Docaviv Winners 2024

A powerful and multi-layered story that speaks as much about the past as it does about the present. This film captivates from beginning to end with its evocative images of a land marked by a horrific past and the generations striving to purify and redeem it. Through the lens of three generations of women, it explores the complex legacy of guilt, trauma, and intergenerational conflict. By presenting a nuanced portrayal of characters whose internal contradictions and ethical struggles are shown with patience and without judgment, the film profoundly addresses universal questions, giving us the opportunity to reflect on similar questions regarding our own 'grounds'. We are honored to present the Best Israeli Film Award to Abner Feinglerant for It Happened on Our Ground.

This film uniquely blends humor and activism, transforming a personal quest for inherited land into a powerful and enlightening journey. The director's satirical and playful approach exposes the complex mechanisms of settlement while critically examining the allure of privileges provided by the occupation. In addition to exposing the unjust and often absurd mechanisms of the settlement project, the film bravely reveals how well-intentioned left-wing individuals, like many of us, can also fall in love with the privileges the occupation provides, and provocatively asks: Are we really different from the settlers? We are delighted to award The Yossi Kaufman Award for Best Director to Irmy Shik Blum and Elad Orenstein for Get the Land Back.

Through a smart combination of heartbreaking testimonies, along with reenactments of court protocols, the film accurately and shockingly captures the essence of a painful chapter in our history. The challenging encounter with materials that have been under censorship for over 65 years allows the film to break through the time frame in which the events took place, skillfully raising questions concerning the core values over which a struggle is taking place in Israeli society today. By exploring the tragic events, the film boldly confronts the ongoing tension between revelation and concealment, between obedience and defiance, and between denial and recognition. We are delighted to award The Special Jury Award to The 1957 Transcripts.

A gentle and intimate exploration of the complex relationship between women and their bodies, told through the lens of a bra shop fitting room in Jaffa. This impressive work by the filmmakers respectfully and tenderly unveils the hidden world of women's experiences with their breasts, using the fitting room's mirror as a clever device to reflect both physical and emotional journeys. With much humor and grace, the film captures the day-to-day realities of living with and within one’s own body, challenging and shifting in its humble way our perception of female breasts as traditionally portrayed on screen. The Mayor of Tel Aviv-Yafo Award for Debut Film goes to Michal Cohen for Full Support.

For beautifully understated images that capture the tension between communal and individual stories within an underprivileged social group of foreign farm workers.

For masterful editing that captivates us, firmly holding our attention to the screen, and skillfully weaving a narrative that not only recounts events but also critically analyses the systematically racist and corrupt actions of Israeli authorities, from junior policemen to the Supreme Court, we are pleased to award the Best Editing Award to Doron Djerassi for Death in Umm Al-Hiran.

Through meticulous, comprehensive and rigorous research, filmmakers provide an in-depth exploration of the true events leading up to and following the tragic death, revealing the complex web of political, social, and legal factors at play. The best research award goes to Lily Yudinsky, Noa Borstein Hadad and Doron Djerassi for Death in Umm Al-Hiran.

Drought. There is no water to spend. Not even a tear is available to shed over the loss of a loved one. In between cracked dry soil and a dry stalk of grain, the story of a woman appears, of a mother in a traditional society.
As the rhythm of the film remains attuned to Sanjeevani’s inner rhythm, she slowly opens up, learns and walks in a world that is slowly changing. The camera work gently enables the characters to participate in a women's intimate circle, stubbornly fighting for their place in society, aspiring for a better future for their families. amidst the silk caterpillar and the burning fire.
A film that quietly tells the story of a community, of human beings, of earth and soil, asks questions and investigates the forms through which we might renew and regrow.
A close, sensitive, smart and tender documentary.

A vivid portrait of a boy, later of a teenager, in a city that has become a hazardous playground.
The creators introduce us to Sunny and his family members who have lived an entire life inside a house, a house too crowded to contain such a wounded and stubborn soul.
The film vividly sweeps through a decade, as the characters grow old in front of us.
An impressive achievement enabled by the director's closeness to an uncannily wild and human character.

The winner provides an intimate and sensitive family portrait enabled by the trust fostered between the director and her vulnerable, desperate and proud subjects. At a time of the greatest personal crisis and despair of families escaping persecution around the world, this is an achievement requiring extraordinary sensitivity not only to record a fateful and tragic journey, but also for the filmmakers to get the access from the authorities and record events in real time. This documentary is defined by its phenomenal storytelling with standout actuality filming, editing, use of music and emotional intimacy through accomplished and beautiful animation. Silent Trees is an outstanding creative achievement and a worthy winner that truly went Beyond the Boundaries.

