Ha-Sodot [The Secrets] (2007) - Israel

9 nominations

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0782867/

Plot & Summary

In The Secrets, two brilliant young women discover their own voices in a repressive orthodox culture where females are forbidden to sing, let alone speak out. Naomi, the studious, devoutly religious daughter of a prominent rabbi, convinces her father to postpone her marriage for a year so that she might study at a Jewish seminary for women in the ancient Kabalistic seat of Safed. Naomi's quest for individuality takes a defiant turn when she befriends Michelle, a free-spirited and equally headstrong fellow student. When the pair encounters a mysterious, ailing foreigner with a disturbing past named Anouk (the iconic French actress Fanny Ardant) they begin a risky journey into forbidden realms. In the hopes of easing her suffering, Naomi and Michelle secretly lead Anouk through a series of Kabalistic cleansing rituals. The process opens up overwhelming new horizons for the girls who find themselves caught between the rigid male establishment they grew up in.

Rating
7.2/10 (512 votes)


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Ha-Kochavim Shel Shlomi [Bonjour Monsieur Shlomi] (2003) Israel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0380485/

Plot & Summary

16 years old Shlomi lives with his restless mother, his soldier brother and their ill grandfather. Although not doing well in school, Shlomi is a gifted cook and takes care of most household chores. One day, the school's principal finds out Shlomi is actually a genius and tries to get him into a more suitable curriculum. However, Shlomi is more interested in taking care of his family and his new love interest, the beautiful girl next door.

Rating

7.4/10 (571 votes)

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Paradise Now (2005) - Palastine

Nominated for Oscar-2006 Best Foreign Language Film of the Year

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0445620/

Plot & Summary

The movie involves two days in the lives of Said (Kais Nashef) and Khaled (Ali Suliman), two Palestinians, who are recruited to cross into Israel and blow themselves up. They are not shown as fanatics. They prepare for their task as one would prepare for any difficult assignment. The organization that supports them provides training, encouragement, praise, shaves and haircuts, suits and ties, a ceremonial dinner, and a chance to make videos that will be shown on television. On his video, Said articulates the Palestinian position, expressing anger that the Israelis have stolen the status of victims he believes belongs by right to his own people. Does this speech make the film propaganda, or does it function simply as a record of what such a man would say on such an occasion? I'm not sure it matters. If we are interested in a film that takes us into the lives of suicide bombers, we must be prepared to regard what we find there. Certainly what Said says will not come as a surprise to any Israeli. It's simply that they disagree.

We may disagree, too, and yet watch the film with a fearsome fascination. The director and co-writer, Hany Abu-Assad, uses the interesting device of undercutting the heroism of his martyrs with everyday details. During one taping of a farewell message, the camera malfunctions. During another, one of the bombers interrupts his political sermon with a personal shopping reminder for his mother. Then there is the matter of the woman Suha (Lubna Azabal); she and Said are beginning to love each other. A Palestinian born in France and raised in Morocco, she has great status in the Palestinian community because she is the daughter of Abu Assam, a revered leader. But she is not an advocate of suicide bombs. Influenced no doubt by the skepticism of the West, she questions terrorist acts on both theological and practical grounds: Islam forbids suicide, and she wonders if one qualifies as a martyr if one has martyred oneself.

The director is himself a Palestinian, born in Israel; his crew included Palestinians, Israelis and Westerners, and during the filming was reportedly threatened by both sides in the conflict. It hardly matters, in a way, which side Abu-Assad's protagonists are on; the film is dangerous because of its objectivity, its dispassionate attention to the actual practical process by which volunteers are trained and prepared for the act of destruction.

Rating

7.6/10 10,444 votes


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American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein (2009) - USA

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1475191/

Plot & Summary

This provocative and timely documentary focuses on the controversies surrounding the perspective of Norman Finkelstein, political scientist and author of The Holocaust Industry, on the conflict in the Middle East. He argues in the book that Israel has no right to exploit the memories of the Holocaust to justify and advance their military power over the Palestinians. He also states in another one of his writings that the Palestinians actually are natives of Palestine and rightfully deserve to get their land back. Throughout that argument, he criticizes the book From Time Immemorial by Joan Peters while claiming that her argument that the non-Jewish inhabitants of Palestine emigrated from other countries is essentially a hoax and propaganda. Co-directors David Ridgen and Nicolas Rossier do an admirable job of showing what makes Finkelstein’s ideas so controversial and how each time he lectures publicly, he’s unafraid to spark heated arguments and to speak his mind without any euphemisms. In a lecture at a university, he responds to a student crying by says her tears are “crocodile tears” and that she shouldn’t be bringing up the Jews’ suffering in the Holocaust to justify their current occupation of Palestinian territory---he reminds her that his own parents survived the Holocaust and he lost many family members there. He often come across as very stubborn and not quite diplomatic in the way he speaks with so much rage in his voice, but he’s nonetheless bright, articulate and very well-read. When called a radical, Finkelstein keenly responds that there are many things that he views as radically wrong in this world. This documentary allows Finkelstein to openly and engagingly express his mind about politics while concurrently giving you an understanding of what makes him so passionate and enraged about politics to begin with. At a running time of only 84 minutes, American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein manages to be a well-balanced, important and timely documentary that’s provocative and eye-opening regardless of whether or not you agree with Finkelstein’s controversial arguments.

