The 40th Jerusalem Film Festival announced the awards in its competitions on Thursday. The winners will receive cash prizes totaling about NIS 1 million altogether.
The top prize in the Haggiag Competition for Best Israeli Feature Film – the most anticipated award at the festival – went to Daniel Auerbach, directed by David Volach.
Volach’s first film, My Father, My Lord, a poetic story of an ultra-Orthodox family on vacation, won the Narrative Feature Film Award at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2007, and Daniel Auerbach is Volach’s first movie since. Perhaps not surprisingly, it’s about a director who can’t manage to make a new film and stars Volach himself.
It also won the Aaron Emanuel Award for Best Cinematography for its cinematographer, Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov, the Yossi Mulla Award for Best Original Score for Yonatan Alblak, and the Diamond Award for Best Editing for Haim Tabakman and Lev Goltser.
The GWFF Award for Best Israeli First Feature went to The Taste of Apples is Red by Ehab Tarabieh, a story of conflict in a Druze village in the Golan Heights.
The Anat Pirchi Award for Best Screenplay went to Asaf Saban for Delegation, about a high-school trip to Nazi death camps in Poland.
The Anat Pirchi Award for Best Performance in a Feature Film went to Emos Ayeno for Under the Shadow of the Sun, a movie in which he portrayed an Israeli of Ethiopian descent struggling after he is released from prison.
The Ensemble Award for acting went to Delegation’s cast, which included Yoav Bavly, Neomi Harari, Leib Lev Levin, Ezra Dagan, and Alma Dishy.
The Diamond Award for Best Documentary went to The Three of Us by Henya Brodbeker, which tells the story of an ultra-Orthodox family trying to find the best way to help their autistic child. Brodbeker also won the award for Best Documentary Director. The Best Documentary Research Award went to Jonathan Avrahamia and Assaf Lapid for The Return from the Other Planet.
In the International Competition, the Nechama Rivlin Award for Best International Film, named after the former president’s late wife, went to Ama Gloria, directed by Marie Amachoukeli, a crowd-pleasing story of the relationship between a child and a nanny.
Winner of the Best Director Award
The Best Director Award went to Lila Avilés for Totem, while a special mention went to the ensemble cast of The Delinquents by Rodrigo Moreno.