Israel Film Festival

Israeli cinema had minimal distribution in the United States in the early 1980s—virtually no Israeli films were being screened in American theaters when Meir Fenigstein set out to change that.[2] A separate Boxoffice announcement dated June 25, 1973, indicates that an Israeli film festival was scheduled at the Royal Theatre that October; the record does not establish organizational continuity with Fenigstein’s later festival.[2][4] A Library of Congress publication identifies Laemmle Theatres as the “home of the Israeli Film Festival,” placing the event within Los Angeles’s longstanding art-house and international-film culture.[4] Greg Laemmle described the relationship between his theaters and Israeli-themed programming as “a natural fit,” noting that the chain showed Jewish and Israeli films year-round.[4]

A study of Jewish communities in the Western United States reports that nearly every Western Jewish community—including San Francisco, San Diego, Palm Springs, Orange County, Phoenix, Sacramento, Seattle, and Los Angeles—held annual Jewish or Israeli film festivals, placing them within a wider pattern of Jewish museums, theaters, and arts programming.[5] More broadly, North American Jewish film festivals generally ran for two or three weeks, emphasized lesser-known American and foreign films, and explored subjects such as contemporary identity, immigration, religious life, refugee experiences, and Holocaust memory.[6] The movement expanded significantly in the United States and abroad during the decade preceding the late 1990s, with multiculturalism—including the representation of multiple cultures within Jewish life itself—as a guiding principle.[6]

The Israel Film Festival was founded by Meir Fenigstein, who serves as its executive director.[2] A commonly cited chronology dates the festival’s start to 1982.[3] Its first New York edition that year screened six films, while a Jewish Week record dated December 27, 1981, titled “Israeli Film Festival—a first in New York—shows wide range of talent,” documents early press coverage surrounding the New York launch.[7][8]

Fenigstein has given differing accounts of the festival’s earliest stages. In a 2024 interview, he said the first festival he organized was held in Boston in 1981 while he was studying at Berklee College of Music. A local Jewish doctor placed an advertisement in the Boston Globe without his knowledge, after which all six screenings—covering 600 seats in total—sold out.[9] Fenigstein subsequently organized a festival in New York, and the enterprise expanded from there.[2] By 1986, an archived newspaper record was announcing the festival’s planned arrival in California.[10]

Fenigstein has described the festival as both a personal life project and an ideal rather than solely a business venture. Its purpose, in his account, was to connect Israeli cinema with Hollywood and present Israeli filmmaking as modern and innovative.[11]

The Los Angeles edition eventually ran for nearly two weeks across venues in the city and the San Fernando Valley.[12] By 2019, organizers reported that the festival had presented more than 1,000 feature films, documentaries, television dramas, and short films to nearly one million filmgoers and had brought hundreds of Israeli filmmakers to the United States.[1] Programming regularly included industry panels, tribute screenings, filmmaker question-and-answer sessions, and a presence at the American Film Market.[1]

The 2014 Los Angeles festival, its 28th edition, screened 28 narrative and documentary films and hosted nearly 20 guests from Israel. Its reported budget was $350,000, funded primarily by sponsors and supplemented by the Israel Film Fund, the Rabinovich Foundation, the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, and Israel’s Foreign Ministry; $40,000 was allocated for prizes.[11] Films shown that year included Zero Motivation, The Kindergarten Teacher, Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, The Farewell Party, The Go-Go Boys, and The Life as a Rumor.[11]

In 2015, the festival expanded from two weeks to three weeks and for the first time connected its programming with an Israeli pavilion at the American Film Market, creating an additional platform for Israeli films and industry contacts.[13] The 2017 edition added television-focused programming for the first time, screening 23 feature films, five documentaries, six shorts, and five television series.[14] That year, nearly 1,000 Israeli films had been screened in Los Angeles for close to one million viewers, and more than 450 Israeli filmmakers had visited through the festival.[14]

The festival’s roster of prominent Hollywood honorees and presenters has included Sacha Baron Cohen, Danny DeVito, Kirk Douglas, Michael Douglas, Dustin Hoffman, and Bette Midler.[8] Its 25th-anniversary celebration in Beverly Hills in 2010 featured a screening of Avi Nesher’s Once I Was and appearances by Arnon Milchan, Ryan Kavanaugh, Avi Lerner, Jon Landau, Richard Dreyfuss, Sylvester Stallone, and Dolph Lundgren.[15] The festival has also screened My First Sony, a made-for-television drama by Uri Barabash, an important member of the second wave of Israeli filmmakers that emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s. His work addresses mental illness, criminal rehabilitation, and the pressures of military basic training.[16]

A distinct event, the 3rd Annual Israel Film Center Festival, took place from June 4 through June 11, 2015, in New York City, with the Israel Forever Foundation serving as a partner.[17] The source does not establish that this event was an edition of Fenigstein’s Israel Film Festival, and the two similarly named programs should not be conflated.[17] Its program brought together narrative, documentary, and drama films directed by Israeli or Israel-connected filmmakers, addressing identity, immigration, religious and secular life, disability, sexuality, family, Jewish-Arab relations, and social conflict.[17]

