The diverse program for the November festival includes 30 films.
The 14th edition of the Arava International Film Festival will take place November 12-22 in the heart of the Ashosh Nature Reserve, near the community of Tzukim, and will offer a unique experience of open-air screenings under the desert sky.
This year’s program is diverse; it includes 30 films, including award-winning international films, new Israeli cinema, children’s movies, and restored versions of classics.
An exhibition featuring photographs from previous editions of the festival will be displayed at the Ashosh Gallery in the artists’ village of Tzukim.
Hundreds of high school students from eight film departments across the country will attend the festival.
The scene at 2023’s Arava Film Festival (credit: EDWARD KAPROV)
Israeli film premieres and classics
Acclaimed director Sergei Loznitsa will attend the festival with his new film, Two Prosecutors, a powerful drama that was shown in the main competition at the Cannes Film Festival. Loznitsa, who often makes dramas and documentaries about dark periods of history, returns to the Soviet Union of 1937 to tell the story of a young prosecutor who finds a lost letter from an innocent prisoner that reveals corruption in the secret police.
Five films will have their Israeli premieres at the festival: The Mysterious Gaze of the Flamingo, by Diego Céspedes, winner of the top prize in the “Un Certain Regard” section at Cannes; At Work, by Valérie Donzelli, winner of the Best Screenplay Award at the Venice Film Festival; Made in EU, a hard-hitting social drama by Bulgarian director Stephan Komandarev; Summer Beats, by Lise Akoka and Romane Gueret, a coming-of-age drama; and Kokuho, by Lee Sang-il, Japan’s Oscar submission.
The festival’s classics program, which is always a highlight of this festival, includes The Gold Rush (1925), by Charlie Chaplin, a beloved comedy celebrating its 100th anniversary; Contempt (1963), by Jean-Luc Godard, about the deterioration of a writer’s marriage while he is on the set of a movie in the south of France, and which is best remembered for Brigitte Bardot’s nude scenes; Blow-Up (1966) by Michelangelo Antonioni, an atmospheric mystery considered one of his best films; The Sting (1973), by George Roy Hill, a classic heist film starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford; and Chinatown (1974), by Roman Polanski, the ultimate neo-noir film set in 1930s Los Angeles, starring Jack Nicholson and Faye Dunaway.
Funds supporting the festival
Recently, three regional film funds – the Southern Cinema Fund, the Negev Film Fund, and the Arava Film Fund – merged into a single body operating under the name United Negev Film Fund.
To mark this merger, the festival’s opening night will be dedicated to screening short films produced with its support, along with Eyal Halfon’s new film,A Burning Man, which recently won Best Israeli Film and Best Actor (for Shai Avivi) at the Haifa International Film Festival.
The Israeli program will also include Eti Tsicko’s Nandauri, a drama about an Israeli lawyer returning to her childhood home in rural Georgia, which won several Ophir Awards.
The festival was founded by film producer Eyal Shirai in partnership with the Central Arava Regional Council. The event is supported by the Central Arava Regional Council, the Israeli Film Council of the Culture and Sport Ministry, the Development of the Negev and Galilee Ministry, the Tourism Ministry, the Regional Cooperation Ministry, and the Mifal Hapayis national lottery.
For more information, go to the festival website at aravaff.co.il/en/.