Bettone

Writer/director Nurit Kedar's film trains a camera on the snipers of the frontline in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. She goes out on patrol with active units, and interviews marksmen young and old. It can't have been easy to gain the confidence of the Israeli army or the trust of the individuals concerned, but, regrettably, the film isn't particularly illuminating. 'What do you want me to say?' asks one bluff veteran. Shame and defiance rub shoulders. 'I won't be allowed in heaven,' notes one rueful conscript. Occasionally Kedar hits on the madness; the game of it; the sick decorum. They're meant to shoot at the arms and legs of the stone throwers. 'I used to say I was responsible for a lot of legless Palestinians,' proffers a soldier. 'I would never say that now.'

Samir Farhat is a successful Lebanese businessman profiting by importing luxury goods from Israel into Southern Lebanon during Israel’s long military foray there (1982 to 2000). Farhat, a cross between Brecht’s Mother Courage and a character in a Greek tragedy, wears whatever uniform is convenient, be it from the Southern Lebanese or the Israeli army. His business acumen allows no room for morality and his politics consist of cultivating whoever happens to be in power. And yet he is fascinating, both because of his self-determination amidst absolute chaos and because his existence raises the question: Did he contribute to creating the war, or did the war create him?

A riveting documentary that puts a human face on the neighbors who live alongside Israel’s 1,171 kilometers of borders. The film deftly explores the political, cultural and geographical divisions that separate Israelis, Lebanese, Jordanians, Syrians, Egyptians and Palestinians from one another. Some of these borders are peaceful and quiet; others are fraught with fear. But the people who live and work near the borders—an Israeli soldier who “adopts” an Arab family, a Druze bride who leaves her family in the Golan to marry in Lebanon (the real-life story behind Riklis’s Syrian Bride), or the Lebanese merchant importing luxury goods from Israel into Southern Lebanon we will meet again in Lebanon Dream—navigate these artificial boundaries with a combination of emotional and physical effort.

Of the 30,000 "disappeared" during the reign of the Argentine Military Junta in the 1970s and early 1980s, a disproportionate number, nearly 3,000, were Jews. Murderer portrays the victims, who were murdered by fiercely anti-Semitic soldiers, and their anguished families, whose lives were torn apart by what happened to their loved ones. These families also demand justice, which was denied them when amnesty was granted to the military officers implicated in the torture and murders. In a striking and surprising scene, neighbors "escrachan" one of the repressors and try to expel him from the quiet neighborhood where he had retired to live. A stark examination of the wound in a country that has not yet healed.

The meteoric rise of Avigdor Lieberman was the first sign of a new era in the state of Israel - and with it, the fall of "the old elites," the right wing trend, and the emergence of "the second Israel" as the dominant political force. But Lieberman himself, who immigrated at the age of 20, without a penny in his pocket, remains a mystery.

This is the story of the combat soldiers of Company C, Battalion 51 of the Golani Brigade who had fought on Mount Hermon on October 22 1973. After 30 years of silence they return to that night of battle - the conquest of Mount Hermon during the Yom Kippur War. They had not met all those years, and for the first time they put to words the horrors of the night they lost commanders, brothers in arms and a part of themselves as well.

An Arab man marries a Jewish woman and they live in quiet harmony within the Arab-Jewish community with their son and daughter. The family unit is broken when they discover that their Arab father is behind dozens of terror attacks.

Female soldiers in Israel return to combat roles after 75 years, facing the psychological aftermath of war. Through personal accounts, the film explores their battlefield experiences and struggles with PTSD in Gaza and Lebanon.

#Schoolyard: An Untold Story is the anatomy of a murder – the step by step, blow by blow, memory by memory chronicle of a horrible moment in Israeli military history.