The 4-th Annual Other Israel Film Festival

Lilly Rivlin speaks today in her messages about the 4-th Annual Other Israel Film Festival, taking place in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn this month, between 11th and 221th.

Since its establishment in 2007, the Other Israel Film Festival has used film to foster social awareness and cultural understanding. The festival presents narrative and documentary films, as well as engaging panels about the history and culture of minority groups in Israel. The festival mainly focuses on the large Arab community in Israel but also covers other often marginalized groups including foreign workers, Samaritans, and immigrants (LMCC).


This edition kicks off with There Must Be Another Way, which follows the Jewish-Arab duo (NOA, a world-renowned Jewish-Israeli singer, and Arab singer Mira Awad) on their journey to represent Israel at the European song competition, following the military operation in Gaza and despite resistance from left and right.

The screening will be followed by Q&A with Mira Awad.


Let me give you some other highlights of this edition:

Blood Relation: On a hot summer day in 1943, 14 year old Pnina left her home in the Galilee province of Yavniel and disappeared. 24 years later she sends a letter, revealing that she now lives in the Askar al Jadid refugee camp near Nablus, married to a Muslim and mother of eight. The director, granddaughter to Pnina's sister, tracks the family secret and finds that Pnina's children, who live in a refugee camp, only half an hour away from her home in Tel Aviv, have been waiting for their Jewish relatives to call for years. Renewing the contact between the families leads to unpredictable events that take place in front of the camera over the course of three years in both Israel and Nablus.





Back and Forth: Made up of four short films, all of which are directed by Bedouin directors in their debut as film makers, this unique film is an unprecedented authentic self-portrait of current life in Bedouin society. Portraying the struggle for progress that in many ways is held back by the traditions of the nomadic past.









And another highlight, Coffee - Between Reality and Imagination: Israeli and Palestinian filmmakers embarked on a journey to create short films, fiction or documentary, inspired by Coffee, which takes part in Middle East cultural identity and social reality. Coffee creates a connection between different people, no matter who they are. Each film gives a personal and courageous point of view on the reality in which we live in.






(Lilly Rivlin)