Sophie's Ways

The Biblical love story of Rachel and Jacob is adapted for the screen as Rachel's father forces them to wait seven years before they can marry, but fate intervenes as Rachel's sister sleeps with Jacob and bears him a child.

The director writes a script. Characters from her past and characters she meets on the street and elsewhere, sneak into the story and take control of her. As she writes, she sees herself in all female characters and her close friend Gadi, who is an actor by profession, in all male characters. Writing the script gives the director a chance to take a fresh look at the life and destiny she creates, life, which is actually her life, and it gives us a chance to take a look at the sources of inspiration and the creative process.

After the birthday party of his wife Odile, Louis accompanies a friend to the station. When the train leaves he starts reminiscing about his youth.

Madame Rosa lives in a sixth-floor walkup in the Pigalle; she's a retired prostitute, Jewish and an Auschwitz survivor, a foster mom to children of other prostitutes. Momo is the oldest and her favorite, an Algerian lad whom she raises as a Muslim. He asks about his parents; she answers evasively. As she ages and takes fewer children, Momo must do more for her; as money is tight, he tries to earn pennies on the street with a puppet. He's a beautiful man-child, and Madame Rosa makes him promise never to sell himself or become a pimp. A film editor, Nadine, befriends him, and his father appears as well. Madame Rosa reaches her last days in fear of hospitals, and Momo must act.

Jeanne, mother of two children, loses her husband. She meets Pierre, abandoned by his wife.

Love, family expectations, and religion mix in 19th century Jerusalem. Jacob and Rebecca marry; he's a rabbi, she's dutiful and loving. But she has no children. Months become years. Although Jacob is content, his mother reminds everyone she is waiting for a grandson. After 15 years, Rebecca determines that Jacob must take an additional wife, the young and beautiful Sultana. Rebecca fasts and prays, and in a state of near ecstasy, persuades everyone involved and then arranges an elaborate wedding. However, Sultana does not conceive, and Rebecca watches helplessly as Jacob's affection shifts to Sultana. She's near madness and the household is in turmoil. What can Rebecca do now?

A fatherless family immigrates to Israel from Egypt during the British Mandate period. The film traces the hardships the family suffers in the politically unstable country.

A middle-aged disabled man unknowingly begins a lonely hearts correspondence with his own unmarried sister, who takes care of him. As he writes more and more to her, he begins to fall in love, and she, knowing that it is her brother who is writing, discovers a new, tender side to him. But trouble looms when he asks to meet her in person.

In this Israeli comedy, a father is afraid that after having sired eight daughters, that he will never produce a son.

Treated as an outcast and exploited by the villagers of a small town, a young woman liberates herself through sex, which she uses as a tool of economic gain and an instrument of revenge against those who have wronged her.

A Protestant World War II pilot and a Jewish girl fall in love in Jerusalem, even though their diverse backgrounds threaten to pull them apart.

Adapation of the fanciful comic novel by Albert Cohen.

This story centers on the Jewish practice that requires an unmarried brother to marry the childless widow of his dead brother. In this story the younger brother is only 12 years old when his brother dies. The requirement is avoided by a legal fiction, but as time passes in the story, the situation changes.

An ex-SS officer and his gorgeous wife find a refuge living in Eilat. A mysterious stranger appears from their past.

Jacek, who is Jewish, miraculously manages to survive World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a subplot to Jacek's story, which also involves a love affair with Haling ( Kyra Sedgwick ) and German soldiers' repeated attempts to kill him, is a tale of how young kids in the Warsaw ghetto devise their own method of fighting oppression.

Autumn 1996. Avner, a highly-regarded Professor of Arts and his young wife, Ilana, come to visit the family farm run by Rachel and Shouki, (his children from a first marriage) and Menahem (the brother of his deceased first wife). Avner is in pain and needs a doctor. Rachel calls up Joel a physician and a friend of the family. Joel and Ilana are having a secret relationship that began during a previous visit to the farm. Menahem is in love with Ilana and Rachel with Joel. They are unaware of the love affair between Ilana and Joel. Avner came this time to the farm with a proposition to sell the farm. This brings all the latent conflicts in the family to break loose. The movie, inspired by Tchekovs "Oncle Vania", is above all an Israeli story. It depicts the weariness, the frustrations and pain of large segments of Israeli society, their love to the land and to one another, their dreams and their hope.