Shai Ginsburg teaches Israeli Cultural Studies at Duke University. He works on modern Jewish politics and ideologies ,and publishes on literature, cinema, and history. He also works on critical theory. Ginsburg previously wrote film reviews for Tikkun and Zeek.
As in 2012, the biggest winners of this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival were debuts by two young and promising directors. Tom Shoval’s Youth received The Haggiag Awards for Israeli Cinema for Full Length Film, and Maya Dreifuss’ She Is Coming Home received the Pirchi Family Award for Best Debut. (More…)
The Gatekeepers is like a history lesson. It’s subject is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict since the 1967 war. The instructors are the five former heads of the Shin Bet: Israel’s General Security Service (GSS): Avraham Shalom (who headed the Shabak between 1980-1986;) Yaakov Peri (1988-1994;) Carmi Gilon (1995-1996; Ami Ayalon (1996-2000;) Avi Dichter (2000-2005;) and Yuval Diskin (2005-2011.) (More…)
Documentaries featured prominently at this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival. The two award winners, Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi’s Five Broken Cameras, and Ran Tal’s The Garden of Eden, were decidedly deserving. Similarly contending with the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they could not be more different. Not just in terms of perspective, but in the correspondence between their respective production values, and their subject matter. (More…)
Israel is not just bedeviled by the occupation. It also struggles internally, with every manner of social problem. The two biggest winners of this year’s Jerusalem Film Festival could not do a better job of underlining this. Both films explore the insinuation of violence in Israeli society, by looking at the country’s Mizrahi and Bedouin communities. (More…)
Moshe Feiglin is not known for his film criticism. A high ranking member of Israel’s ruling Likud party, the right-winger is better known for his extremist views. Yet, two months ago, he published one of the most important aesthetic pronouncements to be made in Israel in recent years. (More…)