came to perpetrate such terrible murder and destruction.  They are seen here only as dehumanized masked men.  

In the dialogue, once or twice, the film refers to the army’s lack of preparedness on the border, criticizing the government at that time, which is still the same irresponsible government today, three years later.  But this is not the focus of the film.  Rather, this is a film about Israelis who were unwittingly caught up in the events of October 7^th.  It tells their stories -- authentic stories about love, hope, heroism, and trauma.  The subject matter is extremely compelling and hard-hitting.  Highly recommended!

 

HaKeves HaShisha Asar – The 16th Sheep

Last night was the opening event of the Docu-text Film Festival at the National Library in Jerusalem.  There were hundreds of people sitting outside in the library’s garden, under the heavens. It was beautiful. The opening film was the premiere screening of The Sixteenth Sheep: The Reunion, directed by Ran Tal, who is well-known for his documentary filmmaking, including Children of the Sun and The Museum.

The Sixteenth Sheep: The Reunion is a fantastic film, another film that I am proud to say was produced with assistance from the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund with which I am involved.  The film is about Israeli culture, nostalgia, and icons of great popular Israeli music. 

Back in the late 1970s, Yehonatan Geffen wrote a book which became the lyrics for a children’s song album and Yoni Rechter composed the music. The resulting album was called The Sixteenth Sheep (HaKeves HaShisha Asar) הכבש השישה עשר. Performing the music was Yoni Rechter, Gidi Gov, David Broza and Yehudit Ravitz, who were then young and up-and-coming Israeli musicians. The album became a landmark of Israeli culture and the songs became well-known children’s songs, often heard on the radio, sung by kids and their parents all over Israel in nursery school and kindergarten. 

The film follows the preparations for an historic reunion concert, almost 50 years later, which took place last year against the backdrop of the turbulent movement to bring home the hostages.  The viewer watches rehearsals, learns about the four major singers and their backgrounds, and is provided with in-depth interviews with the performers themselves and with many of their fans. 

Yoni Rechter, Yehudit Ravitz, Gidi Gov, and David Broza are each famous entertainers in their own right, and here in this wonderful reunion, they perform together, creating a stupendous event!  There is some talk about politics in the film, since they perform a well-known song written by Yehonatan Geffen and sung originally by David Broza, written during the period of the peace agreement with Egypt in 1977-79. The song is called Yehiyeh Tov – It will be good!  Hearing it in the film last night, performed during the hostage crisis last year, was particularly meaningful.

As part of the film, Yehudit Ravitz talks about the years that she didn’t perform because performing took up too much space in her life.  Gidi Gov talks about the good ole days back in the 60s and 70s when life in Israel was good and less complex.  And David Broza sings his classic song, We Came Here Under the Heavens, which the audience loved last night as we sat outside, in the beautiful garden of the National Library.

Last night’s audience sang along and was tremendously enthusiastic about the film, especially at the end, when Yehudit Ravitz and Yoni Rechter stood up in the audience to take a bow! 

Watch for the film on Israeli TV.  It will be broadcast both on HOT and on YES during September. The Sixteenth Sheep: The Reunion (documentary, 88 minutes) was produced by Dikla Barkai and Ran Tal. It can be obtained from Dikla Barkai, at dikla@abotbarkai.co.il at the production company, Abot Hameiri Barkai.

Award for Best Feature Film at the Jerusalem Film Festival 2026

The big prize winner for best feature film this year is Where to? directed by Assaf Machnes.  

In the category of the Haggiag Award for Best Feature, the following are the jury comments: 

“The film portrays what makes us human with remarkable clarity and deep sensitivity, transcending personal beliefs and cultural conflicts.”

In the category of the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Script, the following are the jury comments: 

“A simple and nuanced way to tell a complex story with humor and humanity.”

In the category of the Anat Pirchi Award for Best Performance, the award goes to Ihab Salami.  The following are the comments of the jury, 

“A convincing, subtle and truthful performance that takes us on a journey.”

The Survivor in a Tuxedo - a new documentary film about Elie Wiesel by veteran filmmaker, David Fisher

The Survivor in a Tuxedo, Tracing Elie Wiesel is a new documentary, directed by David Fisher, a veteran documentary filmmaker, noted for his films, including The Round Number, Six Million and One, and Love Inventory.

This new film, which is both complex and fascinating, on the famous Holocaust survivor, author, spokesman, storyteller and public figure Eli Wiesel (1928-2016), premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival last night. I viewed the film, with my husband, Ron Kronish, and since we both loved the film, the review below is from both of us.

Introducing the people who worked on the film, at the screening last night, the director David Fisher talked about his father, also a survivor.  His father came from a town not so far from Wiesel’s in Romania, and they were on the same train to Auschwitz, but their paths were so different.  Elie Wiesel used the power of the word to give witness, non-stop, to what happened to the Jews in the Shoah.  Fisher’s father, instead, took up arms and became part of the struggle defending and creating the modern State of Israel, working as a pioneer in the new state, using deeds instead of words to cope with what he had experienced at Auschwitz.  The stories of these two Holocaust survivors are weaved together in this intensely personal and poignant documentary film.

Using interviews, animation, and raw footage, which are all weaved together brilliantly, Fisher has made a complicated and respectful portrayal of this famous Jewish thinker and activist.   We learn a great deal about Wiesel’s thinking, writing, activism and leadership in the USA and internationally.  Wiesel’s strength was seen and heard in his many speeches and his prolific literature. Throughout his career, he was always involved in giving witness, in keeping the memory of the Shoah alive. He was relentless in this mission.  Wiesel wrote 58 books in his lifetime and he had a clear agenda.

The film provides an intimate portrayal of this historic figure in contemporary Jewish history and does not shy away from some of the controversial issues which came to be associated with Elie Wiesel in his later years. For example, many people were critical of him because he became wealthy, and they accused him of using the Holocaust to get rich. Others were unhappy that he didn’t raise his voice to denounce Israel’s immoral policies against the Palestinians living under Occupation, since he had raised his voice for so many oppressed people in so many other places in the world. Others were bothered that Bibi Netanyahu used him as a prop in the gallery when he spoke in the US Congress against President Obama’s policies with regard to negotiating with Iran.

Other people were critical of his need for more and more international recognition.  Wiesel was a man of great ambition, dreaming of receiving the Nobel Prize for literature.  He never received that prize, but he did receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his dedication and work in areas of human rights around the world.  He said many times in many places that we must have a moral voice and may never stand silent. Yet, perhaps because he was a Holocaust survivor and a strong supporter of the state of Israel, he was not able to use his voice to be critical of it, as noted above.

Michael Berenbaum, who served for many years as the project director at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, spoke at the screening and also figured prominently in the film. He spoke about Wiesel’s power to “transform victimization into witness”.   The title of the film—The Survivor in the Tuxedo—summarizes the irony inherent in Elie Wiesel’s “witness”. On the one hand, he was a survivor, with a strong message and constantly bearing witness to the Shoah. On the other hand, he became a celebrity in the USA and internationally, hobnobbing with presidents and kings, and ultimately receiving the Nobel Prize for peace. 

Wiesel was an important Jewish thinker and activist in contemporary history. He was a complex man, but one with a message and a method. His message was to remember the Shoah. His method was his writing and speaking. This excellent film helps us all understand a nuanced and complex view of this man.

The Survivor in a Tuxedo is a fantastic documentary film (71 minutes) and was made for broadcast on KAN Israeli TV by Fisher Features Ltd.