Von Marieke Steinhoff. Israeli cinema has experienced a little boom in recent years, which shows in the rate of international festival attendances of Israeli films as well as in the growing number of international co-productions. This “new wave” characteristically consists of small and personal everyday stories, giving the filmmakers the opportunity to reflect on the social and ethical questions of this still young multi-ethnic state, as the examples of AJAMI by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani, THE BAND'S VISIT by Eran Kolirin or JELLYFISH by Etgar Keret and Shira Geffen show. On the other hand are movies that could be called personal processing of traumatic war-time experiences, like LEBANON by Samuel Moaz and WALTZ WITH BASHIR by Ari Folman.

Outside of the Zionist doctrine

While today Israeli films are being lauded for their multi-facetted modes of narration and their consolidated inclusion of the Palestinian-Arabic minority's position and problems, this – very weak – national film industry was founded after the state's creation in 1948 on years of quasi-propagandistic movies picking out the people's heroic fight for its young state as their central theme. It wasn't until the 1960s and 70s that the filmmakers managed a gradual shift away from the state ideology and thereby could renew the national cinematic landscape, with director's like Ephraim Kishon (SALLAH SHABATI) who managed to create an entertaining kind of cinema outside of the Zionist doctrine. The 70s also saw a group of filmmakers explicitly grappling with the political and cultural problems of the time, like Judd Ne'eman, David Perlov, Avram Heffner and Eran Riklis. In their hands cinema became a seismograph of societal and political developments – a tradition that can still be found in Israeli cinema today.

Film Schools and Festivals

Young Israeli filmmakers are given the opportunity of education at the domestic film schools, amongst which the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem, the Department of Film and Television at the Tel Aviv University, the Minshar for Art in Tel Aviv and the Beit Berl College School of Art are the most prominent. Besides the film schools a popular stepstone for coming and already established filmmakers are the festivals, of which there are rather many when related to the country's size. The Jerusalem International Film Festival (established 1984) is certainly the most important one, showing more than 150 movies. Also famous are the Haifa International Film Festival (est. 1983), the Eilat International Film Festival (est. 2003) as well as the DocAviv fin the documentary sector (est. 1999).

The Israel Film Fund

Funding the Israeli cinema is mostly a job for the Israel Film Fund, a state-supported non-profit organisation founded in 1979, which is currently run by former filmmaker and producer Katriel Schory. He has at his disposal six million US-Dollars annually for the funding of Israeli feature films. The IFF supports and accompanies productions from the first concept to the distribution of the finished film. Of 140 application scripts 12 to 15 are granted a production funding of up to two thirds of their budgets. At the same time the IFF sponsors the development of about 30 shooting scripts.

Besides that there is the New Foundation for Cinema and Television (NFCT), which was founded in 1993, supporting documentary, experimental, short and feature film productions. 250 films could up to now be made due to financing from the NFCT, most of them documentaries.

Links

• Israel Film Fund
• New Foundation for Cinema and Television (NFCT)
• The History of Israeli Cinema
• Overview of the Israeli film landscape
• Sam Spiegel Film and Television School
• Tel Aviv University, Film and Television Dept.
• Minshar for Art
• Jerusalem International Film Festival
• Haifa International Film Festival
• Eilat International Film Festival
• DocAviv

• PRISON (IL 2008. Adi Harel)