Activist documentary needs to work on many levels to be poignant, timely, important and revealing. To provide a window into a world of what is never seen - especially when dealing with injustice and racism. It will leave viewers angry and conflicted. In this case we witness unfiltered adversity, questioning what it means to be Jewish, the role of the State and whether one is able to ignore what they see and look the other way. This documentary has great storytelling at its core. It forces viewers to think, challenge, and go ‘beyond the screen’ Shepard's Keeper deserves to be recognized with an honorable mention.

Through striking black and white cinematography, the filmmaker crafts a portrait of a bubble that appears to be suspended in place and time. The film transfigures the mundane routine of a mud baths sanatorium in Russia into a mesmerizing cinematic spectacle, highlighting the interplay of body, face, and substance. The mud serves as both a tangible material and as an allegory imbued with the weight of Russian gravitas. The war in Ukraine constantly echoes in the background, as a society entrenched in denial yearns for the balm of healing. What from? The mud continues to flow.

The filming of a blockbuster in late 1980s Israel is an unusual starting point for a cinematic journey that tells the painful story of the Bedouin diaspora in Israel.
Nearly four decades after Rambo defeated the bad guys, special effects artist Bashir Abu-Rabia returns to the filming location in the Negev Desert— a landscape now imbued with memories of dispossession and ruin.

“A retired gentleman, free from family, financial obligations, and addictions”—those are the criteria set by the film’s protagonist, a 72-year-old woman looking for love and intimacy.
The film is an invitation to a long date, in which the viewers get to know the protagonist little by little, starting with the superficial details of her profile on a dating website, eventually building up to an intimate familiarity that fills the viewers with empathy for her.
Balancing sensitivity, nuance, and humor, the filmmaker takes us on a journey alongside an unusual film subject who—despite encountering failure after failure—refuses to lose hope and tries again and again.

The film deals with a controversial and emotionally charged topic in an original, honest, creative, and heartfelt way. Touching on the raw nerves of a mother-daughter relationship, the film manages to convey complexity, humanity, humor, empathy, and an inspiring feminine power.

The film is a heartfelt, intimate, and candid portrait of a family during a moment of crisis. After the father’s passing, the viewers are invited into his crowded room, where they stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the family members gathered around his coffin, given an unfiltered view of the grieving relatives’ full range of complex emotions and personalities. The film offers brave and honest insights into the intricate dynamic of a family coping with a shared loss.

A unique family portrait of two sisters and their father. The director of the film reveals in an unusual way a complex and loving relationship. Bravely and sensitively, the director turns the camera onto her small family and herself, weaving a story of a home without a mother, a sister struggling with her soul, and an anguished father who goes out of his way to love his daughters unconditionally.

The proximity to death does not overshadow the light that comes out of the main character, whose devotion and love for those preparing for death is presented with compassion and a high aesthetic sensitivity. The film evokes empathy for the protagonist and for the characters who allow her to end their lives, raising essential questions regarding our feelings towards the next world and bidding farewell to our loved ones.

Within a narrative framework that deals with the attempt to establish a status quo between people and animals sharing a life in one city, and with intelligent transitions between comedy and surrealism, deep emotion and compassion, the film raises questions of coexistence, acceptance of the other, the measure of mercy and neighborliness. A brilliant combination of humor and anguish produces a fascinating human (and piggish) drama.

The outstanding cinematography of the film submerges the audience into the incredible harshness and beauty of nature, where humans and animals are tied in a continuous and existential struggle for a drop of water. The transitions between the wide shots of the desert planes and the close- ups of the protagonists amplify the human drama.
The Docaviv 2024 Cinematography Student Award goes to Amitai Hayun for the film Water and Fuel.

Complex relationships - between mother and daughter, between different generations and periods in life, between spirit and body. What is beauty? What is femininity? And how do these concepts change and take shape over the years? The film raises these questions and seeks to answer them through a loving and humorous observation. With the help of precisely timed and clever editing, the film takes the viewers on an intimate journey together with the characters, a journey full of punches that weave together emotion and laughter.

The film tells the dramatic story of family relations, where father-daughter love collides with patriarchal tradition.
In this personal film the director seeks answers regarding her place in her father's heart, metaphorically carving into the stones that surround the father's home and workshop.