Israeli Films of the 1960s

Israeli cinema averaged only 10–15 films annually from 1967 onward, and fewer before that — a modest output that nonetheless commanded remarkable domestic interest.[1] In the 1960s, the number of cinema tickets sold annually in Israel was comparable to the number sold in countries more than twice its size, reflecting how central the moviegoing experience was to Israeli cultural life.[1] Neighborhood cinemas reached a kind of golden age that was later ended by the arrival of television in the late 1960s and, eventually, by the development of large shopping malls, after which cinemas relocated to purpose-built multiplex complexes.[2]

Government policy played a direct role in making commercial filmmaking viable. Tax relief and retrospective reimbursement of some production costs, calculated according to ticket sales, helped transform Israeli cinema from a primarily propaganda enterprise into an industry with genuine economic potential.[5] Menahem Golan began his film career in this environment and sought to build a popular domestic industry during the early 1960s.[5][6] Scholar Rami Kimche, quoted by the National Library of Israel, called the bourekas genre that emerged in these years "an important stage" in Israeli cinema's development.[7]

Contact with international productions also helped expose the small local industry to large-scale filmmaking. Film critic Yair Raveh observed that Exodus — the 1960 Hollywood film starring Paul Newman, filmed in Israel by director Otto Preminger — was "the first time that the tiny Israeli film industry here was involved in the professionalism of a Hollywood production."[8] Such foreign productions should not be confused with homegrown Israeli films: Exodus (1960) and Cast a Giant Shadow (1966) were British or Hollywood productions that used Israel as a setting or historical backdrop.[9]

Three main currents defined Israeli filmmaking in the 1960s: the Heroic-Nationalist film, the bourekas comedy, and what came to be called Personal Cinema or the New Sensitivity.

The Heroic-Nationalist genre centered on national themes and used cinematic technique — photography, editing, music, and dynamic sequences — to glorify the building and defending of the land.[1] Films such as He Walked in the Fields (Yosef Milou, 1967) and Target Tiran (Rafi Nosbaum, 1968) are representative examples of the genre.[1] Uri Zohar's Every Bastard a King (1967) marked a point at which romantic themes began entering the nationalist framework, a transition that accelerated after the Six-Day War.[1]

Bourekas films — popular comedies or melodramas centered on ethnic tensions between Ashkenazi and Sephardi characters — became the decade's most commercially successful genre. They frequently centered on stereotypical immigrant characters and their relationships with one another and with the Israeli establishment.[2] These films typically featured ethnicity-based misunderstandings, often resolved by a mixed marriage, and generally ended happily; critics were largely dismissive, but audiences embraced them enthusiastically.[1]

Personal Cinema, also called the New Sensitivity, drew its inspiration from European Modernism and particularly from the French New Wave.[1] Critically acclaimed but commercially limited, it aimed to project an artistic vision of Israeli life rather than to entertain mass audiences. Hole in the Moon (Uri Zohar, 1964) and The Case of a Woman (Katmor, 1969) were sophisticated works that failed at the box office despite their artistic ambitions.[1] Toward the close of the decade, the Kayitz ("Young Israeli Cinema") group emerged and the auteur concept began to take hold among a new generation of filmmakers. These developments were linked partly to the Six-Day War, which altered Israel's self-image, and to audiences growing tired of Zionist fables.[4]

They Were Ten (1960) — Directed by Baruch Dienar, They Were Ten (הם היו עשרה) follows pioneers establishing a cooperative settlement in Ottoman-ruled Palestine and depicts their struggles with Ottoman authorities, relations with Arab neighbors, illness, water shortages, and internal tensions.[2] The Central Zionist Archives calls it one of the important films in Israeli cinema and identifies it as the first Hebrew-language film distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox.[2] It was also among the films that achieved growing success as the commercial Israeli industry developed after 1960.[5]

Blazing Sand (1960) — The first Israeli-German co-production, this English-language caper follows Israeli criminals searching for scrolls at a desert location to sell on the black market.[10] Its protagonist, Dina, is portrayed as an amoral Holocaust survivor and kibbutz dropout, played by Israeli actress Dahliah Lavi, with appearances by Uri Zohar, Oded Kotler, Gila Almagor, and Abi and Esther Ofarim.[10]

