Israeli Film Festival will be reopened in Los Angeles after years of its ultimate absence in the city.
The 36 th edition of the fest begins more than a year into the war between Israel and Hamas that has claimed tens of thousands of lives and put the nation into a defensive crisis but extended the hostility’s impact worldwide by igniting anti- Israel and antisemitic sentiments.
However, in view of the challenges that survived this year, festival organizers believe it is time to restage the event on.
“As much as this year has proved to be a challenging year for Israel and the Jewish and Israeli communities everywhere, we saw no reason why we cannot proceed with the festival after having postponed it for two-and-a-half years,” points out Meir Fenigstein, the fest’s founder and executive director.
It’s as simple as this-I stated we we are a non-political Organization. These screenings are public and anybody can arrange with us to be screened. Still, we was able to greatly enhance safety precautions in all the screenings throughout the venues to guarantee the comfort of our guests,” Fenigstein adds.
The fest will take place on November 13th to November 26th and will include 40 feature, documentary and shorts all made by Israeli directors. The participants participating must be Israelis either living in the state or have lived and been educated and have strong Israeli background. Palestinian and Israeli Arab filmmakers that fulfill those conditions have participated in previous editions of the festival but none can be seen in this year’s line-up.
The opening night gala of the fest will be ‘Come Closer,’ Israel’s Academy Award submission for the category best international film from a female writer-director Tom Nesher. Soda by Erez Tadmor will be screened as the special preview of centerpiece film event. (Neither film mentions the war.)
Led by Ynon Kreiz, Mattel chairman and CEO, who was instrumental in greenlighting its animated feature Barbie that is already being billed as a blockbuster, the toy giant will receive the 2024 IFF Industry Leadership Award during the opening-night gala. From humoristic references and satire to slap stick comedy Arielle will be celebrating the best of Israel’s comedy in The Israeli comedy night headlined by Shaike Levi,Israel’s comedian and actor of screen and stage who has taken the role of humor to new heights will be cal audience for the Lifetime Achievement Award in 2024 at the closing night.
Festival screenings will also be in Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles and Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino. Other centers that are also to be used include Saban Theatre, WGA Theatre for Southern California and Fine Arts Theatre all located in Beverly Hills.
