Festival:
The 19th annual Docaviv
Dates:
May 11-20
About:
Nearly 100 new features screen as part of this Tel Aviv, Israel documentary festival.
More than a dozen titles face off in the Israeli Competition, including: Golan Rise’s ELISH’S NOTEBOOKS (pictured), in which seven adult siblings discover the journals their late mother secretly prepared for them over the past half century; Daniel Sivan’s THE PATRIOT, about a Zionist hacker who combats the spread of anti-Semitism online; David Deri’s THE ANCESTRAL SIN, about the treatment of immigrants in the young Israel’s development towns; Shimon Spektor’s STAINS, the filmmaker’s attempts to understand her estranged father; Liat Mer’s FENCE YOUR BEST, about the patriarch of an Israeli fencing dynasty; and Mordechai Vardi’s THE FIELD, about a Palestinian who attempts to bridge the gap with Israel settlers through nonviolence.
In addition to an International Competition that features a diverse selection of notable titles that have figured in several other festivals, Docaviv’s other competitions include the quirkier Depth of Field, with work like Amir Yatziv’s ANOTHER PLANET (pictured), about designers of virtual concentration camp reconstructions; and Ila Bêka and Louise Lemoine’s MORIYAMA-SAN, a profile of an eclectic man and his unusual home in Tokyo; and a Student Competition, which offers Adam Weingrod’s THE ISLAND, a portrait of a singular hospital in the center of Jerusalem.
The fest’s Panorama includes work such as Daphni Leef’s BEFORE MY FEET TOUCH THE GROUND and Gil Golan’s ONE ANGRY VEGAN, portraits of unlikely activists; Noa Aharoni’s SHADOWS, in which the children of Holocaust survivors speak out about abuse they suffered from their parents; Yonatan Nir’s THE ESSENTIAL LINK – THE STORY OF WILFRID ISRAEL, about one of the architects of the Kindertransport; Amikam Goldman’s MESILA, a look at a community center servicing Tel Aviv’s migrants; and Sagi Bornstein and Udi Nir’s #UPLOADING_HOLOCAUST (pictuired), which explores the way Israeli teenagers respond to a class trip to concentration camps and memorials to the Holocaust.
Other sections include Masters, which offers Anat Even’s DISAPPEARANCES, following past inhabitants of Jaffa as they recount how they were forced from their homes; True Crime, including Yotam Guendelman and Ari Pines’ SHADOW OF TRUTH, an investigation into a 2006 murder; and Art, with Anat Zeltser’s ONE LAST BEDTIME STORY: CHAPTER 1 – LANGUAGE (pictured), which explores the history of Israeli children’s literature.
what (not) to doc 