Tova Ascher

Twenty six Israeli women directors of narrative features are sharing their personal experiences of sitting in the director's chair. From Ellida Geyra - Israel's first female fiction filmmaker, to contemporary female directors, the film weaves together a conglomerate of women's voices, as they echo each other, clash, and come apart, then culminate in a fiery speech by Ronit Elkabetz. Their stories create a diverse and cinematic patchwork quilt of female directors, providing us with a multifaceted reflection of any woman who wishes for her story to be heard. This is a moving documentary, that will motivate you to get up and do something about the glass ceiling, both the real one, as well as the imagined.

Somewhat autobiographical, the film opens right after the 6 day war, when Israelis euphoric with victory and the kids dress up as the captured Western Wall in Jerusalem. Now it is 1972. The film centers on a young boy, who is failing in school, and grounded from going on Passover trips with his classmates. Instead he must visit private academies (including military school) with his parents, who want him to do better in school. Foreshadowing to the coming war in 1973 and the defeat of euphoria.

Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?

A drama about four malcontent and oddly matched characters on a three-day journey. Each an outcast: Gadi, a petty criminal on parole seeking to make his way back into mainstream society; Yitzhak, his pensive, naive, and serious younger brother; Shoshana, a serious criminal who insists on tormenting the group; and a young, pregnant, Russian immigrant who has left her husband an meets up with the other three in a coffee shop. The characters together define their obvious marginalization from society and their search for individual dignity.

Somewhat autobiographical, the film opens right after the 6 day war, when Israelis euphoric with victory and the kids dress up as the captured Western Wall in Jerusalem. Now it is 1972. The film centers on a young boy, who is failing in school, and grounded from going on Passover trips with his classmates. Instead he must visit private academies (including military school) with his parents, who want him to do better in school. Foreshadowing to the coming war in 1973 and the defeat of euphoria.

To save her father, a girl who always puts others before herself promises to live her life in a lavish castle with a strange beast.

Maya is a happily married mother of two. She is a successful choreographer and everything seems to be perfect...but this life is a lie. Unbeknownst to her family and everyone around her, she has a hidden past.

Is today's fanaticism tomorrow's policy? In a West Bank settlement, Rabbi Meltzer has a grand design: he's building a movement "to pray at the Temple Mount." His yeshiva has scholars, and the settlement is getting its own military company to be commanded by Menachem, a disciple of the rabbi. He also wants his daughter, Michal, to marry Pini, the yeshiva's best scholar. Michal has no interest in Pini, but she is attracted to Menachem. When she rebuffs Pini, he hatches a bold and secret plan. Is jealousy the motivation or something else? Meanwhile, the army and Moussad are closely watching the rabbi's activities and Menachem's military training. Who is trustworthy?

The plot revolves around a married couple experiencing a midlife crisis, with ups and downs in their relationship and with their children. The film was selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 56th Academy Awards, but was not accepted as a nominee.

Enrike, a young Israeli boarding-school student, falls in love with Malka, the most popular girl in his class. Malka tires of their relationship and takes up with Shalom, Enrike's best friend.

Eldad is about to go abroad, but changes his mind at the last minute. Instead of going home to Jerusalem, he disguises himself and takes a cheap hotel room in Tel Aviv. There he meets the receptionist Judy who he makes believe he'll marry so she can go to American with him and get a working visa there. In another disguise he is mistaken for a deaf-mute Arab and joins a group of them both at their Israeli construction site and back in their village.

Haim, a charismatic talented person who finds himself on the verge of impoverishment. Haim, a security guard in his 50's, lives with his elderly mother whose health is deteriorating. His past is being told by several people: his ex-wife, children and young lover. With their help, a profile emerges of a person who throughout life missed many opportunities due to life's complexity and unpredictability. His predicament also emanates from living in a society that in crucial moments appears devoid of compassion.

Haim, a charismatic talented person who finds himself on the verge of impoverishment. Haim, a security guard in his 50's, lives with his elderly mother whose health is deteriorating. His past is being told by several people: his ex-wife, children and young lover. With their help, a profile emerges of a person who throughout life missed many opportunities due to life's complexity and unpredictability. His predicament also emanates from living in a society that in crucial moments appears devoid of compassion.

Haim, a charismatic talented person who finds himself on the verge of impoverishment. Haim, a security guard in his 50's, lives with his elderly mother whose health is deteriorating. His past is being told by several people: his ex-wife, children and young lover. With their help, a profile emerges of a person who throughout life missed many opportunities due to life's complexity and unpredictability. His predicament also emanates from living in a society that in crucial moments appears devoid of compassion.

Love, family expectations, and religion mix in 19th century Jerusalem. Jacob and Rebecca marry; he's a rabbi, she's dutiful and loving. But she has no children. Months become years. Although Jacob is content, his mother reminds everyone she is waiting for a grandson. After 15 years, Rebecca determines that Jacob must take an additional wife, the young and beautiful Sultana. Rebecca fasts and prays, and in a state of near ecstasy, persuades everyone involved and then arranges an elaborate wedding. However, Sultana does not conceive, and Rebecca watches helplessly as Jacob's affection shifts to Sultana. She's near madness and the household is in turmoil. What can Rebecca do now?

