The city of Ma’alot Tarshiha in Northern Israel will host the annual Docaviv Galilee Documentary Film Festival that starts today.
The festival wishes to promote documentary filmmaking and expose it to new audiences, to create a stage for unique meetings between viewers and filmmakers, and to nurture local documentary creation by youth, students, and established filmmakers.
Since its foundation, Docaviv Galilee has been leading a dialog between Israeli documentarists and the multifaceted population of the Galilee, and has been promoting a discussion around Israel’s social, cultural, and geographical periphery.
This year’s program mixes some of the best award-winning documentary films of the last year – some screened in Tel Aviv in our main film festival – with films made by local filmmakers. Also this year, we continue the tradition of bringing filmmakers to present projects they’re working on these days, and discuss them with the audience.
The festival will also feature some live performances. The screening of Write Down, I’m an Arab will be followed by a performance by Mira Awad with songs written by the subject of the film, Palestinian poet Mahmoud Darwis; Sometimes I Dream I’m Flying will be followed by a short performance by the Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company’s Second Company Dancers.
This year’s festival also features new venues, such as the Orthodox Church in Tarshiha that will host a special selection of local films, and the local Lola Bar where we’ll screen two music documentaries, Oscar winner 20 Feet from Stardom and an Israeli documentary about the famous local musician Ehud Banai.
As Docaviv Galilee is more focused towards local audience, the full festival program is published in Hebrew. However, many films are English-speaking, and some are presented with English subtitles. See the Festival’s website (in Hebrew) here.