If you would rather enjoy classic Israeli movies and the best of new Israeli cinema than join in the crowded street celebrations this Independence Day, head for the cinematheques for some special programming.
The Jerusalem Cinematheque will feature a program on Independence Day that will cost only NIS 10 per ticket, and which will be perfect for those who love Israeli music and singing along to it.
The program will start with a sing-along of song film clips from beloved old Israeli movies, taken from the Israel Film Archive at the cinematheque, and presented by acclaimed singer Amir Schreiber.
Among the songs featured will be “Shtei Etzbaot Mi’Tzidon” from the film of the same name, which is known as Ricochets in English, about a platoon of Israeli soldiers in Lebanon in the mid-1980s, starring Alon Aboutboul. Another song is Ofra Haza’s iconic hit, “The Flower Song,” from Assi Dayan’s 1979 movie Schlager, known in English as The Hit, which she performs in the moment people remember best from this movie, which is one of the most famous performances from her entire career.
Rare clips of top Israeli artists singing in commercials and promotional films will also be shown.
Cult classics to be show on Independence Day
At 9 p.m., the Jerusalem Cinematheque will screen Amit Ulman’s The City, a filmed version of his cult-classic show, which has now similarly become a cult-classic movie. Told entirely in rap, the movie is a hard-boiled but comic detective story, as well as a dark comedy about corruption. Ulman stars in it and wrote many of the songs, along with Jimbo J and other rappers.
When I saw this at a preview when it was released in 2023, most of the audience knew every line and sang along even though it wasn’t billed as a sing-along. But this screening officially is, so those who love this film can sing to their heart’s content.
The Tel Aviv Cinematheque is featuring new Israeli feature films that show different sides of Israeli life. Real Estate: A Love Story by Anat Malz, which won the Israeli Feature Film Competition at the Haifa International Film Festival in January, is a funny, bittersweet look at the pressures facing a young couple who are apartment hunting in Haifa after they are priced out of their beloved Tel Aviv. The movie uses their apartment-hunting journey to tell a story about their relationship – a love story but a troubled one – and is about the limits and compromises we all have to make in our lives. It’s both distinctly Israeli and universal all at once and would be the perfect movie to watch this year for Independence Day.
The program at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque includes Halisa, a beautiful movie by Sophie Artus about a pediatric nurse in a mixed Jewish-Arab community in Haifa undergoing fertility treatments. Noa Koler, one of Israel’s most interesting and versatile actresses, stars in the lead role. If you’ve only seen her on the television series Checkout, you may be surprised by how different she is here.
On Independence Day at 8 p.m., the Sam Spiegel Cinema, located in the Sam Spiegel School for Film and Television on the Jerusalem Arts Campus (next to Beit Ha’Am and Bezalel Street), will screen the documentary Letter to David in the presence of its director, Tom Shoval. The movie is about David Cunio, who was taken captive by Hamas on October 7 and is still being held, one of 59 hostages still in Gaza.
Shoval made a movie, Youth, with Cunio over a decade ago, and the documentary contains footage from his life in Kibbutz Nir Oz years before the attack.