Yaakov Malkin

In Search of Ladino

In Search of Ladino follows Ladino speakers, their culture, their memories and hopes for their mother tongue. This unique film is one of the earliest works presenting Ladino-speaking Holocaust survivors in Israel, and it provides rare documentation of their testimonies and songs. Filmmaker David Perlov’s camera glances on the faces of the people, as he listens carefully to their stories and songs. The film was meant to be part of a trilogy about languages: Hebrew, Yiddish and Ladino, but Perlov only managed to make the first film.

The Cellar

About a year after the [Adolph] Eichmann trial, director and local industry pioneer, Natan Gross, explores the traumas of the Holocaust for the first time in Israeli film. Actor, Shimon Yisraeli, himself a pioneer of one-man shows on Israeli stages, wrote and spearheaded this one-man film which tells the story of Holocaust survivor, Emmanuel, who works as a security guard on a construction site where he grapples with all the memories of those dark times that come flooding back: the train journey, the Dachau death camp, his murdered paramour, and his former friend, Hans, who joined the Nazis and killed his father. He shows up at his childhood home where Hans now lives: following an encounter with a vicious dog, Emmanuel finds shelter in the house cellar where he bides his time – remembering, hallucinating, and working up an appetite for revenge. The Cellar won the Best Feature Film Suitable for Young People award at the Berlin International Film Festival.

In Jerusalem

Ten engaged observations of the city, before it was united.

Description of a Struggle

Chris Marker’s documentary portrays Israel twelve years after its founding, blending location and archival footage to explore its diverse communities—from kibbutzim and Arab villages to Orthodox quarters and tourist sites. The “struggle” of the title reflects the nation’s search for identity in a rapidly changing region.