August: A Moment Before the Eruption

A short film consisting of one scene in which three people (clearly Palestinians) are deported from their country. What happens in the film doesn’t quite look like a deportation. All its brutal externals have been peeled away, to leave the act itself exposed to a moral discussion.

Little Benjamin and Margalit are raised in the boondocks of Israel by their long-suffering mother, but they have in them something of their father, who can't stay in a place with no prospect of riches and excitement.

This film is a bit of a "documentary within a documentary" as Mr. Mograbi is hired by a producer to do a film on Israel's 50th anniversary celebration. After one check is cut and filming begins, high unemployment figures come out in the press. The producer feels he should take some money and build a factory to provide employment - but all he and Mograbi know is films, so he cuts a second check for Mograbi to do a film on injustices which might highlight the need for reforms.

On the verge of the election, the director Avi Mograbi aims to make a documentary on the most maligned Israeli politician, Arik Sharon. Against all his prediction, Mograbi discovers that Sharon is friendly and welcoming, completely different from the man who was thought to be...

Shot in the Occupied Territories by Israeli director Avi Mograbi, this controversial documentary film draws parallels between the Israeli - Palestinian situation today and the enduring myths of Samson and Masada. Mograbi offers a powerful, at times chilling, lament of the continuing cycles of violence rooted in the past and threatening to engulf everyone's future. With the roots of so much real-world conflict left unexamined by today's restless media, this film reminds us just how vital filmmakers like Avi Mograbi are. Documentary today is rarely immersed in questions of this magnitude - or tackles them with the level of eloquence shown here by Mograbi. An exceptional and challenging film.

An exhaustive explanation of how the military occupation of an invaded territory occurs and its consequences, using as a paradigmatic example the recent history of Israel and the Palestinian territories, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, from 1967, when the Six-Day War took place, to the present day; an account by filmmaker Avi Mograbi enriched by the testimonies of Israeli army veterans.

On December 8, 1983 a fifteen year old Jewish boy from the city of Haifa was kidnapped, murdered and sexually abused after his death. Five Arabs who worked in in the neighborhood’s supermarket were convicted and imprisoned for life and 27 years. The conviction was based only on the defendants’ confessions and reconstructions. Seventeen years after their conviction, the five defendants still claim they are innocent. "​The Reconstruction" follows the police investigation and juridical process step by step. The heart of the film is the original videotaped reconstructions of the murder performed by the defendants in which they admit their guilt.

Fantasizes an 'Old' Middle East, wherein communities were not divided along ethnic and religious lines; a Middle East in which even metaphorical borders had no place

Giora (Assi Dayan) runs a bar and dreams of opening a restaurant. He has made a mess of his life — his marriage is in trouble, since he is pathologically cheating on his wife; his parents (Yosef Millo and Orna Porat) have separated; and his father arrives for an extended visit from Nahariya. Giora spends time with his army buddies, recalling their experiences during the War in Lebanon. His father is undergoing a major life crisis and finds both the loneliness of the city and his son's lifestyle unappealing. As a non-Jew in a Jewish society, he feels estranged, an outsider who has never been able to adapt, and contemplates suicide. Eventually, Giora's parents decide to attempt a reconciliation, until tragedy strikes.

Avi Mograbi documents an Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ theatre workshop taking place in an immigration detention centre. In the process, he posits a flurry of questions: What leads men and women to upend their lives and embark on a journey into the unknown? Why does Israel, a country founded by and for refugees, refuse to consider the status of those who have fled war, genocide, and persecution in their native countries, as the mandated by the Refugee Convention? And are Israelis, who work with the asylum seekers, capable of walking a mile in their shoes and relating to their predicament?

A former Israeli soldier participated in a mission of retribution in which two Palestinian policemen were killed. He seeks forgiveness for what he did. His girlfriend does not think it is so simple and raises questions that he is not yet able to cope with. The soldier willingly testifies before the camera as long as his identity is not revealed. The filmmaker, while seeking a solution to protect the identity of the soldier, questions his own political and artistic conduct.

The film presents fascist ideologies since the beginning of the 20th Century. The actor/presenter of Maurice Barrés argues against foreign labor on the Tel Aviv beach. Mussolini in a gym. Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera in a bookshop. Carl Schmitt at court. Abba Ahimeir and Itamar Ben-Avi in a public library. Gudrun Streiter recalls her love affair with an SA Stormtrooper with Hitler and Himmler on a bench in a park. Three Rabbis from the Yitzhar Settlement on the West Bank: Shapira, Ginzburg and Elitzur have recently ruled that “there is a reason to kill a child if it is clear that it will grow to harm us” (Torat Hamelekh, 2009, pg. 207). They too appear and discuss their interpretation of Divine commands on a park bench.