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Filtered By: France Clear All

The 1986 kidnapping of 24-year-old Ilan Halimi by a suburban Parisian gang of thugs became a cause célèbre because of the anti-Semitic nature of the crime. This thriller based on the true events is expertly helmed by Alexandre Arcady and focuses on the police team and the ransom calls that are the detectives’ only clue to the kidnappers’ psychology. Ilan’s mother has another clue, one that the authorities are regretfully too slow to recognize.

In a working-class Tel Aviv neighborhood, the turbulent and poignant lives of illicit lovers, a divorced couple whose son has gone AWOL from the army, the ex-wife’s younger lover, an elderly Holocaust survivor, illegal foreign workers, and a half-crazed policewoman all converge. Renowned director Amos Gitai’s visually powerful and emotionally masterful ensemble drama is a microcosm of Israeli society.

Alex sees aliyah, immigration to Israel, as a way out of his troubled life dealing hashish in Paris. Plus, he’ll no longer have to clean up his deceitful older brother’s messes. But no plan is simple. To immigrate, Alex needs cash to buy into the restaurant he’ll help a cousin build in Tel Aviv. And just when his ex announces her engagement, her friend falls for him, and it’s mutual.

A breathtaking 18th century painting on a crumbling wall ignites a noirish mystery and inspires one woman to delve into family secrets, long-buried memories, and perhaps even WWII-era government cover-ups. Dashing around Paris in her trenchcoat and fedora, Esther whispers in dark rooms, forges signatures and draws long, thoughtful puffs on cigarettes (though this may be more French than noir) in her journey to recover family paintings presumably stolen by Nazis.

This is a significant new Holocaust documentary about one of the first camps built to exterminate Poland’s Jews. Belzec saw more than 600,000 perish in gas chambers and mass graves, but in 1943 the camp was razed in an effort to hide what had happened. The film’s focus is on one of Belzec’s few survivors, Braha Rauffmann, who as a child had been secreted away in a woodpile by a Polish woman.

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

A Bottle in the Gaza Sea

This modern-day Romeo-and-Juliet tale is set in Israel and Gaza. After witnessing a suicide bombing, a girl writes a letter to Gaza seeking understanding and sends it into the Gaza Sea in a bottle. It’s found by a young Gaza man who emails back. Though they live less than 100 kilometers apart, they communicate only through emails and letters. While they often disagree, their relationship deepens as the political situation worsens. [MINIGUIDE 71/70]

A letter from Romania inspires a woman to travel halfway across the world to meet the brother she never knew she had. Like an archaeologist discovering pieces from the past, she finds the secrets to her late father's life, sparked by the discovery of a photo of a little boy.

Fanny's Journey

Fanny's Journey

Riveting from the first frame to the last, Fanny’s Journey is the true and absorbing story of a 13-year-old girl who is separated from her parents in Nazi-occupied France. Fanny is brave and determined and leads her younger sisters and a group of Jewish children towards sanctuary in Switzerland. Expertly directed and well acted, the film emphasizes the resilience of these young heroes and is especially relevant in the present moment.

Diane Kurys (Peppermint Soda, Entre Nous) once again mines her autobiography to fictionalize the early years of her parents’ marriage, a mysterious uncle of whom nobody speaks and the circumstances of her birth. Intimacy and suspense are the keys to Kurys’s novelistic framing of Jewish life in a corner of Lyon, France, just after the war, when freedom meant one thing to a man, another to a woman.

Forman vs. Forman

Forman vs. Forman

This intimate portrait of Miloš Forman, the powerhouse director of AMADEUS and ONE FLEW OVER THE CUCKOO'S NEWS reveals a man who never stopped searching for a place where he would feel free. Born in Czechoslovakia, his traumatic experience with the Nazi regime bestowed him with the theme of the conflict of an individual versus institutions.

An Algerian emigrant in Paris during World War II is inspired to join the French Resistance when he becomes friends with a Jewish man.

When Rebecca, an American, ditches her fiancé in Israel, she finds solace with tough, pragmatic Hanna, a Russian-Israeli limo driver. Hanna is headed for the "free zone" in Jordan to pick up money owed to her husband. There, they cross paths with Leila, a Palestinian businesswoman, and the three women form an inextricable bond despite their disparate backgrounds and views. A film about borders and terrain, both political and psychological.

