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.

 

"Heart of Gold" - a quirky film about a woman struggling with abandonment issues

Heart of Gold לב זהב , directed by Efrat Corem, is a new Israeli feature film which premiered at this week’s Jerusalem Film Festival. 

Mali, is single in her 30s, living alone, working as a ticket inspector on buses in Ashkelon. She is a quirky character, and extremely charming and compelling.  She is a survivor of her own past which has left her particularly vulnerable and we see the scars of that past erupt in her own violence against a couple of disrespectful teens on her bus. Her brother, Shimon, whom she loves dearly, works for the prisons and she is troubled by his having left his wife and kids.  She has a lover, an older man who lives in her apartment building, obviously a bit of a father figure. One day, Mali finds an abandoned baby on one of the buses, and she takes him home.  As she is growing more and more attached to the little baby, her brother and her lover are both trying to convince her to bring him to the police.

When her mother appears on the scene, we realize that this is a story about Mali’s own abandonment by her father, whom she never knew, and by her mother, who left Mali and her brother to make it on their own, about 15 years ago. How can Mali even consider abandoning this child?

Heart of Gold is a wonderful story about a strong, struggling woman, the difficulties and issues in her past and present, and her quirkiness and uniqueness as an adult.  This is a complex film about abandonment, loneliness, working class poverty and family issues in Israeli society.  Highly recommended!

 

 

"Amal" - a new film about violence within the Arab community of Israel

Amal, by Sharon Azulay-Eyal, David Ofek, Nahad Bashir, is a new Israeli feature film which premiered this week at the Jerusalem Film Festival.  The film deals with violence within the Arab community.

Today, when we think about violence in the Arab community, we think about gangs extorting businesses for protection money and shooting anyone who refuses to cooperate.  But this film is about something else – the cycle of revenge shootings between two families who have a long-standing disagreement between them.  Unfortunately, it leaves out this wider context, which might have helped viewers in Israel and abroad get a fuller understanding of this serious problem in Israeli society today.

Amal and Hassan are happily married with three children, living in a village in the Galilee. They both work at a nearby moshav for a Jewish family which runs B&B units. Hassan’s brother was murdered a number of years ago. When the murderer is released from prison, violence and revenge begin to endanger Amal and Hassan and their family and even overwhelm their lives.  

The culture of revenge is seen by the men in the story as one that you cannot stop.  Only the women seem to feel that reconciliation and peace-making could work.  The hard-hitting story and complex script is told with a lot of compassion and the viewer feels strongly for Amal and the dangers that her family faces.

It’s important to note that the Arabic name “Amal” means “hope”. However, this film does not offer much hope. Just pain. One feels empathy for those who suffer in this film, especially for the women and children, but the film ends on a note of despair.

Some feel that there is not much than can be done to solve this problem in Arab society.   Actually, the great rise in crime in the Arab communities of Israel in recent years is due to the policies of the current government, especially those of Itamar Ben Gvir, Minister of National Security, and by his policy of non-enforcement by the Israeli Police, thereby permitting most murder cases in the Arab community to go unsolved.

 

Good Morning, Gaza - a new Israeli TV documentary about the war in Gaza

Good Morning, Gaza is a hard-hitting documentary film, directed by Hanan Brandes and Matan Sacofsky, which premiered at the Jerusalem Film Festival this week.

Similar to its namesake (Good Morning, Vietnam), the film is mostly made up of radio or podcast interviews and broadcasts, edited with tons of visuals of raw footage from combat and from the destruction in Gaza.  The film is about normal reserve soldiers, especially in the tanks, serving in Gaza, during the first 2 months of the war, following October 7^th. 

The Robin Williams character is Or Brandes, a reserve tank driver. Since he gets bored sitting in his seat waiting for something to happen, he begins to broadcast an improvised podcast to his fellow soldiers.  Nothing is left unsaid.  The soldiers talk about every subject.  There is a lot of charm and humor, and much sadness.

The soldiers talk about their fears, their experiences at the Nova and the friends they lost at Be’iri, they talk about people they know who have been taken hostage, they talk about issues of morality and revenge, and about combat. Our “talk show host” successfully talks one soldier through a crisis when he says he’s losing it. And they tell funny stories about their children and they joke around. 

With no spoiler intended, I want to say that the end of the film is a real knock-out.  These are real people, mostly reservists, who sacrificed so much during this war.

Good Morning, Gaza (documentary, 52 minutes) was produced by Lama Films for broadcast on Yes Docu. Watch for the Yes broadcast on Israeli TV during the coming months.

During the roll of credits at the end of the film, it is stated that some of the soundtrack was reconstructed by AI.  I suppose we are going to see more and more of that during coming years.

