The sixth Samaria Film Festival will feature films from Iran and Pakistan among its 70 offerings when it kicks off on November 5.
With screenings at 20 locations around the area, the weeklong festival is emphasizing documentary films about the issue of people with special needs, such as Elisheva by young filmmaker Yehudit Eber, about demanding care for her brother who deals with special needs in the face of her personal desire to get married and leave home, and the tension that arises from this.
Another screening will showcase a winner of the Jerusalem Film Festival’s documentary award, Malachi by Ido Bahat and Noam Damsky, which deals with the coping of a young man with a rare syndrome who was abandoned in the hospital, adopted by a family from Judea and Samaria, and meets his biological parents.
A celebration of cinema
The festival will hold a special tribute to much-loved singer and entertainer Yehoram Gaon, with many of his films being screened and a special award being presented to him.
“The film festival is not just a celebration of films, a cultural stage for original local creation, and for the unique human stories of Judea and Samaria and religious Zionism, taking the camera to places we have not yet seen and creating a meeting and dialogue between diverse audiences,” said festival director Esther Silam Alush.
“This is not just a celebration of cinema but a statement about Israeli culture as a whole – that it is precisely in Samaria that new opportunities for creation are born,” added artistic director Oren Reich.
For more information, see shomronfilmfestival.com/