Sex, drugs, techno, and . . . Arab traditions? What sounds like an unlikely combination exerts a strong emotional attraction in this female dramedy about friendship, love and the search for independence by three young, hip, Palestinian women. When the Muslim—and religious—Nour moves in with hard-partying Laila and Salma, all three begin their own journeys of self-discovery and gain an understanding of the male-dominated society in which they live but refuse to reconcile themselves to.

Still image from Inside Llewyan Davis

Inside Llewyn Davis

New York, 1962. The downtown folk scene. Solo singers, duos and trios are playing the Gaslight and cutting and releasing records. And the talented, abrasive Llewyn Davis (Oscar Isaac) is getting beaten to a pulp in the back alley... again. The picaresque and panoramic Inside Llewyn Davis, named after the protagonist's no-sell recording debut, ponders the question: how can someone be an angel when he's singing and playing and a miserable lout the instant the music stops?

A minor incident between a Lebanese Christian and a Palestinian refugee turns into an explosive trial that ends up dividing the two communities.

It Happened in Saint-Tropez

It Happened in Saint-Tropez

Unashamedly romantic, the comedy of manners It Happened in Saint-Tropez begins with a family wedding and funeral.

This gut-wrenching drama has both mainstream appeal and a keen political and psychological edge. Reuven owns an auto shop where he employs his son and daughter, as well as two Arab mechanics, when an explosive argument at the dinner table sets off a tragic chain of events. Jaffa showcases a raw performance by Dana Ivgy as daughter Mali, a young woman who—against all odds—transcends the culture of fear and hatred consuming her family.

In veteran director Amos Gitai’s majestic narrative, the Kedma, a European cargo freighter packed with concentration camp survivors, heads towards Palestine as underground Jewish forces prepare for its arrival and British soldiers position themselves to stop its unauthorized landing. Gitai recreates a tough, anguished reconstruction of an episode in the founding of the state of Israel, which profoundly impacted Jews and Palestinians .

A la vie (To Life)

A la vie (To Life)

Three women, Auschwitz survivors, are reunited 15 years after the war. They spend a holiday at a seaside resort in northern France. Set at the start of the ’60s, the era’s bright colors and cheerful music mark the end of one period in their lives and the start of another. Friendships forged in horror begin anew with tasty ice cream cones, stylish bikinis, a romantic adventure and basking in the sun.

How does a small country like Israel become the world’s third largest weapons manufacturer and exporter? And how does the never-ending fighting in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank help Israel invent, develop and test its military products and innovations before selling them to the highest bidder? In this chilling documentary we go on a surreal journey into the world of arms dealing and security exporting in Israel.

Live and Become

Live and Become

In this sweeping, emotional saga from the director of Train of Life, an Ethiopian boy from a Sudanese refugee camp is airlifted to Israel during Operation Moses, which transported 8,000 Ethiopian Jews to Israel in 1984. Adopted by a Mizrahi family, Shlomo grows up, falls in love and serves in the Israeli army but is plagued throughout by two secrets: He was not born a Jew and is not an orphan. Radu Mihaileanu has created a monumental drama following one young man’s epic quest for his roots and identity.See also: Spotlight On: Ethiopian Jews and Jews of Color

A Matter of Size

A Matter of Size

Herzl is a 340-pound chef who lives with his mother, and is immersed in a culture of rigid diet regimes and fitness classes. Just as he and his seriously overweight buddies in the working-class town of Ramle, Israel, seem beaten down by weight-loss failure, Herzl discovers the one place where fat guys can be rock stars: the world of sumo wrestling. An endearing and poignant comic tale, with echoes of The Full Monty, A Matter of Size traces these flawed men’s tender and funny path from body shame to body celebration, and from loneliness to love. A touching movie with a plus-size heart.

In Nazi-occupied Paris, a young Marguerite Duras strikes up a delicate, high stakes entanglement with a Vichy collaborator.

My Polish Honeymoon | Palo Alto Opening Night

My Polish Honeymoon | Palo Alto Opening Night

Anna and Adam, a young Parisian couple with Jewish origins, are about to travel to Poland for the first time. They are just married and technically speaking this will be their honeymoon. They will attend a ceremony in memory of the Jewish community in the village of Adam's grandfather, which was destroyed 75 years ago.

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