Osnat Hadid, a Druze filmmaker, confronts her traditional family on the verge of her young brother's, Tharwat, draft to the Israeli defense forces (I.D.F). Through her family's turmoil she reveals for the first time the true story behind forcing the Druze to serve in the I.D.F.
Financial Support: Development grant from the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & Television To watch the trailer
Bus Station Blues / Ilil Alexander, Moshe Morad & Shula Spiegel
Israel
Tel Aviv’s central bus-station area is a fascinating micro-cosmos - the transient home of labor migrants from around the world, victims of humiliation and fear. Behind half-shuttered doors, in improvised semi-clandestine spaces, they create an isolated and protected world, home away from home, finding refuge in their homeland music. The film follows five characters that reveal their human, tragic and sometimes tragic-comic stories.
Safa Dabur, a religious Muslim, a widow and mother of two sons, established the first Arab cinema in Israel. The Nazareth Cinémathèque became a life work and a dream come true, which stands at the center of her struggle for independence and for which she pays complex familial and cultural prices. This is the portrait of a woman, who struggles with the ambivalent attitude of the Arab society inside and outside of Israel.
Financial Support Development and Production support from the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema and Television
Straight from the Belly / Wael Istanbuli & Lilach-Shira Gavish
Jordan / Israel
In this road movie through Israel, Jordan, Egypt and Lebanon, we meet belly dancers who live in an ongoing conflict within their societies. They will reveal unknown aspects of their trade. Belly dancing, that is considered to be immoral in parts of the Arab world, will be seen here for the first time as an art form; a means to determine one's identity and as a way to reach spiritual satisfaction.
Scavengers of Ankara: Fight for the Garbage / Alper Sen, Oktay Ynce & Emre Yalgin
Turkey
The struggle of a Kurdish boy, who is forced to migrate from his village and a Gyspy boy, who was ‘born into waste’. The struggle of these two characters and a warehouse owner, trying to unite the scavengers tell the story of those who have to gather their basic needs of survival from the wastes of the capital city of Turkey, Ankara.
Sharing a Destiny: The Fisherman & The Monk Seal / Eren Atak Van Der Vegt
Turkey
On the most eastern coast of Turkey a fierce battle is taking place. On one hand there are the local fishermen that the corporate great fish trawlers are denying their catch and on the other, living in small caves on another part of the shore, is their main competitors in the battle for fish - the Mediterranean monk seals, who are on the verge of extinction because of the same deficiency. Both humans and mammals alike are sharing the same grim destiny – at least until some fishermen will rise against the system in an attempt to change their fate.
Countdown to Death / Levi Zini & Micky Laron
Israel
A masked terrorist is pointing a gun at the head of a handcuffed hostage, who is pleading for help from his family and country. This image, which has lately become too familiar, is the starting point of Six Days in October, an investigative documentary that follows an event that shook the Middle East in October 1994: the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier, the rescue attempts and the inevitable tragic end.
Financial Support: - Development and production support from the Makor Foundation for Israeli Films. - Production support from the Israeli Keshet TV.
While a band of gypsy musicians will welcome the guests of the “Istanbul, 2010 Cultural Capital of Europe” event, their 500 years old lively neighborhood, Sulukule, will be erased by bulldozers. Forced to leave their quarters as they are watching the new rising luxury residences being bullied over their music filled neighborhood, how will the gypsies maintain their culture and heritage? How will they keep their Sulukule spirit?
"A Film Unfinished" (The Missing Reel) / Yael Hersonski & Itay Ken Tor
Israel
Most of the archival footage from the Warsaw Ghetto originated from one of the biggest Nazi Film productions from 1942. Very little information is left except for diary entries and testimonies of Ghetto survivors. Revealing the sadistic filming methods will forever change our perception of these scenes and make us stop before using mindlessly archival illustrations in the future.
Support, Festivals & Awards
- Production supported by The New Israeli Foundation for Cinema & Television - "Yes Docu", Documentary Channel of Yes-DBS in Israel. - German Broadcaster: ARTE - German Broadcaster : MDR & SWR
- Selected at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival & Joëlle Alexis, Editor of the film won the World Cinema Documentary Editing Award
- Selected at the 2010 Berlinale in the framework of Panorama.
Two / Corine Shawi
Lebanon
Three young Lebanese women dwell in the nightlife. The same ritual begins. Ephemeral moments, in the dialogue of their body language, relate them to strangers, to potential lovers. A director’s close hand-held camera embarks on a soul-searching exploration to find out why it is so complicated to encounter love in our world. Seduction is a song for the night.
Waiting for Heaven / Awatif Aljedaili & Mohammad Aljedaili
Palestine
Three generations in one Palestinian family in a tale of daily survival, hope and longing for the past and for a better future. The grandfather was forced to migrate from Jaffa in 1948 but still dreams of returning to his homeland. His son entangles in the day to day demands of sustaining a family in Gaza's chaotic reality; finally, the grandson concept of heaven is anywhere in the world but Gaza. Conflicts within the family reveal a complex and emotional depiction of the Palestinian faith in today's tragic circumstances could be drawn.
Financial Support Pre-sale award "Yes Docu", Documentary Channel of YES-DBS in Israel
Anonymous Soldiers / 
