Israeli Films Before 1960

Cinema in Ottoman and British Mandate Palestine preceded Israeli statehood and was dominated less by feature films than by documentaries, newsreels, and promotional shorts. Before the 1950s, very few features were made, while Zionist institutions including the Jewish Agency and Jewish National Fund financed films aimed largely at overseas audiences.[5]

The category therefore combines works made before 1948 with productions of the early state, and it includes dramatic features alongside educational films, archival compilations, and newsreels.[6][7] Its milestones are described using different criteria, especially language and sound.[3][4] Questions of national production and international distribution further complicate classification.[8][9]

The history of filmmaking in the region now known as Israel begins remarkably early. Train Station in Jerusalem was filmed in 1896, when the land was under Ottoman control, by the French Lumière brothers; it is recognized as one of the first motion pictures ever made and is known for its panoramic views of the city.[10][1]

The decades that followed saw cinema emerge as a vehicle for Zionist advocacy. Before the 1950s, very few feature films were made in Palestine; instead, Zionist organizations such as the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund funded informational shorts, documentaries, newsreels, and promotional films, primarily for distribution abroad.[5] A notable early example was Eretz Yisrael Mitoreret (Eretz Israel Awakens, 1923), directed by Ben-Dov, which followed an affluent American Jewish cotton broker who returns to the land of his ancestors and visits figures, towns, and kibbutzim of the yishuv.[5]

The National Library of Israel identifies Natan Axelrod's Judea Liberated (Yehuda Ha'meshukhreret) as a Hebrew motion picture produced in this pre-statehood period. It incorporated material filmed by Ben-Dov that the source describes as the first Hebrew motion picture, though this claim, like others regarding the period's "firsts," depends on the criteria being applied.[11] Axelrod also produced the Carmel Newsreels collection, described by the National Library as a series produced by the Film Pioneers in Israel; one 1951 item, Immigration from North Africa, compiled clips following Jewish immigrants from North Africa through their absorption into Israel.[7]

Oded the Wanderer (Oded ha-Noded) was released in 1932 or 1933, depending on the source.[5][10] It is identified as the first feature-length film in Hebrew.[3][10] Directed by Chaim Halachmi, it tells the story of a young sabra who becomes separated from his classmates during a school trip, and didactically emphasizes working the land and restoring a Jewish connection to it.[5][10] The film is grouped with other early works that foregrounded the land and nature, Zionist pioneers, Jewish labor, and the liberal and humanistic dimensions of Zionism.[5]

Sabra (1933), directed by Alexander Ford, was another key Zionist film of the era. Its opening sequence contrasts a wasteland and traditional Arab agricultural methods with the pioneer-hero's efforts to restore fertility by freeing natural waters through digging — a motif that would recur throughout the pre-1960 period.[12]

The Land of Promise (1935), directed by Yehuda Lehman, also rendered as Juda Leman, is identified by the National Library of Israel as the first Palestine sound picture.[4] Running 57 minutes, the black-and-white film was produced for Keren Hayesod and featured halutzim, recent refugees from Europe, and scenes of commerce, agriculture, and industry.[4][13] Part documentary, part travelogue, and part advocacy film, it was preserved by the International Museum of Photography at George Eastman House.[13]

Avodah (1935), a 50-minute black-and-white documentary directed by Helmar Lerski, celebrated the pioneering labor of Jewish settlers in Palestine, recording technological and agricultural accomplishments and glorifying the idea of a socialist Jewish state. Its footage included Jaffa port, Tel Aviv, and kibbutzim, and the film has been preserved by the Israel Film Archive.[13]

On the Ruins (1936), directed by Nathan Axelrod, was another key production of the decade.[5] Hatikvah: The Hope (1936), a 48-minute silent film produced by the German Zionist Union with German and English subtitles, was created to inspire German Jews under Nazi rule to make aliyah. It combined early Zionist history with footage of Zionist leaders, Jewish settlement work in Palestine, and Jewish religious life.[13]

The National Library of Israel's archival record of Hebrew University footage preserves a window into institutional filmmaking of the period, listing My People's Dream (1934), Israel's House of Wisdom (1944), and Inauguration of the Hebrew University Faculty of Medicine (1949) among a historical film compilation.[6] These titles reflect the documentary and commemorative functions that cinema served during this transitional decade.

