Docaviv Winners 2023

For its sensitive portrayal of a charismatic and tormented soul, the award for Best Israeli Documentary Film goes to Inbal Perlmuter: If You Let Me Go.
The jury commends the filmmakers for skillfully blending a range of narrative devices to tell a riveting and ultimately tragic story.

In telling a family story that deconstructs a father’s persona to confront and expose hidden secrets, the director of this film expertly weaves a personal story into a universal theme about migration, trauma and healing.

This documentary handles with care a delicate subject about a strong woman who dives into the darkness of her past. As she strives to understand the foundation of evil and deal with her trauma, the film presents a deeply moving account of her journey.

This is an intimate and delicate portrayal that skillfully unfolds the story of a strong, spirited, and compassionate woman. We commend the filmmaker for making a film about trust and commitment that reveals the importance of love.

The cinematographer has achieved the creation of a unique visual language, successfully adopting the point of view of his protagonist and transferring their experience into a rich cinematic world.

This film uses multiple sources including home movies, actuality, expressive imagery and creative sound to present a multilayered documentary that transports the audience through different time periods with skill and verve.

The extensive research and the astonishing work with archives uncover and present complex and detailed information and knowledge from the time of Israel’s founding in a coherent and revelatory form. Through the efforts of individuals who dredge up the past, the film raises to the surface repressed pieces of Israel’s collective memory that threaten the purity of the state’s image.

In this documentary, music functions as one of the main characters, giving a voice to the public and reflecting the exclusion of many people who under different cirumstances could serve as a bridge between Israel and its neighbors.

The Israeli story is replete with contradictions and conflicts that have been extensively documented over the years. However, seldom does a story emerge that encapsulates painful and touching connections between different narratives. In this story, the Jewish-Arab conflict is unveiled in all its tragic and intricate nature through the intertwining lives of several individuals, whose destinies converge during the riots in Lod. Remarkably, amid this violent turmoil, they strive to discover compassion and solidarity. Mourning in Lod is an emotionally stirring and captivating film that delicately and sensitively sheds light on the shared experiences and bonds within a reality overshadowed by separation and conflict.

A film that pushes boundaries, both in the lives of its protagonists and in its innovative cinematic language. This film gives voice to those who usually go unheard and celebrates their identity. It touches upon a difficult and painful reality and does so in a poetic and vibrant way. We wish to congratulate the director D. Smith and honor the memory of one of the protagonists, Koko Da Doll, who was recently shot and killed.

We would like to give the special mention to the talented and brave filmmaker whose film brings up the urgent issue of the horrors of the war in Ukraine and indeed the horrors of any war, especially when it involves civilians. We wish to share our support of the filmmaker's quest to keep the public attention on the ongoing atrocities.
The jury’s special mention goes to 20 Days in Mariupol by Mstislav Chernov.

A father standing by his daughter. A mother fighting for justice. A village horrified by the possibility of shame. An NGO trying to advocate for gender justice. A prosecutor who cannot keep up with the caseload. And at the center of it all, a 13-year-old girl from rural India, who outgrows herself by refusing to accept her “fate.”
The burden of doing the right thing is at the core of this courageous and powerful film, and its confident depiction of how sexual abuse affects families, villages, and society, and how, by fighting it together, realities can be changed.

When no place feels safe, the desert might be a last resort.
This cinematic journey explores the fragile relationships around one rebel boy trying to find a place to call home. Set in a beautiful landscape, this gentle and loving film allows us to observe small changes as they occur.

The film uncovers the heartbreaking and devastating reality of childhood and adolescence in contemporary Russia. Manifesto, a film that both questions and justifies its title, rethinks the ingredients of cinematic practice by re-appropriating and weaving together disconnected TikTok and YouTube videos into a dark crowd-sourced documentary. It gives form to the voice of a generation that is forcibly being silenced by the authorities and exposes the undercurrent waves of state violence. As an agitprop manifesto for struggle and resistance, it demonstrates the merits of mobile phones as a political weapon, granting democratic power to kids living in a totalitarian country. As jury members in a film festival that takes place in the frightening reality of today’s Israel, we wish to support courageous filmmaking that speaks up against an oppressive regime. We see this film as a warning sign for a possibly imminent future.

The film visualizes a hidden and underground reality in a society where young people cannot imagine the possibility of tomorrow. Anhell69 not only addresses the tragic cost of sexual freedom in Columbia but also represents a hopeless and invisible generation—young people getting killed as an unremarkable, routine occurrence. Theo Montoya’s film is an aesthetically rich hybrid that pays tribute to lost friends, and in its sensual sadness celebrates the beauty of his protagonists on their inevitable ride towards death.

Nathan-ism brings forth the story of an obscure artist Nathan Hilu who created a large body of work representing his memories from the International Military Tribunal in Nuremberg, where Nathan’s unit was charged with guarding the twenty-four major Nazi war criminals who were tried by the victorious Allies after World War II.
In his art, Nathan recalls his encounters with them, especially with Herman Goering, who as Hitler’s deputy was the most senior Nazi tried. The film explores Nathan’s artwork and his testimony, highlighting how visual representation is as much a form of testimony as written or oral testimony. Among the important aspects of the film is the effort to corroborate Nathan’s testimony. This highlights many issues regarding testimony and how to relate to it, issues about memory, and how memory is not necessarily an accurate reflection of events, but allow for a deep insight into the way historical event affect human perception and experience. In precise and rich cinematic language, Golod succeeds in eliciting in his viewer a wide range of emotions towards the outsider artist, to bring his works to life, and especially to raise awareness of the complexity of documentation, art, and testimonies, about the all-human trauma that was the Holocaust.

A unique and powerful portrait of a mother and a son living on a remote island and coping with isolation and mental illness. It is a deep story about the resources of the human soul to create expression and healing under unbelievable conditions. The film itself captures the soul of its main character with dense and poetic cinematography and soundscapes. The film inspires us to rethink our connection to nature, our definition of normality, and the healing powers of making art.

This short film offers a unique point of view. It begins as a nature documentary where the director, a film student, is hired by an older man for an assignment: editing his footage of wild bears in nature. The film takes a turn when, amid the nature footage, she finds footage of women in the streets, unaware of being filmed. The film explores the male gaze in a very creative and powerful way, drawing parallels between the way we see nature, and the way women are often seen as the object of the male gaze. The filmmaker is not afraid to change the film’s subject completely when she unexpectedly encounters this footage, giving us a glimpse of what it still means to be a woman in today’s world.

Through a precise and powerful point of view, the directors manage to observe reality from an artistic distance while being fully present in it, creating an intimate and complex portrayal of the unconditional love between the characters.

In an extremely tender, gentle, and inclusive manner, the film takes us on an intimate and compelling journey into the soul of a woman who refuses to be defined by her physical condition.

Taking a sensitive and committed approach, the film opens our hearts to an inspiring woman who refuses to be a victim. The filmmaker bears witness to the ups and downs of the single mother of three and shows how difficult it is to detach from a past that continues to haunt you.

The film documents a heartbreaking friendship and coming-of-age story through its camera’s sensitive gaze. Closely following the characters for a prolonged period, it allows us to both delve into the present and feel the passing of time.

Based almost entirely on found footage, the film's editing brings out an emotionally engaging narrative. Its rhythm and composition allow us to get closer to the tragedy of the character as we dive into the Israeli skate scene.