After a year of displacement, the Cinema South Film Festival will return home to Sderot and the western Negev from November 6 to 13 for its 24th edition – its first in full format since October 7, 2023.
Founded by Sapir College’s School of Audio and Visual Arts, the festival, which takes place at the Sderot Cinematheque and other venues, celebrates the resilience and creative spirit of communities that endured unspeakable trauma, while using cinema to explore life, loss, and renewal in Israel’s southern region.
Festival director Tamir Hod calls this year’s edition “a choice to grow or disappear.” Despite global cultural boycotts and local hardship, the festival is expanding to eight days of screenings, workshops, and live performances.
Featured films
The festival is opening with the Israeli premiere of Etty, the series created by Hagai Levi that dramatizes the diaries of Etty Hillesum, a writer who was killed in the Holocaust, but many of the featured films were created in the Negev itself – by people who have lived the headlines and turned them into art.
Two original documentary programs, Six Views from the South and Heading South: Kfar Aza in Ruhama, focus directly on the aftermath of October 7. Created by Sapir College students and alumni, they portray families uprooted from Kibbutz Kfar Aza as they begin anew in nearby Ruhama. Through intimate encounters and everyday moments, these short films capture both grief and the quiet, stubborn hope that defines the region’s recovery.
Six Views from the South brings together six southern filmmakers whose stories form a mosaic of personal loss and endurance. Their work asks a simple but painful question: After the destruction of one’s home, what does “home” mean now?
A related documentary, Where Were You During the Disengagement? revisits the 2005 Gaza pullout, tracing ideological divisions that echo in today’s conflicts. Directors Itzik Lerner and Itay Landsberg-Nevo weave personal testimony and historical reflection to explore how the roots of October 7 reach back two decades.
Another highlight, A Man and a Violin, revisits the story of Sfatayim, the legendary Moroccan-Israeli band from Sderot, whose fusion of Arabic and Hebrew lyrics transformed the local wedding scene into a cultural movement. It’s both a portrait of resilience and a love letter to the Negev’s musical soul.
“Game Changer,” a documentary series episode by filmmaker Nevat Mazor, who is on the autism spectrum, explores how gaming and creativity can bridge isolation – a theme that resonates strongly in an era of healing and reconnection.
Other selections, including The Smugglers, The Boat of Iman, and Raida Adon to Herself, portray life on Israel’s physical and emotional borders: Bedouin villages, refugee journeys, and artistic self-discovery.
New competition features films across Israel and globally
A new competition will spotlight student films from across Israel and abroad, marking the first time the festival opens its student section beyond Sapir College. One of its notable entries, Sila, by Bissan Tibi, tells a coming-of-age story set in a Bedouin community, reflecting both continuity and transformation within the region’s Arab society.
The festival’s curators see the event as a living act of recovery – part memorial, part celebration.
“Cinema allows us to process the catastrophe of October 7 in many ways,” says Sha’ar Hanegev Regional Council head Uri Epstein. “Art has always been a refuge for the soul. Now more than ever, we need creation.”
With premieres, retrospectives, and open-air concerts returning to the Sderot Cinematheque plaza, the Cinema South Film Festival reaffirms the Negev’s place in Israel’s cultural landscape.
The rich and promising body of work left by the late Yahav Winner, a beloved and talented staff member at Sapir College School of Audio & Visual Arts, was tragically cut short when he was murdered while protecting his wife and infant daughter on Kibbutz Kfar Aza.
The Yahav Winner International Debut Film Competition pays tribute to filmmakers who follow in his creative direction. The 12 debut films from Israel and around the world selected for this year’s competition capture something of Winner’s spirit, reflecting the magic and power inherent in a first cinematic effort.
For more information: https://www.sapir.ac.il/en/cinema/csf