Ophir Awards promise to be more exciting than ever this year! In a press meeting held on July 27, 2010 in Tel Aviv Marek Rosenbaum, President of the Israel Academy for Film and Television announced that the nominated films were selected from among the 18 feature films and 56 documentaries eligible for consideration. Rosenbaum noted the “unprecedented worldwide success of Israeli films,” saying, “This is the third consecutive year that an Israeli film has made it to the Oscars, and in 2009 the film Lebanon by Shmulik Maoz won the …

Intimadance 2010 Ornament and Crime [Hebrew: Kishut VePesha], the annual dance festival of Tmuna Theatre, will take place July 29 – August 1. If the festival theme sounds unusual – that’s the idea. It is intended to function as a provocative focal point for the choreographers invited to participate in the festival, resulting in works that relate to the theme in diverse and unexpected ways.
Taking its title from a 1908 essay by Austrian architect and cultural critic Adolf Loos – Ornament and Crime is the third (and according to Mr. …

Any visit to Jerusalem heightens my awareness of history, walking through the city I feel like a wanderer through visible layers of time. On my most recent trip, to see the renovated Israel Museum, I had the privilege of seeing history in the making, as the buildings and grounds were being prepared for the inauguration of the renewed campus scheduled to take place tomorrow, July 26, 2010.
As of last Wednesday, the museum campus still resembled a construction site, with heavy machinery, taped up glass and the large mounds of earth …

Take a bus, train, or bicycle, but find your way to the Haifa Theatre to experience Tom Stoppard’s Every Good Boy Deserves Favor – because this rarely performed play, featuring Norman Issa, Doron Tavory and the Ra’anana Symphony Orchestra, in a brilliant translation by Dori Parnes, has an all too short run. There is one more performance tomorrow night, July 26, and 4 more next month – August 23 – 26th. If you really can’t bear to leave Tel Aviv, there will be two performances at the Tel Aviv Performing …

Animation lovers – if you didn’t make it to Stuttgart or Annecy this year, don’t fret. ASIFA Israel (Association Internationale du Film d’Animation) in collaboration with the Goethe Institute Tel Aviv presents an evening of animated films this Tuesday, July 27 at 19:00 at the Goethe Institute, 4 Weizman Street, Tel Aviv.
The program will include noteworthy films screened at the Stuttgart Festival of Animated Film (May 4 – 9, 2010). Many of these films are not scheduled to be shown in Israel, so this is a great opportunity to experience …

“You shine your shoes, why not your face?” a woman cheerfully defends the validity of facials in a short film made on a kibbutz in the 1960s, a time when the kibbutz was in its heyday and any activity was scrutinized according to values of equality, simplicity and the benefit of the collective. Reading these words is nothing like seeing the film itself; the unmediated experience requires no explanation: funny, informative and poignant, it conveys the mood of the time and essential qualities of the kibbutz movement in a matter …

Cinematic, larger than life, teeming with detail and almost painterly in their rich, sensual color, the photographs of David LaChapelle compel the viewer’s attention. LaChapelle’s first exhibit in Israel, David LaChapelle: Postmodern Pop Photography, will open to the public at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art on Friday, July 23, 2010, with a selection of his work from the past twenty years.
Known for his fashion and celebrity photographs, LaChapelle left magazine work four years ago to pursue his personal vision, exhibiting in art galleries and museums.  The extent of his …

Euphoria – those moments when you feel most alive, when you can almost touch the infinite – and its dissipation into the mundane, the gray spaces between moments of connection, moments of epiphany. These different sensations and transitions are explored in choreographer Aviv Eveguy’s “Euphoria – A Temporary Name,” which will have two summer performances in the galleries of the Tel Aviv Museum on July 22 and August 19. The duet will be performed by Noa Rosenthal and Reut Shatz, with live music by Ori Drumer. 
An exploration of the spaces – …

The garden of the Jerusalem Cinematheque was as much a part of the 27th Jerusalem Film Festival as the screening rooms. Wandering out in the summer breeze to meet friends, make new friends, share recommendations and talk about movies – which is almost as fun as seeing them. Among those enjoying a quiet moment in the garden was Thomas Hailer, Program Director of the Berlin Film Festival and juror of the Israeli Film Competition at the festival, who took some time from his busy schedule to talk with Midnight East.
Since …

A grammar is a system of rules, a structure in which meaning can be created and communicated between individuals who share a common language. “Intimate Grammar”, a film by Nir Bergman, is a poignant investigation of the metaphoric and emotional terrain of grammar, through the experiences of Aharon Kleinfeld, a boy growing up in Jerusalem of the 1960s. Based on the novel “The Book of Intimate Grammar” by David Grossman (Hebrew 1991), the film is one of eight Israeli films competing for the Haggiag Family Awards in memory of Robert …