Blue-and-white on the silver screen 472025

The 30th annual LA Israel Film Festival provides festival-goers with a small taste of the best of modern Israeli cinema.

By HANNAH BROWN
EMIL BEN-SHIMON’S ‘The Women’s Balcony’ will be opening this year’s LA Israel Film Festival (photo credit: ETIEL TZIYON)
EMIL BEN-SHIMON’S ‘The Women’s Balcony’ will be opening this year’s LA Israel Film Festival
(photo credit: ETIEL TZIYON)
The Israel Film Festival, which will be held from today through November 23 in Los Angeles, will celebrate its 30th Anniversary by honoring Academy- Award winning, Israel-born actress/director Natalie Portman and actress Sharon Stone with its Achievement Awards.
Jay Sanderson, the president and CEO of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, will receive the Community Achievement Award.
The awards will be presented at a gala dinner at the Beverly Wilshire Hotel on November 9.
The opening-night film will be The Women’s Balcony, directed by Emil Ben-Shimon, which is a comedy-drama about a traditional Mizrachi community in Jerusalem.
Among the 30 recent Israeli movies at the festival will be Elite Zexer’s Sand Storm, Asaph Polonsky’s One Week and a Day, Eran Kolirin’s Beyond the Mountains and Hills, Dani Menkin’s On the Map, Ido Haar’s Presenting Princess Shaw and the Heymann brothers’ Who’s Gonna Love Me Now?.
The honorary chairman of this year’s festival will be Arnon Milchan, who produced dozens of acclaimed movies, among them the Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave and Birdman. Meir Fenigstein, the CEO and founder of the festival, said, “We are celebrating three decades as the leading festival in promoting and spotlighting quality Israeli film and television in the US.”
Over the years, nearly a million viewers have attended screenings at the Israel Film Festival.
For more information and to order tickets, go to the festival website at www.israelfilmfestival.com.