I Like Mike (1961) — Directed by Peter Frye and based on a play by Aharon Megged, I Like Mike satirizes Israelis' fantasies about the American dream through the story of Mike Abrahams, a Jewish Texas tycoon visiting Israel.[11] The film entered the official competition at the 14th Cannes Film Festival; critics generally considered it mediocre, though an Associated Press correspondent called it a pleasant surprise.[11]

Joseph the Dreamer (1962) — Produced by Yoram and Alina Gross, Joseph the Dreamer was the first full-length animated film produced in Israel and the Middle East.[11] Made on a reduced budget with a small crew, it used handmade rubber puppets and drew on the biblical story of Joseph.[11] It competed at Cannes, but Israeli audiences were unenthusiastic and the film played in Tel Aviv for only two weeks.[11]

El Dorado (1963) — Menahem Golan's debut feature as a director, El Dorado was adapted from a play by Yigal Mossinson and set in Jaffa's "Big District."[6] The Hebrew-Israeli film noir follows an ex-convict's return to Jaffa's criminal underworld and represented a deliberate break from the mobilized, heroic national cinema then prevalent in Israel.[6] It was among the films contributing to Israeli cinema's growing success in the early 1960s.[5]

Sallah Shabati (1964) — Written and directed by Ephraim Kishon and produced by Menahem Golan, Sallah Shabati became a landmark of the developing Israeli industry and is identified by the Central Zionist Archives as the first bourekas film.[2][12] It follows a new immigrant — the patriarch of a Yemenite Jewish family left in a transit-camp shack while awaiting promised housing — as he confronts the Israeli establishment and its bureaucracy.[3] Starring Chaim Topol, it shattered Israeli box-office records and attracted approximately 1.2 million viewers.[1][4] Kishon's satire drew arguments and condemnation for its critical treatment of party politics and bureaucracy, yet audiences, particularly Mizrahi audiences, embraced it.[13]

The film received a Golden Globe Award and earned Israel its first Academy Award nomination in the Best Foreign Language Film category.[3][9] The Israel Forever Foundation characterizes it as the film that put Israel on the international film stage for the first time.[3]

Hole in the Moon (1964) — Uri Zohar's Hole in the Moon became a prominent example of Personal Cinema or the New Sensitivity. It was critically acclaimed and sophisticated in form but failed commercially.[1]

1966 Was a Great Year for Tourism (1966) — Director Amit Goren used his own family as subjects in this film, using their story to demonstrate that "wandering Jews are not a thing of the past."[14]

I Am Ahmad (1966) — Made by Ram Loevy and Avshalom Katz, I Am Ahmad is identified as the first Israeli film to address Jewish-Arab relations within Israel and the first to feature an Israeli-Palestinian in a leading role.[15] The film depicts the discrimination faced by Ahmad as he leaves his village to work in Tel Aviv.[15] Its release sparked immediate controversy; although it cleared Israel's Film and Theatre Review Board before being shown, contemporary scholarship characterized the board as viewing critical narratives concerning discrimination against Arab citizens with suspicion.[15]

He Walked in the Fields (1967) — Directed by Yosef Milou, this Heroic-Nationalist film is named among the representative examples of a genre that glorified national struggle and the building of the land.[1]

Three Days and a Child (1967) — Directed by Uri Zohar and based on a short story by A. B. Yehoshua, Three Days and a Child follows Eli, a former kibbutz member living in Jerusalem, who is asked to look after the young son of a woman he once loved for three days.[4][16] The film is associated with the New Sensitivity movement and sought to project an artistic vision of Israeli life rather than national mythology.[4][16] Oded Kotler won the Best Actor Award at the 1967 Cannes Film Festival for his performance.[4]

Every Bastard a King (1967) — Directed by Uri Zohar, this film is described as a work within the Heroic-Nationalist genre in which romantic themes began to appear, marking a transition in the national cinema.[1]

Tevye and His Seven Daughters (1968) — Directed by Menahem Golan and starring Shmuel Rodensky and Betty Segal, this adaptation of Sholem Aleichem's stories was characterized by Golan himself as an epic about the transition from exile toward Jewish national awakening.[11] The film was selected for Cannes' official competition, but the 1968 festival was canceled before it could be screened.[11]

