Two of Israel’s most anticipated film festivals will be held soon: TLVFest at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and the Cinema South Festival (Kolnoa Darom) at the Sderot Cinematheque.
Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival
The 17th TLVFest , the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival, which features the best new films by and about this community from Israel and around the world, will run from October 27 to November 5, and will open with the world premiere of the latest film from Nitzan Gilady, In Bed (also known as Like There is No Tomorrow).
Gilady made the movie Wedding Doll in 2015. In Bed stars Moran Rosenblatt, Dean Miroshnikov and Israel Ogalbo, in a story set during the Tel Aviv Pride Parade. When the parade is interrupted by a shooting, three friends try to soothe their anxiety in a night of sex and drugs, while the shooter is still on the run.
Among the guests will be Daniel Franzese, an acclaimed American actor who starred in the cult classic Mean Girls. He will appear at a screening of that film and speak about it, as well as hosting other events.
Lola Quivoron, the director of the movie Rodeo, which won the Jury Prize at the Un Certain Regard Section of the Cannes Film Festival, will attend the festival with Antonia Buresi, her cowriter on the film, who was also one of the stars of the movie. Rodeo tells the story of a female motorcyclist who joins a criminal gang and falls in love with the leader’s wife.
Mexican director Amelia Eloisa will present her film, Nunca Seremos Parte (We Will Never Belong), about a young woman who learns about her mother’s sexual orientation while she begins to question her own.
Clara Stern will attend screenings of her film, Breaking the Ice, about a lesbian romance on an Austrian women’s hockey team.
Other guests this year will include Addison Heimann, the director of Hypochondriac; director Nicolo Bassetti and producer Gaia Morrione, with their coming-of-age drama, Into My Name; Adrian Silvestre, the director of My Emptiness and I; Roman Nemec, the director of Where Butterflies Don’t Fly, along with one of the film’s stars, Jakub Krejca; Matiss Kaza, the director of Neon Spring; Yuval David, the director of Wonderfully Made: LGBTQ+R(eligion) and the film’s cowriter, Mark McDermott; and Kamil Krawczycki, the director of the closing-night film Elephant.
Yair Hochner is the founder and director of the festival, and it is supported by the Culture Ministry, the Film Council and the Tel Aviv Municipality.
TLVFest features many special events, programs and, of course, parties.
Check the festival website for more information here.
THE 21ST Cinema South Festival
THE 21ST Cinema South Festival, another exciting and diverse festival, will take place November 6-10 at the Sderot Cinematheque, and it is run by the School of Audio and Visual Arts at Sapir College in Sderot.
The festival spotlights movies made in and about the south of the country, but also focuses on edgy cinema from underrepresented groups from all over Israel and around the world.
The festival will open with King David, a documentary about retired politician David Levy, directed by Robby Elmaliah and Amir Ben David, which features a rare in-depth interview with the Moroccan-born statesman, who became one of the most important – and most divisive – political figures of his generation.
The closing-night film will be Maor Zaguri’s coming-of-age drama Virginity, about a sensitive teenager coping with his mother’s death.
The festival will feature a focus on Moroccan cinema, and a number of Moroccan filmmakers will attend the festival to present their works, including the guest of honor, Izza Génini, who will speak about her experiences as a Moroccan Jew and filmmaker; director Hicham Lasri; and Simone Bitton, who will present her new film, Ziyara, an account of a shared pilgrimage by Jews and Muslims.
The Moroccan cinema program will also include several special events and short films, as well as recent Moroccan feature films and documentaries.
There will be a retrospective of the work of documentary filmmaker Ran Tal, who has made such films as Children of the Sun, The Museum and 1341 Frames of Love and War, as well as a look at the films of Italian director Roberto Minervini.
There are a number of competitions, and, each year, Sapir alumni and independent artists submit their films for Cinema South Film Award Competitions for Best New Artist and Best Short Film.
There will also be a related event, Border-Breaking Cinema, in Ofakim, Netivot, Rahat, Beersheba and Sha’ar Hanegev, from October 31 to November 5.
For more information, go to the festival website here.