A gripping psychological thriller that blends powerful performances and archival footage to tell the story of the tragic events that squashed the dream of peace between Israelis and Palestinians back in the 1990s. Read More
Tel Aviv on Fire
Salam, a charming 30-year-old Palestinian, is an assistant on a Palestinian soap opera “Tel Aviv on Fire”, a big hit with both sides, that’s produced in Ramallah which means everyday he must negotiate an Israeli checkpoint.
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Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel
The David-and-Goliath story of Israel’s national baseball team, Heading Home tells the tale of the underdog crew that warmed the hearts of Jewish people across the globe as they competed in their very first World Baseball Classic.
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The Women’s Balcony
An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a gender rift in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem, in this rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power.
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The Wedding Plan
When Michal (Noa Kooler), a 32 year old Orthodox Jewish woman is blindsided by her dour fiancé’s decision to call off their wedding with only a month’s notice, she trusts in God to provide her groom.
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Vita Activa: The Spirit of Hannah Arendt
This new documentary is about one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century, German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt, who caused an uproar when she coined the phrase the “banality of evil” while covering the trial of Nazi war criminal Adolf Eichmann for the New Yorker magazine.
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The 2015 Animated Oscar Nominated Short Films
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| Watch the Oscar-nominated shorts before the Academy Awards on February 22nd! Upstate will screen the Live Action and the Documentary shorts this Saturday through Monday (Feb 14-15-16). The distributor of the Oscar shorts sent us basic ratings guidelines which we’ve included per category. | |||||||||
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| View Oscar Shorts Website | |||||||||
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
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| * Academy Award Nominee Best Foreign Language Film | |||||||||||||
| Divorce Israeli Style: In this uncompromising, heart-rending powerhouse courtroom drama, an Israeli woman struggles to overcome an unmoving patriarchy so that she can get divorced and live a life of her own design. Just in time for Women’s History Month. | |||||||||||||
| In Israel marriage and divorce is a religious matter; only rabbis can legalize a union or its dissolution, and this is only possible with the husband’s consent. When Viviane Amsalem (Ronit Elkabetz) after decades of marriage, goes to court seeking to get a divorce (gett) from her estranged husband, she finds herself put on trial by her country’s religious marriage laws. Trapped in a loveless marriage, Viviane Amsalem and her lawyer spend years in this quest thwarted by her husband Elisha (Simon Abkarian) who continually refuses. His cold intransigence, Viviane’s determination to fight for her freedom, and the ambiguous role of the rabbinical judges shape a procedure where tragedy vies with absurdity. | |||||||||||||
| View Trailer | Read NYTimes review | ||||||||||||
The 2015 Oscar Nominated Short Films
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| Watch the Oscar-nominated shorts before the Academy Awards on February 22nd! Upstate will screen two of the shorts programs beginning Sat Feb 14. The distibutor of the Oscar shorts sent us basic ratings guidelines which we’ve included per category. | |||||||||||||
| ANIMATED SHORTS PROGRAM: (82 mins) (has shown already – twice in Rhinebeck/ once in Woodstock. | |||||||||||||
| LIVE ACTION SHORTS PROGRAM: (118 mins) (PG-13?) no violence or tragedy, some cursing, one of the strongest live action programs in a long time says Neal Block of Magnolia Films! Rhinebeck: Sat (Feb14) 8:15 Woodstock: Sat (Feb 14) 1:00 
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| DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM A: (81 mins): (R?) A tough collection this year with films about cancer, slaughterhouse workers, and an infant with a rare respoiratory disorder. There are some tough to watch scenes in some that may be difficult for some. Rhinebeck Sun (Feb 15) 3:30/ Woodstock: Sun(Feb15) 1:30 
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| DOCUMENTARY PROGRAM B: (79 mins): (R?) There are some tough to watch scenes in THE REAPER and OUR CURSE that may be difficult for some. Rhinebeck Mon (Feb 16) 3:30/Woodstock Mon (Feb 16)4:30
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| View Oscar Shorts Website | |||||||||||||
Fill the Void
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| A devout 18-year-old is pressured to marry the husband of her late sister. | |||||||||||||
| Eighteen-year-old Shira (Hada Yaron) is the youngest daughter of the family and is about to be married off to a very promising young man of the same age. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther (Renana Raz), dies during childbirth, leaving her husband to care for the child and postponing Shira’s promised match. When the girls’ mother finds out that Yochay may leave the country with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower, which leaves Shira to choose between her heart’s wish and her family’s desire to keep the child with them. (Sony Classics) In Hebrew with subtitles. FILL THE VOID was the 2012 Venice Film Festival winner for Best Actress (Yaron). It was also selected as the Israeli entry for the Best Foreign Language Oscar at the 85th Academy Awards. | |||||||||||||
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| View Trailer | Read Reviews | ||||||||||||
The Flat
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| German-Israeli relatives are stunned by their family’s WWII-era history… “One of the best movies of the year. It plays like a great mystery – and it is. This is what a documentary should be – smart, moving, profound and unpredictable – in other words, what we look for in a great film. The Flat is all of that and more.” Michael Moore | |||||||||||||
| At age 98, director Arnon Goldfinger’s grandmother passed away, leaving him the task of clearing out the Tel Aviv flat that she and her husband shared for decades after immigrating from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sifting through a mountain of photos, letters, files, and objects, Goldfinger, hoped to save some sentimental mementos from the accumulated ephemera of a lifetime. In the process, he found some letters and photos suggesting his grandparents’ friendship with Nazi leader Leopold von Mildenstein. His film becomes a chronicle of the unexpected yet inevitable ethical ambiguities and repressed emotions that arise when everyday friendships cross enemy lines.
