Cinema of Israel

in The Policeman Movies were made in Mandatory Palestine from the beginning of the silent film era although the development of the local film industry accelerated after the establishment of the state. Early films were mainly documentary or news roundups, shown in cinemas before the movie started. The earliest film shot entirely in Mandatory Palestine was Murray Rosenberg's 1911 documentary, The First Film of Palestine. In 1933, a children's book by Zvi Lieberman Oded ha-noded was made into a silent film called Oded the Wanderer, Palestine"s first full-length feature film for children, produced on a shoestring budget with private financing. In 1938, another book by Lieberman, Me’al ha-khoravot was made into a film called Over the Ruins, which tells the story of children in a Second Temple Jewish village in the Galilee where all the adults were killed by the Romans. It is 70-minutes with a soundtrack and dialogue. Lieberman wrote the screenplay. Produced by Nathan Axelrod and directed by Alfred Wolf. Production costs came to 1,000 Palestine pounds. It failed at the box office but is considered a precursor of Israeli cinema. One of the precursors of cinema in Israel was Baruch Agadati. Agadati purchased cinematographer Yaakov Ben Dov's film archives in 1934 when Ben Dov retired from filmmaking and together with his brother Yitzhak established the AGA Newsreel. In 1935, he directed a film entitled This is the Land (Zot Hi Haaretz). == History ==

In 1948, Yosef Navon, a soundman, and Abigail Diamond, American producer of the first Hebrew-language film at age 15, Baruch Agadati, found an investor, businessman , who invested his own money in film and lab equipment. Agadati used his connections among Haganah comrades to acquire land for a studio. In 1949 the Geva Films studio was established on the site of an abandoned woodshed in Givatayim. In 2013 two documentaries were nominated the Oscar for the Best Feature Documentary: The Gatekeepers (Dror Moreh) and Five Broken Cameras, a Palestinian-Israeli-French co-production (Emad Burnat and Guy Davidi). In 2019, Synonyms (Nadav Lapid) won the Golden Bear award at the 69th Berlin International Film Festival. In 2021, Ahed's Knee, directed too by Lapid, was selected to compete for the Palme d'Or at the 2021 Cannes Film Festival and shared the Jury Prize. Author Julie Gray notes, "Israeli film is certainly not new in Israel, but it is fast gaining attention in the U.S., which is a double-edged sword. American distributors feel that the small American audience interested in Israeli film, are squarely focused on the turbulent and troubled conflict that besets us daily." In 2014 Israeli-made films sold 1.6 million tickets in Israel, the best in Israel's film history. ==Genres==

Documentary films Israeli and Zionist documentary films were shot both before and after 1948, often with the purpose of not just informing Jews living elsewhere, but also for attracting donations from them and for persuading them to immigrate. Among the pioneers who were active both as photographers and cinematographers are Ya'acov Ben-Dov (1882–1968) and Lazar Dünner (most often spelled Dunner; 1912–1994). Dünner first worked as a cinematographer, gradually moving into other film-making tasks. In 1937 he shot the 15-minute film "A Day in Degania", in full colour, giving us a document about the first kibbutz some 27 years after it being established, and with the Nazi threat still "just" as a background threat, not fully mentioned by name. In 1949, after years of war, Dünner would start churning out short documentaries of this type, narrated in English for the benefit of the mainly US public. Bourekas films Bourekas films (סרטי בורקס) were a film genre popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Central themes include ethnic tensions between the Ashkenazim and the Mizrahim or Sephardim and the conflict between rich and poor. The term was supposedly coined by the Israeli film director Boaz Davidson, the creator of several such films, as a play-on-words, after "spaghetti Western:" just as the Western subgenre was named after a notable dish of its country of filming, so the Israeli genre was named after the notable Israeli dish, Bourekas, although somesay the term originated from a scene in The Policeman where the title character is shown giving one of his coworkers a bourekas. Bourekas films are further characterized by accent imitations (particularly of Moroccan Jews, Polish Jews, Romanian Jews and Persian Jews); a combination of melodrama, comedy and slapstick; and alternate identities. Bourekas films were successes at the box office but were often panned by the critics. They included comedy films such as ''Charlie Ve'hetzi and Hagiga B'Snuker and sentimental melodramas such as Nurit''. Prominent filmmakers in this genre during this period include Boaz Davidson, Ze'ev Revach, Yehuda Barkan and George Ovadiah. New Sensibility The New Sensibility (סרטי הרגישות החדשה) is a movement which started during the 1960s and lasted until the end of the 1970s. The movement sought to create a cinema in modernist cinema with artistic and esthetic values, inspired by the French New Wave and Italian Neorealism. ==Movie theaters==

