Inbal Perlmutter: If You Let Me Go

A journey into the wedding night, where an ultra-Orthodox Jewish couple gets to know each other for the first time.

Two kids stand in front of an Israeli flag in an elementary schoolyard while the Remembrance Day siren is due to silence them. As it wails, enters a weary Palestinian man who plays a dangerous game with a squad of armed Israeli soldiers.

The life of Shalom, The Nazi major officer Adolf Eichmann's hangman, turned ritual slaughterer, encapsulates the story of Israel from the perspective of the 'other'- the marginalized Sephardi prison warden who is forced to do the dirty work of hanging the arch enemy and thus to carry a national burden that dramatically shaped his life. His job in the abattoir, together with his memories of his past, create a fascinating and complex portrait. His voice, yet unheard, from the edge of Israel's historical events, reveals new insights through his unique perspective. Shalom's clear, alternative voice from the margins of society carries a deeply humanistic universal message.

These are the memories of a lost girlhood. When they were only five or six or ten years old, their parents snatched them from the playground and handed them to much older men to be married. They recall the violence and fear they were subjected to, the pregnancies at the age of eleven or twelve, becoming mothers when they were still little girls themselves. It was an open secret but one they put aside forever, because revealing it might tear their family apart, causing commotion and creating chaos. The memories of their tragic childhood never healed – they were simply suppressed for the sake of their children, their livelihoods, and their husbands. No more.

Avigail, the director of this film, is dealing with a break-up from her girlfriend and with raising a child that she had with her. At the same time, her religious family in Jerusalem is struggling with the 'demons' threatening to overwhelm their daughter Ariella. Ariella is an Ethiopian girl, who was adopted by Avigail's parents, Rabbi Daniel and Hannah Sperber, when she was four. She is the tenth child, with nine older siblings, each of whom chose a unique path to follow. But Ariella forces the family to contend with problems of another sort: alcoholism, petty thefts, and prison. Does the story of Ariella have an inevitable ending? Can she accept and absorb the love and concern that surround her?

Rabbi David Buzaglo was the greatest Hebrew liturgical poet of the twentieth century. Born in Morocco in 1903, his literary output had a major impact on a community of hundreds of thousands of people. From his prolific period in the Diaspora to the years he spent in a ruptured Israel, Buzaglo's poetry initiated an abrupt shift in Sephardic liturgical writing, but it also served as a vital link between the modern era and a tradition that dates back to Spanish Jewry's Golden Age. But Buzaglo was more than just a great poet. The actions he took at seminal moments in history had a critical impact in shaping the identity of Maghreb Jews. This film is an intimate look at Buzaglo's life and career, from its roots in the rich tradition of Hebrew poetry in Morocco through the liturgical revolution in Israel.

A young couple is torn between their place in the Israeli Haredi (Ultra - orthodox) community and their desire to give their autistic son the chance to win independence and be integrated into society.

What does the wedding ceremony of two religious Jewish gay men look like? Or a family of two mothers and 4 children? Or the pregnancy of a trans religious man? These are some of the questions raised in this documentary. It tells the stories of LGBTQ people who chose to remain religious Jews and to build their lives, relationships, families, and everyday activities according to the Jewish religion.

Orthodox teacher and wigmaker, Ruchama and Tikva, embark on a journey to fulfill their dream of making movies within the closed society in which they live. Ruchama is writing and producing her first film while Tikva prepares for her first acting role. Like other orthodox women who in recent years have started making films for strictly female audiences, they feel a strong need to express themselves despite strict rabbinical censorship. The Dreamers delicately sketches the portrait of women trying to break new ground as artists in a patriarchal world. Will they find freedom in their art.

Shalom, the rhinoceros at the Jerusalem Bible Zoo, is a crowd favorite. At 45, Shalom has grown old and weary. The caretakers who lovingly tend to him discuss euthanasia while war breaks out beyond the zoo’s walls.