(Sept. 20, 2026 \/ JNS)\n <\/p>\n
The Richmond Film Festival defied calls to boycott the Jewish state last year, and doubled its ticket sales in the process, according to the Virginia event\u2019s founder. This year, the event is doubling down on Zionism.<\/p>\n
Heather Waters, who founded the event which is in its 15th year, told JNS that there are renewed efforts to harm her event due to its support for Israel.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is still brewing. We have continued to forge ahead, and in fact, I think due to the last four years or so, we\u2019ve had a lot more submissions from Israel, and so I accepted a lot more,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were wonderful films, and so we probably are programming about triple the amount this year,\u201d she told JNS.<\/p>\n
The festival, which will screen more than 180 premiers in theaters, is slated to open on Tuesday and to run six days, through Sept. 27. It will also include live music, panels and other events.<\/p>\n
In the past, the Israeli embassy in Washington has covered travel costs for Israeli filmmakers and others to attend.<\/p>\n
Among the documentaries to be screened are \u201cUNraveling UNRWA,\u201d about the United Nations agency with ties to Palestinian terror, and \u201cTORN: The Israel-Palestine Poster War on NYC Streets.\u201d<\/p>\n
Israeli director Livi Kessel\u2019s \u201cOut At Six\u201d is about a teenage girl\u2019s relationship with a man who is a bit older, and \u201cMy One And Only,\u201d by Israeli director David Tauber, tells of a newly religious woman with a new child who fears major changes in her husband.<\/p>\n
Former yeshiva student Eden Abitbol, who served as civilian in Israel, directed \u201cHalf a Date\u201d about the common ground that a female soldier finds with a male yeshiva student, whose military deferral paperwork she handles.<\/p>\n
That and Mindi Ehrlich\u2019s \u201cFrequency,\u201d about a mother who defies a court order to meet her son in the part after she leaves the Haredi world, are to be shown at the festival. So are the Israeli films \u201cDalia\u2019s Tea Casts a Shadow on Mount Fuji\u201d (Oren Gerner), \u201cDear Mom\u201d (Maor Alteras, Gala Kaplun, Danna Levy), \u201cFreedom Farm Sanctuary\u201d (Taliya Finkel), \u201cSoldOut\u201d (Shira Haimovici, Barak Rivkind, Omer Moskovich) and \u201cKichka\u201d (Gad Aisen), about Israeli cartoonist and illustrator Michel Kichka.<\/p>\n
The Palestinian film \u201cAdas Falasteen\u201d (Hamdi Khalil Elhusseini, Samar Taher Lulu) is also to be screened, as are the joint Israeli-Palestinian submissions \u201cBella\u201d (Zohar Shachar, Jamal Khalaily), \u201cHolding Her Control\u201d (Bracha Zisman Cohen) and \u201cA Place of Her Own\u201d (Adi Toledanu, Dana Peni-Gil).<\/p>\n
Despite the Palestinian films scheduled to be shown, there has been \u201csome noise the last couple of weeks where they are doing the same thing that they normally do, calling our venue sponsors,\u201d Waters told JNS, of anti-Israel groups trying to boycott the event.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m on high alert just watching it,\u201d she told JNS.<\/p>\n
In its efforts to build bridges, the festival plans to give a \u201clegacy award\u201d to Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and its Museum of Tolerance, this year.<\/p>\n
The director Jon Kean is premiering \u201cThe Hollywood Rabbi,\u201d a documentary of Hier\u2019s life, at the festival. Kean is scheduled to moderate a panel with Hier, who will tune in remotely, at the festival.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Sept. 20, 2026 \/ JNS) The Richmond Film Festival defied calls to boycott the Jewish state last year,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":622153,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-622152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=622152"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/622152\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/622153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=622152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=622152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=622152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}