Summer Nights

Bedtime, family haircuts, aging and the stirrings of first love are tenderly and humorously explored by six-year-old Alva and his filmmaker father, Ohad Milstein, in this exquisitely beautiful and moving “home movie.” When Alva begins to ask his father difficult questions about the human life span, love, heaven and the afterlife, Ohad turns to his own father—who raised him under a much more aloof style of parenting—for clarity on some of the answers. Milstein’s cinematic essay is as much a film about being a father as it is about being a son. A strong sense of wonder vibrates through each scene, with artfully composed images of butterfly wings, great rocks and hair falling from scissors replicating a child’s point-of-view, searching for the marvelous detail within the everyday. Summer Nights was awarded First Prize at the DocAviv Film Festival, where it received the jury’s praise: “Besides telling a beautifully sensitive story about his son’s magical inner world, the director manages to build an artistic style that is both captivating and aesthetic. The film is a masterpiece that sets a new standard in documentary filmmaking.” Summer Nights also won Best Documentary at the Ophir Awards.

Preceded by Herd