In his award-winning, emotionally riveting documentary, The Flat, Goldfinger follows the hints his grandparents left behind to investigate long-buried family secrets and unravel the mystery of their painful past. The result is a moving family portrait and an insightful look at the ways different generations deal with the memory of the Holocaust. | |||||||||||||
| View Trailer | Read Reviews | ||||||||||||
5 Broken Cameras
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| * Shown in conjunction with BANG BANG CUT and FARKAH, two short films by Casey Asprooth-Jackson & Salah Daoud. Casey Asprooth-Jackson In Person Q&A. | |||||||||||
| When Emad Burnat got his first video camera in 2005, he “never thought of making films.” He got it to keep a video record of his new family before the arrival of his first son, Gibreel. On the the same day as his birth, Israeli forces attack their West Bank village, and he is compelled to film both events. | |||||||||||
| For the next five years he brings his camera to every demonstration against the evictions, wall building, and Israeli settlements being erected at the fringes of their small community. When a camera is destroyed, usually by being tossed to the ground or shot with a bullet, he gets a new one. The five cameras each have a story; they witness troubling things, and blend the personal and political history of a small yet enduring place. In Hebrew and Arabic with subtitles. Thank you to Peggy Ahwesh and the Al-Quds Bard Study Abroad Program. | |||||||||||
| View Trailer | Read Reviews | ||||||||||
Footnote
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| Winner of best screenplay at Cannes, and a nominee for best foreign language film, this film highlights the intense rivalry and generational one-upmanship between a father and son both of whom are professors in the Talmudic studies department at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. | |||||||||||||
| Ornery father Eliezer (Shlomo Bar Aba), is a stubborn purist who fears the establishment and has never been recognized for his work. While his bearded son, Uriel (Lior Ashkenzai), is an up-and-coming star in the field, who appears to feed on accolades. One day, the tables turn. Eliezer learns that he is to be awarded the Israel Prize, the most valuable honor for scholarship in the country, his vanity and desperate need for validation are exposed. His son Uriel, meanwhile, is thrilled to see his father’s achievements finally recognized, or is he? In Hebrew with subtitles. | |||||||||||||
“… a feat of intellectual and cinematic elegance… Plus, it’s funny and smart… told with wild, inventive cinematic flourishes and experimental grace notes…” – Lisa Schwarzbaum, Entertainment Weekly | |||||||||||||
| View Trailer | Read Reviews | ||||||||||||
Well Worth Watching Series… A Film Unfinished
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| The fourth film in our Well Worth Watching Series… At the end of WWII, an uncompleted Nazi propaganda film about the Warsaw ghetto was discovered, and soon became a resource for historians. | ||||||
| Only later, when another reel of “raw” unedited footage was found was it clear that the Nazis had been crafting a heinous propaganda version of the Ghetto. It reveals corpses lying on sidewalks, children ravaged by hunger, and wild-eyed beggars. The cinematographer who shot much of the footage is interviewed, as are a few now-elderly former residents who watch scenes and comment. An enormously important film. In Hebrew, German, Polish, Yiddish, English. English subtitles. | ||||||
| Unrated / 89 mins. | ||||||
| View Trailer | ||||||
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Ajami
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| Nominated for an Oscar for best foreign language film, AJAMI looks at the Middle East powder keg from both sides, weaving a complex story of drug dealing, romance, and economic peril. | ||||||
| Using a nonprofessional cast, the film follows a young Israeli (Shahir Kabaha) fighting a criminal vendetta against his family, a Palestinian refugee (Eran Naim) obsessed with finding his missing brother, and an affluent Palestinian (Scandar Copti) dreaming of a future with his Jewish girlfriend. As a shockingly unjust murder sets off a cycle of fear amongst the characters, the violence of life in Israel embeds itself in every interaction, even for those on the same side. While its themes of revenge, mutual resentment and grim fatalism offer little hope for ready solutions, the movie testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground. | ||||||
| R / 120 mins. | ||||||
| View Trailer | ||||||
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The Lemon Tree
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| An Israeli defense minister’s new home abuts a 50-year-old lemon grove owned by a Palestinian widow. | ||||||
| Israeli security claims that the grove is a threat to the safety of the minister (Doron Tavory), and issues orders to uproot the lemon trees. Salma (Hiam Abbass), a widow with no family nearby, decides to legally fight for the trees that have absorbed the blood, sweat and tears of her family. Her lawyer is a smart young Palestinian, Ziad Daud (Ali Suliman). As they take the battle all the way up to the Israeli Supreme Court, 34-year-old Ziad falls for 45-year-old Salma. But besides the socially-unacceptable factor of their relationship, things are not what they seem. Meanwhile, on the other side of the grove, Mira Navon (Rona Lipaz-Michael), the Minister’s wife, finds herself defying what is expected of her. In Hebrew with subtitles. | ||||||
| unrated / 106 mins. | ||||||
| View Trailer | ||||||
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