Israeli Feature films compete at the Jerusalem Film Festival

The Jerusalem Film Festival has begun and it is very exciting to see so many people gathered together to enjoy culture from Israel and from all around the world.  The opening event took place in Sultan’s Pool, where 6,000 viewers watched the new Israeli film, Tell Me Everything (previously reviewed on this blog).

There are six films competing in the prestigious Haggiag Competition for Best Israeli feature film. The first film shown was What is to Come שעתיד לבוא   , directed by Ruthy Pribar, which tells a story about a woman whose husband commits suicide and she has to face the trauma and pick up the pieces of her life.

Yehudit and her husband live in a modest house on a moshav.  After her husband commits suicide and leaves her with enormous debts, she leaves her home and takes a bus to Eilat to escape.  She gets a job cleaning hotel rooms and rents an apartment in a poor neighborhood.  After a few days, a family of African refugees shows up and claims that this is their apartment. They end up living together, and eventually, Yehudit becomes attached to the pregnant mother and her 5-year-old son. At the same time, Yehudit has an affair with the manager of the hotel where she works. The story is surprisingly lacking in complexity and under-developed, with too much left unsaid. At the end, there is a hint that she gets her life back together.  But it’s unclear how and we are left wondering how she could leave the little African boy behind!

The second feature film shown in this category was Where To? לאן a debut film, directed by Assaf Machnes.  The director spoke at the premiere screening at the Jerusalem Film Festival last night, and welcomed both of his grandmothers to the screening.   He apologized for not providing them with great-grandchildren, but he is presenting this film instead!  The film was produced with assistance from the Gesher Multi-cultural Film Fund and I am proud to be affiliated with that fund.

The story takes place in Berlin, almost entirely shot within the taxicab of Hassan, a middle-aged Palestinian Uber driver.  During the night-time hours, Hassan drives partygoers from one nightlife venue to another through the streets of Berlin.

One day, he picks up Amir, a young Israeli and they strike up a conversation about where they are from.  Hassan is from Jenin and Amir is from Nahalal. Not so far away from each other. Over a period of months, Hassan ends up driving Amir a few times, and a bit of a friendship develops.  Hassan helps Amir by driving him when he is very drunk and very lost.  Amir helps Hassan by talking about the importance of real love.

Although the film is not a comedy per se, it has a lot of humor and charm. The funniest scene takes place when Hassan is talking to his cousin on speaker phone in Arabic when an older Israeli couple gets in the cab.  The cousin says, I hear they are speaking in Hebrew. Let’s have a bit of fun.  I will throw in words like Jihad and Al-Aksa. And they get a laugh at playing on the paranoia of the Israeli couple.

Hassan is a charming fellow. We get a feeling for his life and the issues that are important to him as the film develops over several months.  But we are a little frustrated because so much between Amir and Hassan is left unsaid. Perhaps the importance and beauty of the story lie in what is unsaid. On the other hand, there could have been some more dialogue about some of the critical issues facing them as an Israeli and a Palestinian, such as why are they estranged from their homes and yet why do they both yearn to return home?

This film only gives hints about the major issues which divide Israelis and Palestinians. Instead, it is an attempt to humanize them by showing that relationships can be formed on their common humanity.

 

A Touching Story of Holocaust Survivors

 I recently had the opportunity to see the film, Soda, directed by Erez Tadmor, which was made in 2024. Tadmor also made Strangers and A Matter of Size.

I had missed the film, Soda, but I am glad that I had the chance to see it.  It is very special.

About 1950s Israel, this is a story which takes place during the early years of the State, when people lived more modestly, and there were large groups of Holocaust survivors still trying to cope with the traumas of their not-so-distant past.

A group of survivors, who had been partisans in the forests of Europe, live together in a neighborhood outside of Tiberias and work in a soda bottling plant.  They have their own laws and system of justice.  Their leader is Shalom (played by Lior Raz who we all know from Fauda).  He lives with his wife who is frail and his daughter who was born in the forests.  They often listen to the radio broadcasts which provide the names and messages meant for survivors.

One day, Eva and her daughter move into the neighborhood.  She is an elegant lady, a seamstress, and sexual tension develops between her and Shalom.

Terrible stories are uncovered – for example, one man’s wife was shot while searching for food at a farm house.  Eva is suspected of having been a kapo in Auschwitz and her adolescent daughter being the result of her liaison with a German officer.  Everyone with their memories, traumas, searching for lost relatives.

This is a tender story of loss and love, based on a true story of the filmmaker’s grandparents. A story about a resistance fighter and his community trying to rebuild their lives.

Watch the trailer here --