Jerusalem Film Festival announces its opening film and Israeli lineup

Sentimental Journey is the new film by Norwegian director, Joachim Trier, who made the arthouse hit, The Worst Person in the World. It tells the story of two sisters and their troubled relationship with their father following their mother’s death. Sentimental Journey features Renate Reinsve, the breakout star of The Worst Person in the World, and Stellan Skarsgard, who has appeared in countless films in Europe and Hollywood, including Mamma Mia!.

The Jerusalem Film Festival put Israeli films on the international cinema map, and it has also just announced its Israeli lineup. There will be competitions for Israeli films in narrative, documentary, short, and experimental film categories. A million shekels in prizes will be awarded to the winners.

The Haggiag Competition for Israeli Feature Films is arguably the most anticipated section of the festival, and the celebrated Israeli movies that premiered there over the years include Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit, Joseph Cedar’s Campfire, Eran Riklis’s The Syrian Bride, Tom Shoval’s Youth, Yaron Shani and Scandar Copti’s Ajami, and Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon.

Dead Language, by Michal Brezis and Oded Binnun, just had its world premiere at the Tribeca Festival. It’s an expanded version of their Oscar-nominated short, Aya, about a woman (Sarah Adler) who impulsively picks up a stranger (Ulrich Thomsen) at the airport, pretending to be his chauffeur.

Or Sinai’s Mama was previously shown at the Cannes Film Festival. It tells the story of an Eastern European immigrant who has worked far from home for years and must return to the impoverished rural village in which she grew up.

Houses, which premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival, was directed by Veronica Nicole Tettelbaum, and is a portrait of a non-binary man who immigrated to Israel from the Soviet Union in 1990, who returns to all the houses he lived in during his childhood in Safed, reliving traumas an examining his memories.

Eti Tsicko’s Nandauri stars Neta Riskin and is about what happens after a strange woman arrives in a village in the snowy mountains of Georgia.

Oxygen, by Netalie Braun, tells the story of a teacher and single mother who plans a trip to India with her soldier son, only to find their plans disrupted when a new war breaks out. This inspires her to take off on a journey to bring him home. Singer Nurit Galron, Dana Ivgy, and Ben Sultan star in this film.

Bella, directed by Zohar Shachar and Jamal Khalaily, is about a man’s search through the West Bank for the valuable dove he inherited from his father, which he wants to sell to a prince from the Arab Emirates.

The Sea by Shai Carmeli Pollak is about a 12-year-old boy from a village near Ramallah who goes on a class trip to the beach, but is disappointed when he is not allowed across the checkpoint and sneaks over on his own. His father, who works in Israel as an undocumented laborer, sets out to find his son, despite the risk of being caught and losing his livelihood.

Cuz You’re Ugly by Sharon Angelhart tells the story of a young female soldier determined to lose her virginity before she becomes an officer, then discovers her younger sister is pregnant. The cast includes Yael Abecassis and Yossi Marshek.

The six movies in the Diamond Competition for Israeli Documentary Films cover a diverse range of topics, such as the stories of the residents of one street in the Silwan neighborhood of Jerusalem, which has been the focus of so much controversy; divisions within the Druze community; the scandal of the disappearance of Yemenite babies from transit camps; and the life of actor Yosef Shiloach.  Lia van Leer, the founder of the festival and the cinematheque, said that choosing the movies for this competition was one of the hardest parts of helming the festival, because Israeli documentaries were so high quality.

Seventeen films will take part in the Diamond Competition for Short Films and seven will be in the Israeli Video Art and Experimental Film Competition.  There will also be the Wim van Leer Competition for movies by high-school students. Wim van Leer was Lia van Leer’s husband.

Orr Sigoli is the festival’s artistic director, and Roni Mahadav-Levin is the CEO of the Jerusalem Cinematheque.

The guests of honor at this year’s festival will be Hollywood superstar Gal Gadot and producer Lawrence Bender, whose films, including Quentin Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction and Inglourious Basterds, have been nominated for dozens of Oscars and have won nine.