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© 2026 The Couch Critic
Browse 34 movies from Riva Film
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
Feb 2008
While handing out food at a charity organization, Laura, Evîn and Julia unexpectedly cross paths. Laura, a released prisoner, defends Evîn, a Kurdish woman, when she is racially insulted by a man waiting in line. Eventually the situation gets out of hand.
Feb 2026
25-year-old Sibel lives with her father and sister in a secluded village in the mountains of Turkey’s Black Sea region. Sibel is a mute, but she communicates by using the ancestral whistled language of the area.
Jan 2019
A noir thriller told from the point of view of a femme fatale, who falls for the detective in charge of a murder case.
Mar 2012
The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Jun 2014
A young Arab is caught between cultures as he is sent to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Israel in the 1980s.
Jul 2014
In 2007, Yahya works at his friend Osama’s falafel shop in Gaza, which doubles as a drug dealing front. His entanglement leads him to witness a terrible crime. A couple years later, Gaza’s Ministry of Culture randomly chooses Yahya to star in a TV series that highlights martyrs and heroes of the resistance. As conflict simmers in the distance, Yahya unexpectedly receives real weapons, heightening the stakes as the show provides him with an opportunity to confront the perpetrator of the offense that changed his life.
Jun 2025
A middle-aged Orthodox Jew, Aaron, living and working in Jerusalem with his wife and children, meets a homeless 19-year-old student. Aaron offers to give Ezri work as his assistant at his family's butcher shop. The two men grow close and their attraction becomes sexual. Aaron must now confront his own sexuality, his feelings for Ezri, and his obligations to his family and faith.
May 2009
A supernatural encounter burdens the recently retired Mr. Melih with an existential awakening. Soon he, his wife, and their daughter are all haunted by the "ghosts" of lost opportunities, abandoned dreams, and alternate possibilities -- literally...
Nov 2025
Shattering the patriarchal concept that a true crime duo requires a man, Bonnie and Bonnie showcases the development of true friendship between two strong and independent women, determined to make their mark on the world.
Oct 2019
An eccentric multimillionaire signs an agreement to have his life ended. While selecting his coffin he meets a young woman who has signed up for the same arrangement. Trouble ensues when the couple falls in love and wishes to get out of the contract.
May 2015
A young nurse starts a new assignment in a small isolated village in the farthest reaches of Turkey, a place that seems asleep in an endless winter. A thick layer of snow covers the souls as well as the lands. But under the snow, unspeakable secrets hibernate.
Sep 2022
Naomi, an Israeli Mossad agent, is sent to Germany to protect Mona, a Lebanese informant recovering from plastic surgery to assume her new identity. Together for two weeks in a quiet apartment in Hamburg, the relationship that develops between the two women is soon exposed to the threat of terror that is engulfing the world today. In this game of deception, beliefs are questioned, choices are made, and their fate takes a surprising turn.
Oct 2017
Ada is an American journalist of Polish origin. She has just moved to Hamburg with her partner and is struggling to find her way in the new reality. One day, a mysterious package arrives at the editorial office where she works.
Sep 2024
Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...
Aug 2014
A wild genre mix between a boxer film, urban western, road movie and music video, set at end of the summer holidays in a drab neighborhood in the outskirts of Hamburg suburbia. Young boxing talent Mauser is preparing for a pivotal competition when his father kills his step-mother and flees. Trying to find his father, Mauser embarks on a journey through the world of music, psychedelia, violence, love and a biblical thunderstorm. And what is with the Native American? "Once upon a time in Indian country" is a story that radiates both, heat and poetry.
Eastern Cape, South Africa. A lonely factory worker, Xolani, takes time off his job to assist during an annual Xhosa circumcision initiation into manhood. In a remote mountain camp that is off limits to women, young men, painted in white ochre, recuperate as they learn the masculine codes of their culture. In this environment of machismo and aggression, Xolani cares for a defiant initiate from Johannesburg, Kwanda, who quickly learns Xolani's best kept secret, that he is in love with another man.
Apr 2017
Robert moves from the Polish countryside to work on a fish processing factory on the coast of Norway. There he falls in love with Ivar who is openly gay and a member of the workers union. Robert is hiding his sexual orientation from the other Polish immigrant workers. When Ivar helps the Polish to start a strike for better working conditions at the factory, Robert has to choose between money or love.
Mar 2023
Moving from the city to the countryside, 11-year-old Anni has a tough time settling in – until she encounters Wild Heart, an untamed horse, to whom she feels an almost magical connection. But soon after, their bond is put at risk, as some ruthless horse thieves are targeting Wild Heart’s herd.
Aug 2023
A wellness hotel in a small German castle specializes in well-off couples, offering a wide range of services, including one some partners feel trapped into : relational therapy. It's truth time, for some liberating, forcing others to face their secrets of dysfunctional relationship.
Nov 2016