My Father's House (Bet Avi, 1947), directed by Herbert Kline, is listed among the key early Zionist films concerned with the land, nature, Zionist pioneers, and Jewish labor.[5][14] A companion work in the thematic landscape of 1947 is The Great Promise, associated with Joseph Lejtes, in which Holocaust survivors undergo a form of psychological rebirth through identification with the Zionist project in Palestine.[14]

After the establishment of the State of Israel in 1948, filmmaking became more organized and served a dual purpose: propaganda for foreign audiences and a pedagogical function for new immigrants.[5] The National Library of Israel's Hebrew University archival record continues into the early statehood years with The House on the Hill (1950) and Israel Film Magazine (1957) among titles in the compilation.[6]

Geva Films, identified as one of the earliest Israeli film studios, produced educational and promotional films during this period. Israel on the March (c. early 1950s), written and directed by Y. Zaretski, was made in part to raise money for the Jewish National Fund and presented scenes of the young state, including the Negev, Beersheba, Masada, Ein Gedi, agricultural development, water projects, and border defense.[15] A companion production, Israel — Land of Contrasts (c. early 1950s), directed by Nathan Gross and narrated by Haim Hefer, was presented by Israel's Ministry of Commerce and Industry and depicted Jewish immigration alongside landscapes, ports, agriculture, industry, tourism, and religious and cultural communities.[16]

Faithful City (1952), an Israeli dramatic feature set during the War of Independence, is listed by Hebrew Union College among films produced by Jewish or Israeli filmmakers during the postwar period. A comment published with a Jewish Review of Books article states that RKO released it in the United States on April 7, 1952.[8][9] The same comment argues that it preceded Hill 24 Doesn't Answer as an Israeli dramatic feature receiving international distribution.[8]

Out of Evil (1952), directed by Joseph Krumgold, explored the tension between Holocaust victimhood and the armed self-image of the New Jew. Its opening and closing sequences show a Holocaust survivor in a fortified position overlooking Jerusalem under siege in 1948, aiming his rifle at the Arab enemy and employing the early Zionist cinema's wasteland-and-restoration motif in a new, post-Holocaust context.[14]

Hill 24 Doesn't Answer (1955), directed by British filmmaker Thorold Dickinson from stories by Zvi Kolitz, stands as the most prominent achievement of Israeli cinema in this period.[8][2] With a reported budget of $400,000 and a running time of 101 minutes, it was an unusually ambitious production.[8] It was the first Israeli feature film to enter the official competition at the Cannes Film Festival.[2] The Israeli newspaper Davar reported in May 1955 that the film was successful at Cannes both artistically and commercially, while producer Jack Padua said it was better appreciated at Cannes than in Israel.[2]

The film follows four soldiers of diverse backgrounds — an Irish former British Mandate policeman, an American Jew, an Ashkenazi sabra, and a Yemenite Israeli nurse named Esther — who must seize the strategic Hill 24 before a truce takes effect at 4 a.m. on July 18, 1948.[8] After a historical prologue, the film shows the four soldiers dead on the hill and uses flashbacks to tell their stories. In the final scene, UN truce supervisors find an Israeli flag clutched in Esther's hand, proof that the patrol claimed the hill for Israel.[8]

Music was composed by Paul Ben-Haim and performed by the IDF Symphony Orchestra, with prominent appearances by Haya Harareet and Shoshana Damari. The film was released in the United States by Continental on November 2, 1955, and Martin Scorsese later called it "a unique film."[8] It became a leading manifestation of the early heroic-pioneer form, in which sacrifice, national defense, and the building of the land occupied the center of the narrative.[5][10]

