5 Movies Starring Yaèl Abecassis

Kadosh

Kadosh

Basic Info:

Released Date:

1999-06-10

Languages:

Hebrew

Countries:

Israel, France

Runtime:

110 min

IMDB Ratings:

6.8 (1500 Reviews)

Director:

Amos Gitai

Genres:

Drama

Cast:

Writer:

Eliette Abecassis

Amos Gitai

Fullplot:

The year 2000 approaches in Jerusalem's Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter, where the women work, keep house, and have children so the men can study the Torah and the Talmud. Rivka is happily and passionately married to Meir, but they remain childless. The yeshiva's rabbi, who is Meir's father, wants Meir to divorce Rivka: "a barren woman is no woman." Rivka's sister, Malka, is in love with Yakov, a Jew shunned by the yeshiva as too secular. The rabbi arranges Malka's marriage to Yossef, whose agitation when fulfilling religious duties approaches the grotesque. Can the sisters sort out their hearts' desires within this patriarchal world? If not, have they any other options?

Alila

Alila

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2003-10-01

Languages:

Hebrew, English

Countries:

Israel, France

Runtime:

123 min

IMDB Ratings:

6.1 (456 Reviews)

Director:

Amos Gitai

Genres:

ComedyDrama

Cast:

Writer:

Amos Gitai

Yehoshua Kenaz (novel)

Marie-Jose Sanselme (screenplay)

Fullplot:

In Tel Aviv, the gloomy Ezra hires foreign workers without permits to build an addition to a homely block of flats where his ex-wife Mali lives with her current lover Ilan. Ezra and Mali's young son Eyal hates the army and is AWOL, living among prostitutes and drug dealers. Gabi, a beautiful young woman who's a friend of Mali's, is carrying on an affair with Hezi, an older man insisting on secrecy. Hezi rents an apartment at the building for their trysts. Neighbors complain about the noise of their lovemaking and of the construction. Lives revolve slowly one around another. "Everyone's out for himself," says Ezra of Israeli society. Suicide bombings and elections provide a backdrop.

Live and Become

Live and Become

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2008-02-01

Languages:

Hebrew, French, Amharic

Countries:

France, Israel, Belgium, Italy

Runtime:

140 min

Rated:

UNRATED

IMDB Ratings:

7.9 (4842 Reviews)

Director:

Radu Mihaileanu

Genres:

Drama

Cast:

Writer:

Alain-Michel Blanc (collaborator on screenplay)

Radu Mihaileanu

Fullplot:

In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews. In turn they are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy. Upon arrival this second mother dies. Schlomo is adopted by a good family but remains depressed until he secretly sends a letter to his real mother. From the beginning he experiences large and small racist difficulties. In his teens he and Sarah fall in love. Her father is an extreme racist. Schlomo tries to gain "real Jewishness" by winning a competition in Bible interpretation. No change of Sarah's father's attitude. Disappointed he goes to the police and reports himself as not being a Jew. But the police officer just gives him a scolding. "The newspapers are full of that stuff, the Falashas are no Jews. Now they begin to believe it themselves." His adoptive parents send him to France to study medicine. When he afterwards marries Sarah she loses her family and her status as a "white Jew". But he dares not tell her the truth until she becomes pregnant. She leaves him, but only because he had not trusted that she would love him as much anyway. His adoptive mother reconciles them. Sarah's first line when she returns: "Unbelievable what three mothers would do for you." But she makes a condition for returning: Schlomo must meet his real mother again. As a doctor he takes a job in the Ethiopian fugitive camp where she is still alive.

Three-Step Dance

Three-Step Dance

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2004-02-19

Languages:

Sardinian, French, Italian

Countries:

Italy

Runtime:

107 min

IMDB Ratings:

6.2 (212 Reviews)

Director:

Salvatore Mereu

Genres:

Drama

Fullplot:

Four separate-but-interconnected stories - one for each season - about life in Sardinia.

A Borrowed Identity

A Borrowed Identity

Basic Info:

Released Date:

2014-11-27

Languages:

Arabic, Hebrew, English, German

Countries:

Israel, Germany, France

Runtime:

104 min

Rated:

NOT RATED

IMDB Ratings:

7.4 (484 Reviews)

Director:

Eran Riklis

Genres:

Drama

Cast:

Writer:

Sayed Kashua (screenplay)

Sayed Kashua (novel)

Fullplot:

A Palestinian-Israeli boy named Eyad is sent to a prestigious boarding school in Jerusalem, where he struggles with issues of language, culture, and identity.

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