Dina & Noel

This modern adaptation of S.Y. Agnon’s story takes place in a small city at the edge of the desert. In this barren landscape, Tirza, a young woman who lives alone with her father, becomes entranced by Akaviah Mazal, a lecturer at the college where she is studying. As she gets lost in the secrets of their entwined past, enchantment turns to obsession and Tirza does everything in her power to get Mazal’s attention and win his heart. Despite the warnings and fears of those closest to her, Tirza pursues her dangerous quest for love. Will she succeed in righting the injustices of the past and break the tragic cycle of fate, or will she simply perpetuate it?

Five short movies, linked by an animation, inspired by the life and work of Amos Guttman, the director from Transylvania who was a pioneer in Israeli gay cinema and died from AIDS in 1993. Produced by Tel Aviv Film Festival, it is a mixture of different styles and genres and is directed by six film-makers. In the last moving episode Kati Guttman celebrates his son, who passed away twenty years ago, and also recalls for the first time his own deportation to the Nazi death camps.

Shimon, a 70-year-old widower, travels to Paris to visit a childhood friend. He stays with his daughter and discovers that her marriage is falling apart. He decides to help. In the process, he finds out that he and his daughter share both dreams and desires of which they had been previously unaware.

A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.

When Mooky is fifteen, his beloved father dies a sudden death, and his place is taken by Yanek - an impulsive, rough, yet generous man who is regarded as a controversial figure due to his doings in the Holocaust in the Zonder Commando. He brutally invades Mooky's life and turns it upside-down. During Mookys teenage years, which are affected by his seductive mother Tinka, he deals with unfulfilled love for one girl and a dominated relationship with another. One day Mooky returns to his mother's home, deranged, and does something from which there is no turning back. Twenty years later, Mooky must decide whether to attend his mother's funeral and re-open his wounds of the past.

Eight friends throw a goodbye party to welcome the end of the world.

Two women meet by chance and discover they were both raped by rapist. Individually and together they must confront the past and finally integrate the long repressed trauma into their lives.

An accidental murder brings two girls together in a series of wild crimes and romance over the course of an evening.

Gili is a teenager who decides to change schools. She is determined to improve her lame social status. Over the course of a few weeks she hooks up with several different boys, all from her new school. Their encounters get more and more sexual, each time exploring their limits a little further. The boys are eager to take what is so generously offered, and Gili is thrilled with the attention. Just as Gili is trapped in the zone where it's not certain if she is giving her consent to what is happening or not, the viewer too feels trapped in the same zone, feeling for certain that something terrible is happening, but unable to pin point exactly when, and what...

As in previous editions, lesbian filmmakers were asked to visualize their conceptions and observations of gay eroticism and sexuality, just as, conversely, gay filmmakers were asked to explore lesbian love in the Israeli capital.

Goni is nine. She always runs faster than the boys. Always scores more goals. Until one day, they decide they’ve had enough. Goni’s brother finds her in the yard, rinsing blood from her knees. He carries her into the desert. There, he teaches Goni how to defend herself among red rocks and wide silence. Fifteen minutes of quiet rupture, about the cost of being who you are, when that’s exactly what no one wants to see.