The Belle from Gaza

During the filming of her previous movie, director Yolande Zauberman heard a story of a young transgender woman who fled from Gaza after death threats based on her gender identity and came to Tel Aviv to live as her true self. Several years later Yolande Zauberman returns to Tel Aviv to look for her. While searching for the mysterious young woman she meets several Palestinian and Israeli trans women, some doing sex work and some other temp jobs, all of them reaching for their dreams in their own way.
The film “The Belle from Gaza” is a celebratory hymn to women who fight daily on that ever so dangerous line between Gaza and Tel Aviv just so that they could be themselves. “The Belle from Gaza” is a brave cinematic piece that puts a mirror in front of reality and offers images of struggles for self acceptance in a sad reality that is all conflict and oppression.


In association with the Embassy of France

 

Summer Qamp

Summer Qamp” is a documentary following a group of young LGBTQ people in an idyllic summer camp by a lake in Alberta, Canada, where the young campers enjoy the traditional camp experience, but in a safe and accepting environment.
Camp fYrefly is stationed deep in a green forest and is a summer refuge for teens on the LGBTQ spectrum, far from a hostile environment, in a place where they can give fly to their queerness and their gender identity.
The film invites the viewers to meet the guides as well as the young campers, all of whom are willing to share the challenges they face and what had led them to this particular camp in remarkable and moving honesty.


In association with the Embassy of Canada

Lesvia

Since the 70’s lesbians from all over the world have been drawn to the island of Lesbos, the birthplace of the famous ancient Greek poet Sappho. They find refuge on the wild beaches that are void of tourists, next to small traditional fishermen villages. The women create their own environment that does not align with the conservative mind set of the nearby villagers and brings forth tensions. Some lesbians decide to relocate to the village and start a new community, hotels and businesses that cater to the lesbian crowd, which makes the locals feel like their home had been invaded and turned upside down.
Filmmaker Tzeli Hadjidimitriou, a Lesbos native and a lesbian herself, directed an immersive experience about 40 years of love, community, conflict and gentrification.


1.11 – An introduction by Dr. Amal Ziv 


In association with the European Union

Keep Not Silent – Ortho-Dykes (Et SheAhava Nafshi)


Celebrating 20 years of the premiere of Ilil Alexander’s groundbreaking film

Following the screening we will conduct a Q&A session with the creator of the film and a number of notable religious lesbian activists.

An Israeli documentary film from 2004, which won the Ophir Award for best docu, directed and produced by Ilil Alexander.
The film follows three Ultra Orthodox lesbian women living in Jerusalem and struggling with their sexual preference and their attraction to women. The film details the conflicts standing in their way – the wish to fulfill their desires and be authentic in their love and their loyalty to their families and their religious faith, and follows their lives and struggles.
The Hebrew name of the film comes from Song of Songs, 3:1 – “By night on my bed I sought him whom my soul loveth; I sought him, but I found him not.”

The film was screened in cinemas and on TV in the USA, UK, Canada, Australia, Denmark and Poland, as well as in Israel.

Taboo: Amos Guttman

After the screening – conversation with the creators.

While alive, Amos Guttman was a “red flag” for Israel’s conservative film establishment. As a gay filmmaker, he created the nation’s first films on the subject. Guttman aimed to make films for the few, yet he also wanted global connections — films that Derek Jarman or Pedro Almodóvar could watch by chance and feel understood. Unfortunately, Guttman had time to make only four features and four short films before dying of AIDS.
Taboo: Amos Guttman” uses excerpts from his very last interview and other, previously unseen materials, letting historical materials tell his story and reevaluate his choices on and off the set.


This movie is part of Amos Guttman Retrospective

Jacob de Haan: A Voice Out of Time

After the screening: conversation with the creators.

The death of Jacob Israel de Haan is commemorated annually by both the ultra-Orthodox Jews of ‘Neturei Karta’ in Jerusalem, and the LGBTQ community in Amsterdam. He is a pioneer for both. In the early 20th century he published the first LGBTQ novel in the Netherlands. He then returned to his Jewish roots, migrated to Palestine as a Zionist, but eventually became the spokesperson for the Orthodox community, spearheading its fight against Zionism. He was still publishing queer poetry in Dutch. He was killed in Jerusalem in 1924, and his assassins were never caught. Today, never-before-heard audio recordings shed new light upon the mystery of the first Zionist political assassination.

Fabric Stories

After the screening: conversation with the reporter Itay Yakov and the designers Dorin Frankfurt & Yuval Caspin.

Amos Gutman’s first film, discovered in the Channel 1 archives and restored, tells the story of Israeli fashion. But more than that it reveals the birth of one of the most important local filmmakers.
The film was made in 1978, 5 years before Gutman’s directorial feature film debut “Drifting“ (“Nagu’a”). On the surface it’s a documentary focusing on the Israeli world of fashion in the late 70’s, but in fact, the film uses that world to produce a cinematic
language incorporating different styles from scene to scene. Rather than your typical talking heads and fashion footage, this is a much surrealistic journey of what Gutman himself saw and perceived as fashion.
At the time, the film did not sit well with TV executives and after single screening was sent to the archives.

In association with the Film Archives of Israeli Television – Channel 1


This movie is part of Amos Guttman Retrospective

“Jerusalem Is Proud to Present” & Panel

After the screening, a panel will take place with 3 LGBTQ activists from different cities –
Reut Nagar (Tel Aviv), Shiri Bar-On (Mitzpe Ramon) & Nava Dissentshik (Rosh Haayin), hosted by the film creator Nitzan Gilady.

In the summer of 2006, Jerusalem was to host, for the first time in history, the World Pride events, which were to culminate in a traditional gay pride parade. The planned events stirred turmoil in the politically complex city, with Jewish, Muslim and Christian religious leaders banding together in an uncompromising battle against what they said would “defile the holy city”. On the other side stood the activists of the Open House, Jerusalem’s LGBT community center, who planned the events. Steadfast in the face of the heated and violent anti-gay sentiment, they had to deal with threats to much more than just their right to march.

Sapir

After the screening: conversation with the creators.

Sapir Berman is part of the global revolution taking place today in professional sports in relation to the LGBTQ community. Sapir was born near Haifa, and began her career as a soccer player. She progressed at the highest speed, and at the age of 26 was appointed as a referee in the Premier League. Everything happened while she was still in the closet, without telling anyone about her true dream. Then, one day she announced to everyone, I am a woman and always have been. And so began her long-standing struggle to continue refereeing, while going through the gender affirming process. Today, she is still the only woman referee among 20 men in the Israeli Premier League.

Gay Days

The screening will be followed by a panel with Yair Qedar, Elliott, Michal Eden and Omer Ohana, on the subject of the Israeli LGBTQ community 15 years ago (when the film was released) versus today. What had changed for the better and what had not?

Director Yair Qedar chronicles Israel’s LGBT revolution in a series of interviews and archive footage and in the process, shares his own story – a boy from a small town who arrived in Tel Aviv in the mid-eighties and embarked on a journey that began with oppression, before plowing on towards equality and along the way, starting the free LGBTQ publication, The Pink Times (‘haZman haVarod’).