FILM AND TV FORUM HAIFA 2025

FILM

My Grandma is a Killer

When Yaeli, a Berlin-based cellist, loses her scholarship, she’s desperate. Her dying grandmother Naomi holds the key- German citizenship documents. But First, Yaeli needs to help her solve the WWII-era assassination that’s been eating Naomi for decades. Naomi needs to know: is she a hero or a murderer? (Based on my grandma’s crazy and unpublished story.)

Director: Tamar Goren

Producer: Ari Folman, Bridgit Folman Film Gang

Pelicans

Two women meet in a hospital room, where their sons — both soldiers wounded in war — are lying side by side. After a long and grueling rehabilitation, the young men recover, only to decide to return to the battlefield. Determined not to lose them again, the two mothers embark on a desperate yet darkly comic journey to bring their sons back home.

Director: Shirli Nada Michalewicz

Producer: Karen Belz, Binnenhof Productions

Beit Habek

Dina dies at 70 in BEIT HABEK, an isolated house on the banks of the KINNERT. Her five adult children gather; from their memories emerge the image of her, an idealistic original freethinker, both a good and a bad mom.  

Director: Gudis Schneider

Producer: Itzik Nakash, Edit Studios

Retreat

At a remote desert resort, an introverted teen seeking freedom from his mother’s grip is swept into a retreat that slowly unravels into a deadly cult.

Director: Roy Kanevsky

Producer: Harel Ben Melech, Tiara Films

Nefesh Haya

Haya, a 26-year-old Haredi woman from a strict Jewish orthodox group, has spent her entire life suppressing her mystical abilities, choosing instead to devote herself to her mundane existence as a wife and a mother. However, when she discovers that her power can heal others and change their fate, she is jolted out of her routine. For the first time in her life, Haya must lie, defy her husband, defy the society, and even neglect her young children. All, to fulfill her destiny of becoming a spiritual woman - a healer, like the great rabbis of the kabbalah.

Director: Sofia Gutman

Producer: Itamar Pirchi, UCM

The Last Klezmers

Poland, sometime in the aftermath of the Great War. Four Jewish klezmer musicians embark on a journey that begins with a wedding and is meant to end in America. But the road is long, and this night will change everything. In the darkness, they cross paths with a woman fleeing for her life—and a man who means her harm. As they wander deeper into the wild, buried tensions and conflicting desires rise to the surface. By dawn, the band is no longer whole, and nothing will ever be the same.

Director: Shiri Nevo Fridental

Producer: Lev Orlov, Orlov Productions

A Miracle in Cherbinka

When a Jewish tombstone is discovered in Cherbinka, a Romanian village slated for demolition, a failed Haredi entrepreneur and local priest must collaborate to battle resistance while their village becomes a pilgrimage site amid suspicion no Jew is buried there.  

Director: Gilad “Gili” Goldschmidt

Producer: Avraham Pirchi, Chilik Michaeli, UCM with Hedva Goldschmidt, Go2Films

No Grave for Father 

Hamza, a Druze from Maghar, begins a haunting journey after his estranged father’s death. No "Grave for Father" is a drama of exile, betrayal, shattered traditions and broken identity, as a son seeks memory and meaning where no grave exists.

Director: Nahed Bashir

Producer: Zafrir Kochanovsky, Miri Ezra, TTV

TV

Baba Alma

Daniel, 30, a Squad Commander in the Israeli elite counter-terrorism unit, is temporarily suspended following involvement in a diplomatic incident, and being transferred to the maritime police in Tiberias. There she encounters a mysterious, rich and powerful Jewish women cult.

Creators: Sherry Tzella and Tamar Frank.

Director: Yoni Geva

Producer: Kobi Mizrahi, Ohad San, KM Productions

Traffic jam

"Traffic Jam" — a television drama set entirely inside cars during traffic jams, where every standstill becomes the psychologist’s couch,

 compelling our protagonists to face not just the roadblocks ahead, but the deeper jams within their lives.

Creator: Yair Schvartz, Matan Yogev

Producer: Lior Belgazel, Buzz Bros Ltd.

The Coldest Hour

A washed-up cop from Eilat and his sharp-witted mother join forces to solve the

disappearance of a seemingly unimportant Sudanese detainee. Facing corruption,

danger, and betrayal, they uncover dark trafficking schemes while redefining

independence, separation, and their fraught parent-child bond.

Creator: Oded Plotnizki

Producer: Ami Livne, Liv Films