Big Shots

Abba Ganuv is the heart warming story of single father "chiko" Ben David - a struggling sailor and his only son Ben.

Three women - two wives of a criminals and their friend - try to stop their men from a great deal of robbing.

The tranquility of a small Tel-Aviv family is shattered as Benjamin, a concentration camp survivor, is forced to choose between two figures from his past. A beautiful Berlin woman who represents to him Germany's beauty and culture, and a capo (a Jew forced by the Nazis to aid their horrific deeds) who he suspects to be responsible for his father's murder.

The series opens as widow Shimon Sadeh, a successful general contractor, is finishing the year of mourning for his deceased wife. He marries Leah, his daughter's piano teacher. Shimon's eldest son, Ephraim, has become ultra-Orthodox, identifying with his grandfather, Eliahu, who lives with the family and has close bonds and a strong influence. The middle child, Itzik, rejects both going into his father's business to be a musician; and Orthodoxy. Strong-willed, feisty Ariella is finishing high school and considering her options. Many scenes take place in the small Tunisian synagogue headed by Eliahu, and involve the power struggles among the regulars there. The gut-punching drama is largely the work of Oscar-winning director Yankul Goldwasser, who previously directed the popular series Reaching for Heaven; and young director Nir Bergman, who won the Israeli Academy Award for his first film, Broken Wings.

Menachem and Rosa Greenberg, a couple of Holocaust survivors, have had a difficult life. Their friend, Morris Greenspan, made his fortune in Canada through shady deals, and is a despicable character who urges the couple to emigrate from Israel to the good life in Canada. Their son, Chaim "Chaimon" Greenberg, is aware of the growing conflicts in his parents' home in light of their financial difficulties and the interference of their mysterious friend, who is also secretly courting his mother. His sister, Miri, is a naive teenager who falls under the spell of Shultz "the Hontroveltnik". Other participants in the film include Oshik Levi as the taxi driver, their neighbor and friend of their parents, Shai Idelson as Gaby, Chaimon's best friend and the taxi driver's son, and Sini Pater as Uncle Leizer from the kibbutz, who represents the Zionist antithesis to Morris's exile and smoothness. In the end, after a crisis that threatens the narrator's world, the family decides to stay in Israel.

'Shoelaces' tells the story of a complicated relationship between an aging father and his special-needs son, whom he abandoned while he was still a young boy. Reuben's (60) kidney's are failing and his son Gadi (35), wants to donate one of his own kidney's to help save his father's life. However, the transplant committee objects to the procedure claiming that Rueben, acting as Gadi's sole legal guardian, does not have the right to authorize such an invasive procedure. Gadi, who recently lost his mother, is afraid of losing his father as well. He feels he finally has the chance to do something meaningful; to become a man and stand on his own. He's furious with the committee's decision and sets out to fight for his right to save his father's life. Through the film's portrayal of a relationship full of love, rejection and co-dependency, it manages to shed some light and question the importance of human life, human connection and if life is even possible without it either one of them.

A popular Israeli musical comedy about petty criminals.