A single mother’s distress, the turbulent life of a female Israeli rocker, and sexual abuse in the ultra-Orthodox community are just some of the women’s issues to be explored during the upcoming International Jerusalem Women’s Film Festival.
The festival, now in its fourth year, is set for December 25-28, and will be held in a hybrid format, with in-person screenings at the Jerusalem Cinematheque and other theaters throughout the city, as well as online. The online screenings and many events will be free, and several screenings will be held in shelters for women who have been victims of violence. There will be special workshops for them, and they will be guided in making videos that express their feelings.
The online screenings and many events will be free and several screenings will be held in shelters for women who have been victims of violence. There will be special workshops for them, and they will be guided in making videos that express their feelings.
The festival will present new feature films, as well as classics, documentaries, and short films, all of which are by women.
The opening-night movie will be A Thousand and One, the debut feature by A.V. Rockwell, which won the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival earlier this year. Lead actress Teyana Taylor won awards around the world for her performance as a troubled mother who takes her child back from foster care and goes on the run with him in New York City.
Taylor is even being mentioned as a possible Best Actress Oscar nominee. The movie will be opening throughout Israel in 2024.
A tribute to Michal Bat-Adam
One of Israel’s most prominent female directors, Michal Bat-Adam, will be honored with a tribute, which will include a screening of her latest film, Hila. It tells of a single mother (Jade Daiches Weeks) who suffers stress when the father (Yaakov Zada-Daniel) of her daughter returns to Israel and she tries to rekindle their relationship.
Bat-Adam, who has won acclaim for her career as an actress as well as a writer/director/producer, will attend this tribute event. Her 1980 film, A Thin Line, starring Gila Almagor, will also be screened. It is about two sisters who are sent to a kibbutz and separated from their mentally ill mother.
Other films to be shown include Seven Blessings, which won the Ophir Award for Best Movie this year, as well as awards for Best Actress (Reymonde Amsalem), Best Supporting Actress (Tikva Dayan), Best Director (Ayelet Menahemi), and Best Screenplay (Eleanor Sela and Amsalem). This fact-based story, written by cousins Sela and Amsalem, revolves around a strange Moroccan custom of giving female children to be raised by infertile aunts, incurring a great deal of psychological stress over the years.
Blackbird Blackbird Blackberry, by Elene Naveriani, tells of a woman in her late 40s living in a Georgian village who never wanted to marry, but then finds herself falling passionately in love.
Inbal Perlmutter – If You Let Me Go is a documentary about the turbulent life of a female Israeli rocker, directed by Sharon Luzon and Avigail Sperber.
Sarit Asnapi’s My Sister’s Keeper is a documentary about women in the ultra-Orthodox community who have chosen to speak out about sexual assault.
Cinema of the South
THERE WILL be a tribute to the Cinema of the South, featuring seven short movies from the Cinema of the South Festival and by graduates of Sapir College in Sderot. The films are about women who live in the south of Israel, with these films taking on special significance since the outbreak of the Israel-Hamas war.
They include Shelters, by Rachel Albert and Maciej, about Chaim Peri, who was taken hostage by Hamas, and his wife, Osnat, who both worked to promote peaceful coexistence. Unwell Minds, directed by Danna Levy, is about how the director mentors an intellectually disabled woman, Yael Keidar, and the friendship that develops between the two women.
Keidar lives on Kibbutz Be’eri and her parents were murdered by Hamas on October 7, although the movie was made before the massacre.
There will be a pitching event for female filmmakers, as well as an event to showcase movies made in a film lab for ultra-Orthodox women directors, sponsored by the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund. The films from the film lab were shot by veteran cinematographer Boaz Yehonatan Yaacov and feature top Israeli actresses, including Joy Rieger and Agam Rudberg.
There will also be a program of shorts by student filmmakers.
To see the full program and to purchase tickets, go to https://www.jwff.co.il.