Jerusalem Film Festival

Lia and Wim van Leer began screening films at their home in Haifa in 1955, the same year they founded the Israel Film Club there.[2][3] They established film clubs in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem in 1956 and founded the Israel Film Archive in 1960.[2] The Haifa and Jerusalem Cinematheques followed in 1972 and 1973, respectively, creating the institutional setting from which the festival later emerged.[2]

The Jerusalem Cinematheque was established in 1973. With assistance from Jerusalem mayor Teddy Kollek, the Ostrovsky family, and the Jerusalem Foundation, van Leer later built its permanent Jerusalem Film Center premises near the Old City, which opened in 1981.[2][5] The cinematheque housed the Jerusalem Film Center and archive and screened films seven nights a week.[2] Its holdings have included 30,000 films, 50,000 negatives, and 20,000 videos and cassettes, together with a library and education department; its Jewish-film collection has been described as the world’s largest.[2] These figures describe the collection at the time of the reference account rather than a current inventory.[2]

Van Leer’s work in programming and archiving helped establish film in Israel as an expression of culture and art supported by government agencies.[5] After serving as a judge at the Cannes Film Festival in 1983, she founded the Jerusalem Film Festival the following year.[2]

The first festival opened on May 17, 1984, under Lia van Leer, then the Jerusalem Cinematheque’s first director, and presented 100 films from 20 countries.[1][3] Its prominent guests included Warren Beatty, Lillian Gish, and Jeanne Moreau.[6] An anecdote from that first edition recounts Moreau’s dissatisfaction with receiving less attention than Gish and with the amenities at her guest house; van Leer responded by arranging additional comforts for her.[6] In 1988, van Leer hosted a large delegation from Russia at the festival.[2]

The festival developed Israeli competitions alongside its international screenings, and films premiering in those competitions included Eran Kolirin’s The Band’s Visit, Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani’s Ajami, and Samuel Maoz’s Lebanon.[6] Van Leer also made a point of screening works by Israeli Arab and Palestinian filmmakers; Tawfik Abu Wael’s Atash won a top festival prize in 2004.[6]

At the 35th edition in 2018, The Dive and Red Cow jointly won the Haggiag Prize for Best Israeli Feature Film, the first tie in that competition since 2004.[7] The two films also shared the Anat Pirchi Award for Best First Film.[7] Prizes across the festival’s competitions totaled NIS 700,000 that year.[7]

Following two years disrupted by the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival announced a return to its regular format for its 39th edition, scheduled for July 21–31, 2022.[8] The planned program comprised more than 200 films from 50 countries, including Israeli premieres and films that had received awards at international festivals.[8] That year’s international frameworks included the International Competition for feature films, Firstborn for emerging filmmakers, and Masters for new works by established directors.[3] Other programs included In the Spirit of Freedom, devoted to the pursuit of freedom and justice; the Chantal Akerman Prize for innovative treatments of events or true stories; and Art at the Junction, an experimental-cinema framework operated with the Mamuta Art and Media Center.[3]

For its 40th year in 2023, the festival was scheduled for July 13–23, primarily at the Jerusalem Cinematheque, with approximately 200 films from more than 50 countries.[9] Plans included films recognized at major international festivals, special events, master classes, and free neighborhood screenings throughout Jerusalem.[9] Guy Nattiv’s Golda was selected for the opening screening at the Sultan’s Pool amphitheater, while Justine Triet’s Anatomy of a Fall was the closing film.[9]

The 41st edition took place on July 18–27, 2024, with a program combining international premieres, Israeli cinema, and films recognized at Berlin, Cannes, Venice, and Sundance.[10] Before the event, organizers anticipated approximately 70,000 visitors from Israel and abroad, including an audience of 6,000 for the outdoor opening at Sultan’s Pool.[10] Jerusalem Cinematheque director Roni Mahdav-Levin headed the festival, while artistic leadership was passing from Elad Smorzik to Or Sigoli.[10] Supporting institutions included the Ministry of Culture, the Van Leer Foundation, and the Jerusalem Foundation.[10]

