There is an amazing array of films to be shown at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival (TISFF), which will take place from June 23 – 30, 2026. The full program may be found on the festival website. Here are a few that caught my eye:
Curfew
Curfew, written and directed by Yelyzaveta Toptyhina, brings both humor and a deeper resonance to a familiar theme – two strangers, a woman and a man, brought together by circumstances. She (Olexandra Barstok) is a photographer, who, after a day of working on a project outside the city, misses her ride back and finds herself stuck in the middle of nowhere. He (Pavlo Lohvin) is dropped off by a taxi at the bus stop, earphones in his ears, dancing to a song only he can hear. Set in the Ukraine, just outside Kyiv, the war is a pervasive presence in the lives of the characters, affecting them in different ways.
Despite the late hour and an approaching curfew, he seems happy, friendly, and carefree, even somewhat teasing and provocative in his demeanor towards her. She is a paragon of tension and determination, focusing on a single goal – getting back to the city, and not interested in making friends. Thrown together by chance, they must – separately or together – figure out how to get through the night, and she, with one photo left to take in her camera, wants to find that “immortal” photo that will complete her project. Barstok and Lohvin have great onscreen chemistry, imbuing their characters with vivid life. Toptyhina depicts the connection that develops between these two opposites with nuanced humor, compassion, and sensitivity to detail.
Curfew will be screened at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival in Program 9 of the International Competition. Tickets are available on the TISFF website.
Director, Screenwriter: Yelyzaveta Toptyhina; Cinematographer: Bohdan Haidash; Producer: Anastasiia Zakhilko; Editor: Yuliia Kolinko; Cast: Olexandra Barstok, Pavlo Lohvin; School: Kyiv National Karpenko-Kary University of Theater, Cinema and Television
Dad’s Not Home
It’s Kuba’s birthday, but he is not planning any celebrations. At 16, Kuba (Konrad Kąkol) and his younger brother Bartok (Tomasz Pogoń) must care for their father (Piotr Łukawski) who has frontotemporal dementia. Jan Saczek’s film follows the efforts of the two boys to hide their father’s condition from the world. If their school or other authorities would become aware of the situation, the boys would be sent to an orphanage and their father to an institution.
Caring for their father’s daily needs places a heavy burden on the boys, but they perform the task with love. Excellent performances by all three protagonists convey the complex emotions of the situation, the love that is merged with grief and exhaustion, and on the father’s part – the love that endures although memory has faded.
The father is docile but cannot control his urges, and each day when they leave for school, they must lock all the kitchen cabinets so that he doesn’t eat all the food at once. The brunt of the responsibility falls primarily on Kuba’s shoulders, and he is also caring for his younger brother. He finds inventive ways to use technology to hide their father’s condition, but he feels the strain from the enormous pressure and constant fear of being found out. The tension finds a different expression in Bartek, who gets into fights at school. Kuba’s exhaustion and Bartek’s scuffles draw the attention of the school principal, Malgorzata Kiedrowska (Barbara Lubos), who wants to meet their father. Suspenseful, inventive, and full of humor, Dad’s Not Home tells a moving tale of love, loss, and compassion.
Dad’s Not Home will be screened at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival in Program 2 of the International Competition. Tickets are available on the TISFF website.
Director, Screenwriter: Jan Saczek; Cinematographer: Patryk Roman; Producer: Krystyna Doktorowicz; Editor: Monika Stachowicz; Cast: Piotr Łukawski, Konrad Kąkol, Tomasz Pogoń, Barbara Lubos, Wiesław Kupczak; School: Krzysztof Kieślowski Film School, University of Silesia in Katowice, Poland
Yerus
In the serendipitous way that connections emerge between films at festivals, Yerus, by Timna Perets, shares a similar theme of siblings left to care for themselves. 11-year-old Yerus (Yerus Tiam) is from a family of asylum seekers living in South Tel Aviv. With no father around and a mother who cannot function, she is responsible for her younger brother Dillet (Yoel Toleda). But she is still only a child herself. She is also a young girl with a talent and a dream to study dance. Tiam imbues the character of Yerus with emotional depth, reflecting the young girl’s inner conflicts. Despite their mutual affection, neither Yerus nor Dillet is getting what any and every child needs, and the film depicts their relationship and struggles with compassion.
Yerus will be screened at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival in Program 1 of the Short Independent Competition. Tickets are available on the TISFF website.
Director, Screenwriter: Timna Perets; Cinematographer: Ilya Marcus; Producer: Harel Ben Melech; Editor: Guy Nemesh, Daniel Bloom; Cast: Yerus Tiam, Yoel Toleda
Crumb
Elena Kulesh’s Crumb focuses on youth as well: Alyoshin lives in a correctional orphanage for teenagers. He works in a bakery, presumably to provide him with some basic training in a trade so he can support himself once he is of age. The previous films discussed here were centered on young people making a huge effort to avoid entering the system and being sent to an orphanage, this film shows us why. Beyond the rudimentary training he receives at the bakery, Alyoshin, as well as his friends at the orphanage, receives no education, guidance, attention or affection from the adults responsible for his well being. With no adult mentors, the teenagers turn to one another for advice, making decisions based on rumors and fantasies.
Quiet and withdrawn, Alyoshin rarely speaks when in a group, alone, he often mutters to himself, revealing his turbulent emotions. He has a crush on someone at the bakery but does not dare speak to her. When his friend asks if he has a girlfriend, Alyoshin says he does, but the distance between fantasy and reality is vast, and it’s easy to fall into the abyss. It’s a bleak view of a harsh existence, yet in a moment of sheer magic, one of Alyoshin’s rough pals sings in a beautiful, almost delicate voice, intimating the inner life, the hidden qualities and the potential of these youths that are being crushed by the system.
Crumb will be screened at the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival in Program 8 of the International Competition. Tickets are available on the TISFF website.
Director, Screenwriter: Elena Kulesh; Cinematographer: Alexander Sisnev; Producer: Ekaterina Sitner; Editor: Andrey Soustin; School: Saint Petersburg School Of New Cinema
