Israeli Films of 2010

A September 2010 review of Israeli cinema reported that more than 20 films were produced locally that year, while 18 feature films were submitted to the Ophir competition.[1]

The year's biggest commercial success was Zohi Sdom, directed by Muli Segev and Adam Sanderson, which drew more than 400,000 viewers in a single month of screening.[1] Avi Nesher's Once I Was — later known internationally as The Matchmaker — had attracted roughly 270,000 viewers by September of that year.[1] Other titles identified as part of the year's theatrical landscape included Genesis Land, The Singles, Phobidilia, There Were Nights, Honor, The Sea Bride, and Maya.[1]

The Jerusalem Film & Television Fund, established in 2008 to promote audiovisual production in Jerusalem and expand local employment in the film industry, supported 48 films and eight television series between 2010 and 2016, providing funding toward production costs, guidance with bureaucracy, help identifying filming locations, and connections to industry professionals.[4]

The Human Resources Manager, directed by Eran Riklis and written by Noah Stollman, was produced by Haim and Esti Makelberg.[5] Adapted from A. B. Yehoshua's novel A Woman in Jerusalem, the film follows a company's human resources manager who must escort the body of a foreign worker — killed in a Jerusalem terror bombing — back to her Eastern European homeland.[6] Riklis described it as a winter road movie and said half the film was shot in Romania. He also changed the protagonist's boss from a man to a woman, a departure from the novel that Yehoshua approved.[6] The film won five Ophir Awards in 2010, including Best Film and Best Director,[3] and received the Audience Award at the Locarno Film Festival.[1]

Intimate Grammar, written and directed by Nir Bergman and produced by Assaf Amir of Libretto Films–Norma Productions, was adapted from David Grossman's novel of the same name.[5] It won Best Film at the Jerusalem International Cinema Festival in 2010 and the Tokyo Sakura Award at the Japan Festival in 2010.[5] It led the Ophir nominations with 12 nods.[7]

Avi Nesher's The Matchmaker (submitted to Ophir under its original title Once I Was) is set in Haifa in 1968 and follows a teenage boy whose father is a Holocaust survivor; the boy takes a job spying on clients for a mysterious matchmaker who also survived the Holocaust.[8] The theater at the center of the film, run by two siblings who survived Auschwitz and which showed mostly Indian romances, was based on a real Haifa theater Nesher discovered while researching the period.[8] Both The Matchmaker and The Human Resources Manager were nominated for Ophir Awards and screened in Toronto International Film Festival's Contemporary World Cinema program; a contemporary report described both as portraits of Israeli society that are not overtly political.[9]

Man Without a Cell Phone, the debut feature of director Sameh Zoabi, was released in 2010 as a comedy.[10] Its young Israeli-Arab protagonist initially welcomes the news that his village will receive a cell phone tower, only to turn against it when he learns the installation will destroy his father's olive grove — ultimately organizing a protest against the new technology.[10]

Phobidilia, co-directed by brothers Doron Paz and Yoav Paz, centers on a recluse who is about to be forced out of his apartment.[2] Described as a heavy art-house film, it received strong critical reviews and screened at major festivals, though it did not attract wide audiences.[2]

2048, directed by Yaron Kaftori, imagines a dystopian future in which Israel has ceased to exist and is fading from historical memory.[11]

Rabies (2010), directed by Aharon Keshales and Navot Papushado, is identified as the first film in a wave of Israeli horror cinema.[2] Its plot follows four friends who become lost in a forest while hiking and encounter, among other threats, a psychopathic killer and a corrupt policeman.[2] Producer Chilik Michaeli attributed the film's success to the directors' willingness to subvert horror conventions rather than follow them — a spirit captured in the filmmakers' own framing of the genre's usual rules.[2]

The five nominees for the 2010 Ophir Award for Best Feature Film were Intimate Grammar (Nir Bergman), The Guide to the Revolution (Doron Tsabari), Once I Was (Avi Nesher), The Human Resources Manager (Eran Riklis), and Mabul (Guy Nattiv).[7] Additional films represented in the acting, craft, and directing nominations included X-Presence (Eitan Tzur), Maya, Between Two Suns (Alon Zingman), Andante (Assaf Tagger), Zohi Sdom, and The Infiltrators (Dover Koshashvili).[7]

The Human Resources Manager won Best Feature Film and four additional Ophir awards, including Best Director for Riklis; its victory made it Israel's official submission for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[3] Once I Was took the awards for lead actor and lead actress; Mabul won a supporting-actor prize; The Guide to the Revolution won awards for editing and original music; and The Infiltrators received the cinematography award.[3]

The 2010 Ophir Award for Best Documentary went to Shlomi Eldar's Precious Life, which defeated Yael Hersonski's A Film Unfinished — described as its main competitor — despite both documentaries having attracted significant international attention.[3] Precious Life follows Palestinian infant Mohammed Abu Mustafa, who was transferred with his mother from Gaza to Israel for treatment after Eldar's television report drew attention to his condition; the film was subsequently shortlisted among 15 documentary features for an Academy Award.[12]

The 26th Haifa International Film Festival, held September 23–30, 2010, featured an Israeli program encompassing feature films, television dramas, documentaries, and shorts.[13] Films in the eight-title Israeli feature competition were The Human Resources Manager, X-Presence, Between Two Suns, J'taime I Love You Terminal (Dani Menkin), Mabul, Sarq Sarq (Haim Bouzaglo), A Man Without a Cell Phone, and Nika (Arnon Zadok).[13]

DOKAviv, Tel Aviv's documentary film festival, held its 2010 edition at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque from May 6 to 15.[14] The program included a 14-film Israeli documentary competition, seven student films, and five special Israeli screenings.[14] Competition titles included Even When My Eyes Are Open (Ofir Trainin), a portrait of musician Gabriel Belachsan; The Invisible (Gil Karni), filmed over twelve years in a Bedouin village seeking official recognition; and Blood Relations (Noa Ben Hagi), about a family reconnecting with a relative who had disappeared in 1943 and was later found living near Nablus.[14]

The placement of certain films in the 2010 year presents some ambiguity in the sources. Ajami, a film telling five interlocking stories of Muslims, Jews, and Christians in the Jaffa neighborhood of Ajami — co-directed by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani and performed by amateur community actors — is labeled as a 2010 film in one source but won the Ophir Award for Best Picture in an awards cycle reported in 2009; the available sources do not clarify whether the discrepancy reflects release year, awards timing, or a different year convention.[15][16]

The Ophir category placement of The Guide to the Revolution was also disputed: the film was accepted into the Best Feature Film competition despite objections from some who characterized it as a documentary. The Israeli Film Academy's stated rationale, as reported, was that half the film was scripted and staged as a feature.[7]