Israel Film Festival Spotlights Israeli Culture

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Parent Category: Film Festivals

Category: Previews

Published on Wednesday, 05 November 2014 21:05

Written by Jessica Beard

The 28th Israeli Film Festival brings its international industry and cultural showcase to the world's entertainment capital this year -- as befits the U.S.'s biggest offering of Israeli film. The yearly celebration takes place from October 23 - November 6 in Los Angeles, aiming to connect American audiences with the fullness and vibrancy of Israel life and society.

With such an abundance of features, documentaries, television shows and student shorts to choose from, the IFF has cherry-picked a "Best of the Fest" slate of multiple screenings to offer filmgoers expanded chances to see 2014's most buzzed-about pieces. The festival opened October 25 with U.S. premiere Is That You?, a romantic drama about a 60-year-old film projectionist (Alon Abouboul) who gets fired from his job and sets out in search of his long-ago teenage love. The 2014 Israeli Academy (Ophir) Awards Best Picture nominee screens again Sunday, November 2.

Fellow festival-opener and U.S. Premiere Kicking Out Shoshana is director Shay Kanot's comedy about an Israeli soccer player (Oshri Cohen) forced to pose as a homosexual as punishment for flirting with a mafia boss's girlfriend. Predictably, he loses support from fans and teammates in conservative Jerusalem -- but attains heroic status in its gay community under his guise. The film screens again on November 5.

Also headlining the festival's second-chance screenings are The Dove Flyer (Farewell Bagdad) (2013) and Apples from the Desert (2014). The Dove Flyer is director Nissam Diyam's adaptation of Eli Amir's novel about the 130 million Jews who fled Iraq between 1950 and 1951. Apples from the Desert (directors: Matti Harari and Arik Lubetzkiis) is about a young girl named Rebecca (Moran Rosenblatt) who runs away from her Jewish Orthodox home in Jerusalem to join a kibbutz with a young man in the desert.

The Opening Night Gala on October 23 honored film producer Arnon Milchan, film and television producer Mace Neufeld and actress Dana Ivgy. Arnon's 130-plus films include 2014 releases Gone Girl and Birdman -- both currently in theaters -- as well as 12 Years a Slave (2013), A Time to Kill (1996) and Pretty Woman (1990). Neufeld boasts the recent Denzel Washington/Antoine Fuqua team-up The Equalizer (2014) and the classic The Hunt for Red October (1990) while Ivgy stars in two festival entries, gala feature Next to Her (2014) and Zero Motivation (2014). Next to Her tells the story of Chelli (Liron Ben-Shlush), a young woman whose codependent relationship with her younger, developmentaly-challenged sister Gabby (Ivgy) compicates when Chelli's love interest Zohar (Yaakov Zada Daniel) enters the picture.

To learn more, go to http://www.israelfilmfestival.com

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