The closing years of the decade produced two further landmarks of the heroic-nationalist genre. Pillar of Fire (Ammud ha-Esh, 1959), directed by Larry Frisch, placed national issues at the center of its plot and used cinematic technique to glorify the building and defense of the land.[5]

They Were Ten (1959), directed by Baruch Dienar, continued the Zionist master narrative established in earlier decades. The film depicts a pioneer-hero who forces Arab peasants to surrender water rights; an Arab jar and plough blade serve as symbols of the process by which wasteland is transformed into fertile ground.[12] It is also listed among the key films of the decade's heroic-nationalist genre.[5]

Also dated to 1959 is Israel, a documentary created by Exodus author Leon Uris, composer Elmer Bernstein, and narrator Edward G. Robinson. Hebrew Union College lists it among films of limited distribution produced by Jewish or Israeli filmmakers, though its classification as a strictly Israeli national production is not established by the source.[9]

The later archival breadth of Israeli documentary film is reflected in a 1997 Library of Congress report. The Embassy of Israel presented more than 100 Israeli documentary films on videocassette under a 1950 bilateral agreement concerning the exchange of official publications.[17]

Across the pre-1960 period, a cluster of recurring themes defined the output. The wasteland-and-restoration motif — in which barren or poorly cultivated land is transformed by Jewish pioneering labor — appears in Sabra, Land of Promise, They Were Ten, and Out of Evil.[12] Films and newsreels also presented the ingathering of exiles from diverse backgrounds: Hill 24 Doesn't Answer assembled an Irishman, an American Jew, an Ashkenazi sabra, and a Yemenite nurse, while Immigration from North Africa documented the absorption of another wave of newcomers.[7][8]

The Holocaust became an increasingly explicit frame after statehood. Films such as The Great Promise and Out of Evil used the figure of the survivor to dramatize the contrast between European victimhood and the armed, land-rooted identity of the New Jew — a contrast resolved, in cinematic terms, by the survivor's integration into the Zionist project.[14]

Production infrastructure remained limited throughout the period. Geva Films was among the earliest studios, and the Carmel Newsreels produced by Natan Axelrod represented an important strand of ongoing documentary production.[7][15] The absence of television and art-house exhibition venues during the early statehood years meant that cinema operated almost entirely through commercial theaters, shaping the kinds of films that could reach audiences.[18]

Early productions gave cinema a sustained role in presenting Zionist settlement, Jewish labor, immigration, and state-building to audiences in Palestine and abroad.[5] After statehood, film also served new-immigrant education and a national heroic narrative, while Hill 24 Doesn't Answer brought the young industry's work into Cannes's official competition.[5][2]

Documentary and newsreel collections preserved scenes of immigration, development, institutions, and defense that later became part of substantial archival holdings.[7][17] Together, these works established themes and production practices that later Israeli filmmakers would revise or challenge.[5][12]

The category "Israeli films before 1960" is historically complex. Works produced before May 1948 were made in British Mandate Palestine or Ottoman Palestine, not in the State of Israel; sources variously classify them as films of Palestine, Hebrew films, or Zionist films rather than Israeli national productions.[5][10] The available sources do not present a single, agreed-upon canonical filmography for the period, and several titles documented here are documentaries, newsreels, or archival compilation segments rather than feature films in the conventional sense.[6][7]

Competing claims attach to the period's milestones. The National Library of Israel identifies Oded the Wanderer as the first feature film in Hebrew in Israel.[3] The Land of Promise is called the first Palestine sound picture in the institution's catalog.[4] An NLI blog post describes material incorporated into Judea Liberated as the first Hebrew motion picture.[11] These formulations reflect the different criteria applied to language, length, and sound.

Sources also differ on the release year of Oded the Wanderer, with My Jewish Learning giving 1933 and Encyclopedia.com giving 1932.[5][10] Hill 24 Doesn't Answer is described as an Israeli feature and a pioneering work of the Israeli film industry, while its director and principal producers were British.[8][2] These descriptions likewise reflect different standards for assigning a film's national identity.