Target Tiran (1968) — Directed by Rafi Nosbaum, Target Tiran is listed among the Heroic-Nationalist films of the late 1960s.[1]

Te'alat Blaumilch / The Big Dig — Written and directed by Ephraim Kishon, this comedy concerns a man who escapes a mental institution and begins drilling up Tel Aviv's Moghrabi Square. Municipal officials facing an election misinterpret the excavation as a political scheme and decide to continue it.[17] The film has been described as a prescient satire on Israeli bureaucracy and municipal dysfunction.[9]

Israeli filmmakers and entrepreneurs of the decade harbored genuine international ambitions, though not all such ventures succeeded. In 1966, film entrepreneur Alex Hacohen received permission to establish a large Wild West-style film set near Eilat, modeled on sets used in American western productions.[8] The project proved a commercial failure: only three films were made there during the set's five years of existence, and the site usually looked abandoned.[8]

More durable was the international recognition won by individual productions. They Were Ten became the first Hebrew-language film distributed internationally by Twentieth Century Fox.[2] I Like Mike and Joseph the Dreamer entered competition at Cannes, and Three Days and a Child brought home the festival's Best Actor Award.[11][4] Tevye and His Seven Daughters was selected for Cannes' official competition in 1968 but could not be screened when the festival was canceled.[11] The Golden Globe and first Israeli Academy Award nomination earned by Sallah Shabati demonstrated that a locally produced Hebrew-language satire could reach an international audience.[3][9]

Several directors defined the character of 1960s Israeli cinema through repeated contributions to multiple genres.

Ephraim Kishon achieved major international recognition. His Sallah Shabati (1964) and the later The Policeman (1971) were both nominated for the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.[9] Sallah Shabati remained a fixture in Hebrew-language training classes decades after its release and challenged the self-important idealism common in Israeli public life and cinema of the period.[4] His late-decade work Te'alat Blaumilch continued in a satirical vein, lampooning municipal bureaucracy.[17]

Menahem Golan began his film career during this decade, producing Sallah Shabati and directing El Dorado (1963), his feature debut, as well as Tevye and His Seven Daughters (1968).[12][11] He pursued popular commercial filmmaking during a period when the domestic industry was only beginning to acquire sustained economic potential.[5][6]

Uri Zohar was a central figure in Personal Cinema. His Hole in the Moon (1964) pushed Israeli filmmaking toward a sophisticated modernist style, while Three Days and a Child (1967) became associated with the New Sensitivity and earned the Cannes Best Actor Award for Oded Kotler.[1][4] Zohar also worked within the Heroic-Nationalist genre with Every Bastard a King (1967), demonstrating his range across the decade's competing currents.[1]

The 1967 Six-Day War marked a cultural watershed for Israeli filmmaking. It changed Israel's view of itself and contributed to audiences becoming less receptive to familiar Zionist fables, while filmmakers increasingly sought new forms through which to depict Israeli life.[4] In the post-war period, materialism and individualism entered Israeli films, with the national film gradually giving way to both commercially dominant Class Cinema — later called the bourekas genre — and artistically ambitious Personal Cinema.[1]

The Kayitz ("Young Israeli Cinema") movement emerged in the late 1960s, bringing with it the auteur concept and French New Wave influences that would help define the next decade's filmmaking.[4] At the same time, television entered Israeli public life in the late 1960s and contributed to the gradual decline of neighborhood cinemas.[2] Together, these forces — war, television, and a new generation of filmmakers — ensured that Israeli cinema at the close of the decade looked very different from what it had been when They Were Ten made its international debut through Twentieth Century Fox in 1960.

One significant source conflict concerns Sallah Shabati's Academy Award record. The Central Zionist Archives states that the film received the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film, while the Jerusalem Post and other sources identify it as Israel's first nominee in the category.[2][9] The nomination account is followed throughout this article because it is supported by multiple independent sources.

The research underlying this article produced a selection of significant films and historical observations rather than an exhaustive year-by-year filmography. Films set in Israel during the 1960s, including Exodus and Cast a Giant Shadow, are explicitly identified as foreign productions rather than homegrown Israeli films and have been treated accordingly.[9]