In the early 1900s, silent movies were screened in sheds, cafes and other temporary structures. In 1905, Cafe Lorenz opened on Jaffa Road in the new Jewish neighborhood of Neve Tzedek. From 1909, the Lorenz family began screening movies at the cafe. In 1925, the Kessem Cinema was housed there for a short time. Silent films were screened there, accompanied by commentary and piano playing by a member of the Templer community. In 1953, Cinema Keren, the Negev's first movie theater, opened in Beersheba. It was built by the Histadrut and had seating for 1,200 people. In 1966, 2.6 million Israelis went to the cinema over 50 million times. In 1968, when television broadcasting began, theaters began to close down, first in the periphery, then in major cities. Three hundred thirty standalone theaters were torn down or redesigned as multiplex theaters. During World War I, the theater was shut down by order of the Ottoman government on the pretext that its generator could be used to send messages to enemy submarines offshore. It reopened to the public during the British Mandate and became a hub of cultural and social activity. It closed down in 1974. It was designed by architect Joseph Berlin in an art deco style that was popular in cinemas worldwide. People gathered in front of the theater to dance in the streets when the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the Partition Plan in November 1947. After a fire in the summer of 1986 due to an electric short circuit, the building was demolished. Armon Cinema, Haifa In 1931, Moshe Greidinger opened a cinema in Haifa. In 1935 he built a second movie theater, Armon, a large art-deco building with 1,800 seats that became the heart of Haifa's entertainment district. It was also used as a performance venue by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra and the Israeli Opera. Alhambra Cinema, Jaffa The art deco Alhambra cinema, with seating for 1,100, opened in Jaffa in 1937. It was designed by a Lebanese architect, Elias al-Mor, and became a popular venue for concerts of Arab music. Farid al-Atrash and Umm Kulthum appeared there. In 2012, the historic building reopened as a Scientology center after two years of renovation. Smadar Theater, Jerusalem The Smadar theater was built in Jerusalem's German Colony in 1928. It was German-owned and mainly served the British Army. In 1935, it opened for commercial screenings as the "Orient Cinema." It was turned over to Jewish management to keep it from being boycotted as a German business, infuriating the head of the Nazi Party branch in Jerusalem. After 1948, it was bought by four demobilized soldiers, one of them Arye Chechik, who bought out his partners in 1950. According to a journalist who lived next door, Chechik sold the tickets, ran to collect them at the door and worked as the projectionist. His wife ran the concession stand. File:PikiWiki Israel 11289 Landscape view.jpg|Beit Shemesh movie theater, early 1950s File:PikiWiki Israel 8328 quot;edenquot; cinema in tel-aviv.jpg|Eden Cinema, Tel Aviv File: Mugrabi.jpg|Mograbi Theater, Tel Aviv File:PikiWiki Israel 10581 Beer Sheva Cinema keren.jpg|Keren Cinema, first movie theater in the Negev File:THE_RIMON_MOVIE_THEATER_IN_TEL_AVIV._%D7%91%D7%99%D7%AA_%D7%A7%D7%95%D7%9C%D7%A0%D7%95%D7%A2_%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%9F_%D7%91%D7%A2%D7%99%D7%A8_%D7%AA%D7%9C_%D7%90%D7%91%D7%99%D7%91.D269-084.jpg|Rimon movie theater, Tel Aviv, 1939 ==Cinema festivals ==

and Claude Lanzmann, Jerusalem Film Festival The main international film festivals in Israel are the Jerusalem Film Festival and the Haifa Film Festival. ==Cinema awards==

• Ophir Award • Wolgin Award ==Film schools==

• Sam Spiegel Film and Television School • Ma'aleh School of Television, Film and the Arts ==See also==