The 2024 Israeli selection comprised eight full-length narrative films in the Hajjaj competition, eight full-length documentaries in the Diamond competition, 17 short films, and eight works of video art and experimental cinema.[11] It also featured a restored print of Shimon Dotan’s 1986 film The Smile of the Lamb.[11] Among the narrative features was Yousef Abo Madegem’s Eid, identified as the first feature film directed by a member of the Bedouin community.[12] The program included special documentary screenings as well as the documentary competition.[12]

The 2025 edition opened with the first Israeli screening of Joachim Trier’s Sentimental Value, which had received the Grand Prix at Cannes.[13] Its program included about 200 screenings of films from 50 countries, and opening-ceremony honors went to Israeli actor Gal Gadot and American producer Lawrence Bender.[13]

The 43rd edition ran from July 9–19, 2026, with approximately NIS 1 million offered across its competitions, most of it for Israeli filmmakers and film professionals.[4][14] It opened with Moshe Rosenthal’s Israeli film Tell Me Everything (Atzma’ut) at an outdoor event facing Jerusalem’s Old City walls.[4][14] The opening drew 6,000 people despite concerns about possible further escalation with Iran, and the festival remained centered at the Jerusalem Cinematheque.[14]

The festival’s Israeli competitions have premiered films including The Band’s Visit, Ajami, and Lebanon.[6] Competition lineups have often included works that subsequently received major international recognition, including Oscar nominations.[6]

Competition awards have also provided financial support for filmmaking: the total prize pool rose from NIS 700,000 in 2018 to approximately NIS 1 million in the 2024 program.[7][11] The festival described its annual awards of about NIS 1 million as support for film art, with most of the money going to Israeli filmmakers and cinema professionals.[10] A similar allocation was announced for the 2026 edition.[4]

Retrospective accounts center the festival’s history on van Leer’s institution-building and her effort to make international and art-house cinema accessible in Israel.[5][6] Van Leer expressed her programming ambition in direct terms: “I want to show films that wouldn’t be seen here otherwise, to give people a look at different worlds.”[6] The festival has combined that commitment to international cinema with a platform for emerging Israeli filmmakers.[3]

Across recent editions, the broad program has encompassed international features, documentaries, experimental work, programs for emerging and established directors, and Israeli competitions.[3][10] In the Spirit of Freedom focuses on freedom and justice, while the Chantal Akerman Prize recognizes innovative treatments of events or true stories.[3] Individual editions have differed in scale: the 2022 program planned more than 200 films from 50 countries, while the 2025 edition reported about 200 screenings from 50 countries.[8][13]

Israeli competitions encompass feature, documentary, short, and experimental films, alongside a competition for high-school students named for Wim van Leer.[12] The Israeli feature-film competition was known as the Haggiag Competition in 2022, having previously been called the Wolgin Competition.[3] The 2024 program also paired established competition categories with debut films and experimental cinema, providing distinct settings for different forms and stages of filmmaking.[10]

The Wim van Leer Young Creation competition was founded in 1991 in his memory.[11] By the 2024 account, it received more than 100 fiction and documentary submissions annually from dozens of schools, with about 16 films advancing to the official competition.[11] Its prizes totaled approximately NIS 10,000.[11] Alongside these student opportunities, the festival’s free neighborhood screenings and master classes have extended its activities beyond competition screenings at the cinematheque.[9]

In 2012, festival posters featuring a woman were defaced; van Leer publicly objected and arranged for replacement posters.[6]

A larger programming dispute arose in 2015 over Beyond the Fear, a documentary about Yigal Amir and his family initially scheduled for the official documentary competition.[15] Culture Minister Miri Regev said ministry support would be withdrawn if the film remained within the festival week, after which organizers moved its screening to several days before the festival while retaining it in the program and keeping it eligible for the documentary award.[15] Regev welcomed the change and urged the public not to watch the film even outside the festival.[15] Jerusalem Cinematheque and festival CEO Noa Regev characterized the move as a compromise with public feeling rather than a decision caused by the minister’s threats.[16]

During the 2025 festival, artistic director Or Sigoli described difficulties obtaining films amid what he characterized as a cultural boycott of Israel.[13] He distinguished refusals by some filmmakers from decisions by rights-holders to reserve films for awards season, cautioning that the latter did not necessarily have political motives.[13] He also described discussions with a filmmaker whose concerns involved her family in East Jerusalem and Palestinian heritage, and who ultimately decided not to proceed.[13]