The 38th Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles will run from November 18 to 24, presenting a slate of contemporary Israeli dramas, comedies and documentaries, together with meetings with filmmakers and actors. The program ranges from a documentary about October 7 survivors making music with American rock stars to a drama about an unexpected friendship between a Palestinian driver and an Israeli passenger in Berlin.
The festival was founded and is directed by Meir Fenigstein, familiar to generations of Israeli music fans as the drummer and the Poogy character in the supergroup Kaveret.
An opening gala at the Writers Guild Theater in Beverly Hills will honor two producers who have helped connect Israeli and American entertainment: veteran Israeli producer Moshe Edery and Hollywood producer Kevin S. Bright. Edery has produced more than 200 films and television series, including Avi Nesher's Turn Left at the End of the World, Eytan Fox's Walk on Water, Joseph Cedar's Beaufort, and recent titles such as Ben Bachar's Saving Shuli-San and Nesher's Our Loves.
Bright, best known as a producer of Friends, will attend a screening of one of his latest projects, The Bridge, which he produced with David Fishof. Directed by Brad Allgood, the documentary follows 10 Israeli musicians who survived October 7 as they travel to Los Angeles to take part in Rock 'n' Roll Fantasy Camp, playing alongside musicians from Guns N' Roses, Van Halen and Skid Row. The film was partly inspired by Yotam Haim, a musician kidnapped by Hamas and killed by mistake during an escape attempt, whose father and brother played music at his funeral. It examines how making music together can help people coping with trauma and loss rediscover joy.
The festival will open with Moshe Rosenthal's Tell Me Everything, Israel's Ophir Award-winning submission for the Academy Award for Best International Feature, with the filmmaker in attendance. Rosenthal, whose previous film was Karaoke, tells the story of Boaz, a boy who discovers a secret about his father that threatens to tear his family apart and must confront the consequences years later.
Documentary highlights include Alon Gur Arye's Topol: On Top of the World, which draws on Chaim Topol's personal archive to trace the career of the Sallah Shabati and Fiddler on the Roof star, his inventions and his secret work for the Mossad. Gur Arye and Topol's daughter, Anat Topol-Barzilai, will take part in a post-screening discussion. Michal Bat-Adam's Moshe Mizrahi: Climbing the Mountain offers an intimate portrait of her late husband, the Oscar-winning director, weaving family footage with his memories of Alexandria, immigration to Israel and filmmaking in France.
Also on the program are Ran Tal's The Sixteenth Sheep, The Reunion, which revisits the classic musical collaboration of Yehonatan Geffen, Yoni Rechter, Gidi Gov, Yehudit Ravitz and David Broza, recently revived in a popular series of performances by the original artists, and Shaked Goren's Esther, a portrait of singer Esther Ofarim built from telephone conversations between the filmmaker in Tel Aviv and the singer in Hamburg.
Among the narrative features, Assaf Machnes's Where To? stars Ehab Salami and Ido Tako, both Ophir Award winners, as Hassan, a Palestinian Uber driver in Berlin, and Amir, a young Israeli whose repeated late-night rides grow into an unlikely friendship. Ruthy Pribar's What Is to Come follows a woman who travels to Eilat to rebuild her life, Reut Akkerman's Stay! centers on an adopted woman confronting the biological family she never knew, and Dina Zvi-Riklis's Blue Marks, adapted from Emilie Moatti's novel, traces a young woman from Netanya seeking a new life in Paris.
Comedy is also represented. Checkout! The movie brings the characters of the popular supermarket sitcom to the big screen, and Erez Tadmor's Matchmaking 3 will close the festival with another romantic adventure set in the Orthodox matchmaking world. Festival guests are set to include Pribar, Akkerman, actress Noa Ohayon and actor Yaakov Zada-Daniel.
"The Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles remains the most renowned and preeminent showcase in the United States to highlight Israeli filmmakers and talent," Fenigstein said. He said this year's slate of 15 feature films and documentaries prioritizes nonpartisan programming to foster healthy dialogue across cultural divides, adding that at a time when Israeli cinema and culture face challenges internationally, it is important to keep bringing Israeli creative work to American audiences.
Screenings will take place at the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills and Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino. The full program and tickets are available at www.israelfilmfestival.com.
