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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 37 movies from Gesher Multicultural Film Fund
Abigail is heavily pregnant, But something is missing. Terrified about the imminent birth, she kidnaps a comforting partner in crime for one afternoon.
Jun 2018
In Jerusalem during the Six Day War, a young civilian leaves her family to serve her country; a man who abhors war must fight within sight of his home; and a group of paratroopers are dispatched to the city for a battle they never trained for.
Jan 2026
After being estranged from his Druze village and family for 17 years, Yoseph returns with his two Israeli, teenage children. His marriage to a Jewish Israeli woman has just ended and he plans to settle down there. His arrival causes friction inside the closed, conservative Druze community and also with his mother Afifa, who accepts him and his children as part of her family again.
Jun 2013
Omri reunites his family for a drive to the desert. Facing his camcorder, he'll ask them to recollect the drive and fatal car accident they had on the way to his Bar Mitzvah. An accident that led to his parent’s divorce.
Dec 2020
In a little Jerusalem apartment, surrounded by dolls and cats, Miriam Yalan-Shtekelis wrote children’s songs that have captured hearts for many generations of Israelis: The Doll Named Zehava, The Soap that Cried a Lot, Michael, and many more. The director, photographer, editor, designer and writer Reuven Brodeski created the atmosphere of a Russian legend about Yalan-Shtekelis, using miniatures that he fashioned himself for the film, interviewing people who knew her, and telling the story of Israel’s most important figure in children’s literature.
Aug 2018
She lived in Cairo, Paris, and New York, but died in an old-age home in Givatayim, Israel. She was charismatic and admired, but only a few people actually knew her well during her life. She was the first to write of Levantine and Mizrachi identities, Director Rafael Balulu goes on a journey in the footsteps of “Levantine thinker” and author, and through encounters with her friends in Paris, with intellectuals in the Mizrachi discourse, and with Levantine artists, he not only draws a portrait of this impressive thinker and writer, but also chronicles the trajectory of Levantine identity in Israel as a cultural option.
May 2019
17-year-old Asher is split between his charismatic teacher and his brash father, who wants him to take over his scaffolding business.
Jul 2017
In 2008 the city of Tel-Aviv sent four refrigerated trucks to Mount Hermon, to bring back with them 60 cubic meters of snow. Early in the morning, the trucks returned to Rabin Square and prepared a white, frosty surprise for the residents. In front of the square, now covered with snow, lives the Dahan family, which is facing eviction on that very same day. The film follows the four truck drivers making their journey from the north, and Hanna, the mother of the family, as she sees her life melting down before her.
Jan 2016
Sana and Annu — grandmother and six-year-old granddaughter, live together in a Druze village in the Galilee. The day before Annu’s family is due to move to Haifa, Annu suddenly loses consciousness. When she wakes up beside her grandmother, she whispers: “You will find my children in Syria.” Sana becomes convinced that Annu is the reincarnation of her sister Muna, who was killed in the war, and is overwhelmed by the revelation. But Annu’s parents explain it away as a side effect of epilepsy and medication. They ask Sana to stop and begin to distance the two from one another. Heartbroken, Sana sets out on a journey to cross into Syria — the homeland she left at seventeen. There, she uncovers not only the true meaning behind her granddaughter’s words, but also what she herself has been searching for all along.
Oct 2025
Lights reminds us to stand up for what we believe! This Chanukah story is told through animation & gripping narration by Judd Hirsch Also features the voices of Leonard Nimoy & Paul Michael Glaser.
Dec 1984
Even though more than seventy years have passed, the state refuses to open the files of the investigative committees that conducted the question that haunts many: Who threw the grenade at the Shem Tov synagogue? The grenade, thrown in 1951, killed five, wounded about twenty, and is considered the major attack that led to the rapid immigration of most of Iraq's Jews in Operation "Ezra and Nehemiah." For years, a large portion of immigrants believed that the State of Israel was behind the affair, because it wanted to induce the affluent class of Jews to immigrate. But recently, a box of documents and testimonies was found at a university in the United States, intended for the "future researcher of the material," and deals with the question "Who threw the grenade?"
A gay sauna encounter between a young man and an older man becomes an unexpected lesson about love.
Jun 2017
Very few details are known about Rabbi Shalom Shabazi, but 400 years after his death, Shabazi is as popular as ever and is considered one of the greatest Yemenite poets. The film takes the audience on a journey through the extraordinary life of one of the greatest Hebrew writers.
"A Haunted Home" returns to one of the bloodiest and most forgotten events in the annals of the State of Israel: the massacre that took place on April 11, 1974 at 15 Yehuda Halevi Street in Kiryat Shmona, in which 16 of the residents of the building were murdered by a terrorist squad. Through interviews with the survivors and family members of the murdered, alongside archival materials never before shown, the historical, political and cultural contexts of the massacre are woven together.
Jan 2023
In the range between autobiography and fiction, male & female - Ella nurses, dancing and waiting for her lover.
Aug 2017
Yet again, Batya is forced by her sister Leah to confront their father’s mental illness. Dealing with her sister's demands to hospitalize him, Batya has to realize what is the best decision for the whole family.
With the aid of four actors in a rehearsal room, filmmaker Nur Fibak lays open the police investigation and court proceedings against the man who had molested her, revisiting the case as it unfolded from the moment she decided to seek justice. The film opens a unique window into the workings of the Israeli criminal justice system in sexual offense cases. Behind closed doors, during the cross-examination, everything is permitted, including asking invasive questions, doubting the woman on the witness stand, and forcing her—that same traumatized child, now grown up—to experience a second kind of abuse.
May 2023
Eugene, a Russian immigrant working a quiet factory job in Israel, sees his life upended when his old school friend Leon resurfaces - running from criminal troubles.
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A phone call wakes me up early in the morning. My older brother got into trouble. Again. After another entanglement, I realize that I can no longer ignore the problems that follow him around, and which seem to be taking over my life. I use the camera to get answers from my family and a wall of silence melts away. Through a mix of amusing, intense, and eye-opening encounters, I begin to understand how relations in my family, especially with my mother, were influenced by an unspoken expression. Strange Birds is an intimate film that reveals an unspoken story about special parenting and the children who grow up in its shadow.
Jul 2024
In the heart of the desert lives calf 2300 and dreams of becoming a princess.
Nov 2021