The sudden arrival and prophecies of a fortune teller unexpectedly throws a wrench into the lives of three couples.

Maya is a happily married mother of two. She is a successful choreographer and everything seems to be perfect...but this life is a lie. Unbeknownst to her family and everyone around her, she has a hidden past.

A tragic comedy centered on the HR manager of Israel's largest industrial bakery, who sets out to save the reputation of his business and prevent the publication of a defamatory article.

After Germany invades Poland and the Nazis order the confinement of all local Jews in the ghetto, medical doctor Artur Planck (Joseph Fiennes) manages to flee with his family, seeking refuge at the farm of Emilia (Kelly Harrison), their former grocer. With the Planck family hiding in her attic, Emilia finds her feelings for the physician growing stronger than she wants, or can control -- despite the dangers of the situation.

They were four friends in heart and soul. Blood Brothers that were that were bound together by their army experience. They were good people and decent citizens. They had love, careers, hopes, a future - but they wanted more. And they wanted to commit the perfect crime...

Rose, Flora and Yasmin were born as a triplet sixty something years ago in Alexandria, Egypt. Their well-off parents gave them names of flowers, and King Farouk of Egypt gave them his blessing. Today, in Israel, they live together in an apartment without men and without children...

What will Riki do after Asher, her fiancé, tells her that he got second thoughts regarding their wedding?..

In Majdal Shams, the largest Druze village in Golan Heights on the Israeli-Syrian border, the Druze bride Mona is engaged to get married with Tallel, a television comedian that works in the Revolution Studios in Damascus, Syria. They have never met each other because of the occupation of the area by Israel since 1967; when Mona moves to Syria, she will lose her undefined nationality and will never be allowed to return home. Mona's father Hammed is a political activist pro-Syria that is on probation by the Israeli government. His older son Hatten married a Russian woman eight years ago and was banished from Majdal Shams by the religious leaders and his father. His brother Marwan is a wolf trader that lives in Italy. His sister Amal has two teenager daughters and has the intention to join the university, but her marriage with Amin is in crisis. When the family gathers for Mona's wedding, an insane bureaucracy jeopardizes the ceremony.

A Kibutz in Israel is heavily in debt. In a last effort to produce a viable financial restructuring, the old, "unproductive" members are asked to leave the kibutz, to make room for younger, more productive new members. Among those destined to leave is Shraga. His marriage to Clara is loveless while he desperately loves Bracha, his late brother's widow. Clara dreams of starting afresh with her husband in an old age home, in the far north of the country. Bracha on the other hand refuses to remain a mere no. 2. Shraga is asked to make a decision. Other family members are forced into joining this unresolvable conflict.

The story revolves around Laufer, an Israeli soldier from the wealthy suburbs of northern Tel Aviv, who is ordered to accompany another soldier, known only as "the Indian", to prison.

Amid the political turmoil of 1950s Israel, a teenage girl named Noa (Dalia Shimko) is caught between her desire to go to college to express her individuality and her parents' wish to send her to a kibbutz -- a type of rural Jewish community based on the idea of communal property. Noa's middle-class upbringing and the options it affords her are catalysts for tension during a time of smoldering unrest.

In Israel's Central Prison, the security officer is corrupt, supplying drugs and stirring the hatred between Jewish and Arab prisoners to his advantage. Uri, in for 12 years for armed robbery, and Issan, in for 50 years for PLO violence, command the respect of their cells. When the Arabs are framed for the murder of a Jewish prisoner and a young inmate commits suicide rather than lie about what happened, Uri and Issan form an unlikely partnership, leading the security block on a strike. Prison officials try to break it. In the background are Uri's daughter and Issan's wife, women of beauty and passion who embody the distance from inside a cell to the outside.

After the death of their mother, Thomas and his sister Mariana leave their hometown for a brighter future in the city. They become patrons of a marginal bar in Tel Aviv, Bar 51, whose regulars serve as a backdrop for Thomas’s obsessive love for his sister, and her desire to break free and make a life of her own.

Adam is trying to fix his marriage but both his wife Asia and teenage daughter Dafi are too busy with their lovers.

Maya is a happily married mother of two. She is a successful choreographer and everything seems to be perfect...but this life is a lie. Unbeknownst to her family and everyone around her, she has a hidden past.

The legend of The Sack Man, a mysterious figure who roams at night, stealing babies and selling them to the Zionist jews, is making the tensions rise in the city of Araba after a child has gone missing. Ahmed, who's brother was deported to Lebanon by the Israeli authorities, is the main suspect. Stuck between a rock and a hard place, Ahmed must navigate protecting his son, his family, and his secrets.