Films screened included A Borrowed Identity by Eran Riklis, Anderswo (Anywhere Else) by Ester Amrami, Apples from the Desert by Matti Harari and Arik Lubetzki, Is That You? by Dani Menkin, Kicking Out Shoshana by Shay Kanot, The Kindergarten Teacher by Nadav Lapid, Next to Her by Asaf Korman, Sacred Sperm by Ori Gruder, Self Made by Shira Gefen, Touchdown Israel by Paul Hirschberger, Tuviansky by Riki Shelach, and Youth by Tom Shoval.[17] The program described Touchdown Israel as documenting American football’s spread through Israel and its participation by Israeli Jews, Muslims, Christians, Americans living in Israel, and religious settlers, characterizing the sport as a unifying activity within a complex, multifaceted society.[17]

The program presented Efraim Kishon’s Sallah Shabati as a satire about a Yemenite Jewish family brought to Israel during Operation Magic Carpet and placed in a government settlement camp, against the background of Israel’s absorption of hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.[17] The film won a Golden Globe Award, was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, and was credited by the program with helping place Israel on the international film stage.[17]

The program also described Tuviansky as based on the case of Captain Meyer Tuvianski, who was accused of treason six weeks after Israel’s establishment in 1948. According to its synopsis, he was arrested, tried, sentenced, and executed, then exonerated one year later.[17]

The festival faced significant operational disruptions beginning in 2020. Fenigstein reported that the 2020 festival was held online because of the COVID-19 pandemic, that the 2021 edition was postponed until May 2022, and that the festival planned after October 7 was successively delayed from December to March and then November.[9] He described the 2024 production as extremely difficult and said he chose not to postpone it further because repeated cancellations could undermine sponsors’ confidence.[9]

The 36th Los Angeles Israel Film Festival ran from November 13 through November 26, 2024, after a gap of more than two years.[18] It screened nearly 40 new Israeli narrative, documentary, and short films, hosted 15 Israeli filmmakers, and featured audience discussions and professional meetings with senior American film-industry figures.[18]

The opening film was Tom Nesher’s Come Closer, screened at a gala at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills.[2] The edition honored Mattel chairman and CEO Ynon Kreiz with an industry leadership award and presented a lifetime-achievement prize to Shaike Levi of the Israeli comedy trio HaGashash HaHiver.[2] Its program included a student-film competition named for Yahav Winner, who was murdered by terrorists on October 7 after helping his wife and baby escape.[2][18]

The festival introduced a panel of Israeli and American producers exploring possibilities for co-productions. Screenings took place at the Laemmle Royal Theatre in West Los Angeles, Laemmle Town Center 5 in Encino, and the Saban Theatre.[18] Total attendance exceeded 7,000 across more than 40 features, documentaries, and student short films shown at six theaters in Beverly Hills, West Los Angeles, and Encino.[19]

The 37th Israel Film Festival in Los Angeles opened on February 4, 2026, with a sold-out gala at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills and ran through February 19.[20] The opening film was Tom Shoval’s documentary A Letter to David.[20] The edition honored producer Lawrence Bender with the Visionary Award and filmmaker Eran Riklis with the Cinematic Achievement Award, and recognized 19 visiting Israeli filmmakers and actors during the opening event.[20]

The festival’s founding chronology varies by location and source. The Jewish Virtual Library and a 2015 Ynet interview identify 1982 as a starting point, with the latter associating that year with six Israeli films screened in Boston before Fenigstein organized a New York festival.[3][13] The Jerusalem Post and a separate 2024 Ynet interview place Fenigstein’s first Boston festival in 1981.[2][9] A 2014 Maariv interview states that the festival began in 1983, while a Ynet report dates the founding of the Los Angeles edition to 1985.[15][11] These accounts may describe successive stages—Boston screenings, a New York launch, and the establishment of the Los Angeles edition—rather than one fully documented founding moment, but the sources do not resolve the discrepancy.

The festival has faced disputes over political speech and institutional pressure. In November 2018, producer Jason Blum was booed and removed from the stage while delivering remarks criticizing President Donald Trump and linking his administration to rising antisemitism. Fenigstein described the episode as unprecedented at the festival, called it a tense moment, and stated that the festival was not a venue for politics.[21]

During the 2024 edition, Fenigstein reported that one participating cinema agreed to host screenings only under restrictions: the festival could not be advertised outside the venue, the initials “IFF” could not be displayed, and publicity could identify individual films but could not identify them as part of an Israeli film festival. He attributed these conditions to the venue owners’ concern that hosting a visible Israeli film festival might prompt some regular patrons to boycott the theater.[9]