Thirteen brand new documentaries have been selected for the Israeli Competition at the 19th annual Docaviv Film Festival, taking place from May 11th - 20th 2017. The films, of which eleven will celebrate their world premiere at the festival, will compete for the Best Israeli Film Award, worth NIS 70,000 - Israel’s largest prize for documentary filmmaking. Other honors in the competition include the Mayor’s Award for Best Debut Film, Honorable Mention, as well as the Editing, Cinematography, Research, and Original Score awards. The 13 Israeli documentaries were selected from 75 submissions. 

MUHI

THE FIELD

This year’s competition includes THE ANCESTRAL SIN by David Deri, Doron Galezer and Ruth Yuval, revealing the shocking truth behind the principle of “population dispersal”, as espoused by Israel’s leadership in its first two decades; Daniel Sivan’s THE PATRIOT, about a militant Zionist hacker who declares cyber war on the leaders of the antisemitic movement in France; MY BELOVED COUNTRY (Yael Kipper, Ronen Zaretzky and Sara Shilo), a literary-documentary journey about the multicultural block 461 in the Israeli town of Ma’alot; THE FIELD by director Mordechai Vardi about the Gush Etzion Junction, where a local initiative by Palestinians and Jewish settlers to create a dialogue comes under fire when the junction becomes a hotbed of terrorist attacks; and MUHI (Rina Castelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman), following the endearing boy Muhi, who has been living at Tel Hashomer Hospital for seven years, surrounded by Jews and Arabs who transcend identity, religion, and the conflict that’s tearing his world apart.

The full selection of Israeli films can be found here.

The selection panel included Karin Rivkind Segal, Docaviv’s new Artistic Director; director and editor Ayal Goldberg (“Powder”, 2012; “Rita Jahan Foruz”, 2013); and director and film and TV personality Gili Gaon.

Docaviv’s Artistic Director Karin Rivkind Segal: “This year’s Israeli competition presents an eclectic variety and an interesting mix of works by veteran Docaviv filmmakers and new comers. The films offer a diversity of voices within the Israeli society and though the Israeli Palestinian conflict is reflected in many of the films the films deal with a wide range of conflicts both local and universal. A recurring theme this year is the reaction to the changes in the dialogue within the Israeli society today and the attempt to rise to the surface issues of discrimination that hadn't been dealt with in the past. Along with classic structured strong plot driven documentaries we can find more daring, original and experimental approaches in filmmaking.“

Additional Israeli films will be presented outside of competition: Daphni Leef’s BEFORE MY FEET TOUCH THE GROUND, about the 2011 social justice protests - an Outside the Box project from the Gesher Foundation, Keshet TV, and Docaviv and Anat Even’s FUCK HISTORY…, chosen to participate in the festival’s prestigious Masters section.

In addition to the thirteen films in competition, six films by students from some of Israel’s leading film schools were selected for Docaviv’s annual Student Film Competition. The selection panel included curator and film preservationist Hila Avraham, and writer and director Yarden Karmin.

Docaviv Film Festival 2017 will take place from 11 - 20 May at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and other locations across the city: Slope Park in Jaffa, Ha'bima Square, Levinsky Park, Beit Dani, Beit Romano, and others.