Rating

8.2/10 119 votes


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Lebanon (2009) - Israel - France - UK

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1483831/

Plot & Summary

June, 1982 - The First Lebanon War. A lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town - a simple mission that turns into a nightmare. The four members of a tank crew find themselves in a violent situation that they cannot contain. Motivated by fear and the basic instinct of survival, they desperately try not to lose themselves in the chaos of war.

Rating
7.3/10 1,099 votes

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Va, vis et deviens [Live and Become] (2005) - Israel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0388505/

Plot & Summary

In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews. In turn they are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy. Upon arrival this second mother dies. Schlomo is adopted by a good family but remains depressed until he secretly sends a letter to his real mother. From the beginning he experiences large and small racist difficulties. In his teens he and Sarah fall in love. Her father is an extreme racist. Schlomo tries to gain "real Jewishness" by winning a competition in Bible interpretation. No change of Sarah's father's attitude. Disappointed he goes to the police and reports himself as not being a Jew. But the police officer just gives him a scolding. "The newspapers are full of that stuff, the Falashas are no Jews. Now they begin to believe it themselves." His adoptive parents send him to France to study medicine. When he afterwards marries Sarah she loses her family and her status as a "white Jew". But he dares not tell her the truth until she becomes pregnant. She leaves him, but only because he had not trusted that she would love him as much anyway. His adoptive mother reconciles them. Sarah's first line when she returns: "Unbelievable what three mothers would do for you." But she makes a condition for returning: Schlomo must meet his real mother again. As a doctor he takes a job in the Ethiopian fugitive camp where she is still alive.

Rating
7.9/10 2,624 votes

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Sof Shavua B'Tel Aviv [For My Father] (2008) - Israel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1043869/

Plot & Summary

The story takes place during one weekend in Tel-Aviv, in three main spots that lead to Carmel Market. There are three protagonists : 1. Tarek , a Palestinian youth from Nablus. 2. Katz , an embittered old fellow. 3. Keren , a 17 years old girl, who grew up in a strictly religious family , left her home to become a secular youngster. The three "heroes" are loners, driven by their past and by their inner conviction.

Rating

7.3/10; 109 votes

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Etz Limon [Lemon Tree] (2008) Israel

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1172963/

Plot & Summary

Salma Zidane lives in a tiny Palestinian village on the West Bank. She is 45 years old and a widow. Her children have left home, and she is alone. When the Israeli minister of defense builds a house on the other side of the green line, Selma's lemon trees come to the attention of his bodyguards. Her trees are a security risk. They can hide terrorists and impede the bodyguards in their work. In any case, these Palestinian lemon trees simply get in the way of the powerful Minister's superior security needs. The lemon trees were planted by Salma's family many generations ago--they are synonymous with Salma's family history. Salma gets herself a lawyer. But Ziad Daud is up against a battery of clever military lawyers, all of whom are covered by the top brass. It's an unfair battle, that isn't made any easier when the 45-year-old widow falls in love with her lawyer, a divorcee ten years her junior--a scandal as far as her Palestinian neighbors are concerned. On the other side of the grove, Salma's struggle to keep her trees has not gone unnoticed. The defence minister's wife, who has become more and more lonely and unhappy as her husband's political career has blossomed, feels increasingly drawn to Salma as the unfair battle between her husband and their Palestinian neighbors drags on. An invisible bond connects these two very different women who find themselves on the brink of a new phase in their lives.

Rating

7.3/10; 1,707 votes

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Ajami (2009) DVDRip - Israel - Arabic/Hebrew with hardcoded English subtitles

Nominated for Oscar 2010 for Best Foreign Film

IMDB

Plot and Summary
Ajami is the religiously mixed community of Muslims and Christians in Tel Aviv. These are five stories about the everyday life in Ajami.

Rarely has the tinderbox nature of the Middle East been so accurately lensed, on such an intimate scale, as in Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani's powerful "Ajami." Working with an impressive non-pro cast, the debuting multi-hyphenate helmers, Shani (Israeli) and Copti (Palestinian), start with a revenge killing and then show the repercussions furiously fanning out, to tragic results. Time shifts may overcomplicate the narrative for some, but the pay-off packs a major punch and fest travel is assured. Euro arthouse -- Ad Vitam bought French rights for 2010 release -- and bi-coastal Stateside play should create a buzz.

Copti and Shani took months auditioning locals, many of whom are from Jaffa's multi-ethnic Ajami neighborhood. Rehearsals assumed the form of role-playing, so the amateur performers were guided to their characters by improve, giving a sense of spontaneity and reality that's enhanced by handheld lensing.

Some of the film's success is its ability to cover so much ground in such an even-handed way, partly thanks to the helmers' diverse backgrounds. Issues such as the Palestinian contempt for Arab collaborators and the impossibility of intra-ethnic relationships are treated intelligently, without the need for over-explanation. But what comes through most clearly is the constant state of simmering hostility between the different communities, each side rewarding overweening machismo to predictably disastrous results.

No location in Israel encapsulates this fissured tolerance as well as Jaffa, where Arabs and Jews live side by side in deep mutual distrust. The amateur actors' rawness works both with subject matter and visual style, creating a flawless ensemble. Cinematographer Boaz Yehonatan Yacov also lensed "My Father, My Lord," another film notable for the way the camera naturally fit within a community. [Variety]


Rating:
7.1/10 333 votes

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