Israeli TV show to premiere at Tribeca

‘On the Spectrum,’ a series about young adults with autism, will screen in New York in April and hit Israeli TV in May.

By AMY SPIRO
Updated: MARCH 26, 2018 01:11
On the spectrum (photo credit: OHAD ROMANO/YES)
On the spectrum
(photo credit: OHAD ROMANO/YES)
An Israeli TV series about young adults on the autism spectrum will have its global premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival next month.
The festival announced its full slate of shows on Wednesday for its “Tribeca TV” track, which includes the Israeli creation On the Spectrum.
The Yes show, which has yet to premiere in Israel, features three 20-something roommates with autism and their attempts to navigate the world. The series was created by Dana Idisis and Yuval Shafferman and stars Neomi Levov, Niv Majar and Ben Yosipovich. According to Yes, the show is slated to premiere in Israel sometime in May.
The show is based partly on the experiences of Idisis’s younger brother. In 2013, she created a documentary film, Bar Mitzva Movie, about the preparations for her brother Guy’s celebrations.
The Tribeca Film Festival runs April 18-29, and includes quite a few other productions from the Jewish state.
In the “international narrative competition,” Keren Ben Rafael will be presenting her film Virgins (which in Hebrew is the same word for mermaids). The movie tells the story of Lana, an Israeli teenager who hears news of a mermaid sighting off the coast of her small town. The film stars Joy Rieger as Lana as well as Shtisel’s Michael Aloni.
The festival’s short film lineup also includes the world premiere of The Love Letter, written by Atara Frish, about a teen who finds a special note in her locker.
The festival will also be home to the US premiere of the British film Disobedience, starring Rachel Weisz and Rachel McAdams, and based on the book by Naomi Alderman. Disobedience is the story of a woman who leaves the ultra-Orthodox London community and returns upon her father’s death to encounter the woman she loved and left behind.
There will also be a special 25th-anniversary screening of the acclaimed Holocaust film Schindler’s List, and a post-film discussion with director Steven Spielberg and actors Liam Neeson, Sir Ben Kingsley and Embeth Davidtz.