Israeli 2006 Festival

39 Pounds of Love

Directed by Dani Menkin
USA/Israel 2005
English/Hebrew/Spanish
74 min
Ophir Award (Israeli Academy) Best Israeli Documentary 2005
Best Documentary 2005 Palm Beach International Film Festival

39 POUNDS OF LOVE is the heartwarming story of Ami Ankilewitz, an American-born Israeli who at the age of 1 was diagnosed with a rare form of Muscular Dystrophy that renders him immobile, except for one finger, which he uses to work as a 3D animator. His doctor predicated he'd die before the age of six. Over thirty years have passed and Ami, weighing only 39 pounds, still survives and "loves life", he is considered one of the world's greatest medical miracles. The film follows a riveting cross-country journey that Ami took with friends across the USA in search of the doctor who predicted his early demise. Along his journey, Ami attempts to come to terms with another major incident from his past.

Sliding Flora
Sam Spiegel Film & TV School

Directed by Talya Lavie
Israel, 2003
12 minutes


Flora was born in the field, that’s what she keeps telling everyone. She is a waitress in a quirky coffee shop that requires complex acrobatic skills to serve the customers. She is on the verge of quitting when something wonderful happens.

Janem, Janem
Bay Area Premier

Directed by Haim Bouzaglo
Israel , 2005
Hebrew w/English subtitles
104 minutes
* Warning: Language and Sexual Content

• Awarded prizes for direction, editing, script and music -2006
• Syracuse International Film Festival
  

Aldi, is a school teacher and combat vet with post war syndrome. He’s turning 40 and going through an acute mid-life crisis. His wife refuses to have children and doesn’t fulfill him. He decides to travel, but instead of getting on a plane, he goes for a journey in his own country and discovers an unknown world in the middle of Tel Aviv.

Live and Become

Directed by Radu Mihaileanu
Amharic, French, Hebrew w/ English subtitles
France/Israel, 2005
148 minutes

• Audience Award for best film – 2005 Berlin International Film Festival
• Best Screenplay award – 2005 Copenhagen International Film
• Festival Jury Prize for Best Film - 2005 Valenciennes Film Festival, France
  

In a Sudanese refugee camp sheltering Ethiopians displaced by civil war and famine in 1984, the Israeli secret service has begun Operation Moses, airlifting thousands of Falashas, or Ethiopian Jews, to Israel. A non-Jewish Ethiopian woman persuades a Falasha woman whose own son has just died, to allow her son to assume his identity. Renamed Schlomo, the boy is adopted by a loving, liberal Israeli family, however Israel, rather than being the Promised Land, turns out to be rife with racism. We follow Schlomo through the trials and tribulations of assimilation.

The Schwartz Dynasty
Bay Area Premier

Directed by Shmuel Hasfari,  Ori Inbar
Israel 2005
Hebrew w/English subtitles
104 minutes
* Warning: Language

A small Israeli town seethes with conflict, pitting its residents against each other and threatening to divide it: religious vs. secular, immigrants vs. native-born and dead against the living.

Into this pressure cooker enter two young people who try to bridge the opposing worlds: Anna, a beautiful young Russian woman, born to a Jewish man and a Christian mother, has come to Israel to fulfill her father’s dying wish – to be buried in the Holy Land.

Avishai, a 24-year-old Orthodox Jew, descendant of a distinguished dynasty of Rabbis, struggle to overcome the tyranny of his father, a zealous Jewish settler, and his grandmother.

Avishai’s grandfather had committed suicide after being accused of accepting bribes, and the grandmother’s only wish is to be buried beside her husband. The iron-willed old woman stirs the entire town into battle, dragging Avishai and Anna into the conflict.