Movies were made in Palestine from the beginning of the silent film era although the development of the local film industry accelerated after the establishment of the state. Early films were mainly documentary or news roundups, shown in Israeli cinemas before the movie started.
One of the pioneers of cinema in Israel was Baruch Agadati.[1][2] Agadati purchased cinematographer Yaakov Ben Dov's film archives in 1934 when Ben Dov retired from filmmaking and together with his brother Yitzhak established the AGA Newsreel.[2][3] He directed the early Zionist film entitled This is the Land (1935).[4]
During the 1950s, the first film studios were established in Herzliya, among them Geva Films (סרטי גבע) and Israeli Film Studios (אולפני ההסרטה בישראל). In 1954, the Knesset passed the Law for the Encouragement of Israeli Films (החוק לעידוד הסרט הישראלי). Menahem Golan, Ephraim Kishon, and Uri Zohar were leading Israeli movie makers in the 1960s.[citation needed]
The first Bourekas film was Sallah Shabati, produced by Ephraim Kishon in 1964. In 1965 Uri Zohar produced the film Hole in the Moon, influenced by French New Wave films. During the 1970s, many Bourekas films were made. They were big successes at the box office but panned by the critics. They included comedy films such as Charlie Ve'hetzi and Hagiga B'Snuker and sentimental melodramas such as Nurit. The main subject in most of the Bourekas films was the conflict between various classes and denominations, particularly due to romantic intentions. Prominent filmmakers in this genre during this period include Boaz Davidson, Ze'ev Revach, Yehuda Barkan and George Obadiah.[citation needed]
"Bourekas film" (סרטי בורקס), is a filmgenre popular in Israeli cinema during the 1960s and 1970s. A central theme was the conflict between Mizrahi Jews and Ashkenazi Jews. The hero was usually a Mizrahi Jew, almost always poor, canny and with street smarts, who comes into conflict with the institutions of the state or figures of Ashkenazi origin - mostly portrayed as rich, conceited, arrogant, cold-hearted and alienated. [citation needed] The term was supposedly coined by the Israeli film directorBoaz Davidson, the creator of several such films, as a play-on-words, after "Spaghetti Western:" just as the Western sub-genre was named after a notable dish of its country of filming, so the Israeli genre was named after the notable Israeli dish, Bourekas. [citation needed] Bourekas films are further characterized by accent imitations (particularly of Jewish people originating from Morocco, Persia, and Poland); a combination of melodrama, comedy and slapstick; and alternate identities.[citation needed]
New sensitivity films
The "New sensitivity films" (סרטי הרגישות החדשה) is an Israeli cinema movement which started during the 1960s and lasted until the end of the 1970s. The movement sought to create a cinema in modernist cinema with artistic and esthetic values, in the style of the new wave films of the French cinema.[citation needed] One of the most important creators in this genre is Uri Zohar, who directed the films Hor B'Levana (Hole In The Moon) and Shlosha Yamim Veyeled (Three Days and a Child).
Docudrama
Different events occur in Israel which are perceived in the eyes of its residents and many people abroad as events of historical importance. It is relatively easy to shoot movies about these events, because there is a lot of written material about them in Hebrew which could be used as a basis for a script, and because it is relatively easy to cast an Israeli crew which would have a lot of knowledge about these historical events from personal experience. In a long enough historical event, like the First Lebanon War, it is possible to film Docudrama movies about the place and time in which it occurred.[citation needed]
Musicals
Many Israeli films include songs performed by the actors. However, very few of the films contain both singing and dancing.[citation needed]
Military movies
Many different Israeli films such as drama, Docudrama and comedy films engage in the IDF and in the military way of life.[citation needed] These are often composed of two genres, macho propaganda of fighting men, or "shooting & crying" films.
In the early 1900s, silent movies were screened in sheds, cafes and other temporary structures.[6] In 1905, Cafe Lorenz opened on Jaffa Road in the new Jewish neighborhood of Neve Tzedek. From 1909, the Lorenz family began screening movies at the cafe. In 1925, the Kessem Cinema was housed there for a short time.[7]
In 1966, 2.6 million Israelis went to the cinema over 50 million times. From 1968, when television broadcasting began, theaters began to close down, first in the periphery, then in major cities. 330 standalone theaters were torn down or redesigned as multiplex theaters.[6]
Eden Cinema, Tel Aviv
Eden Cinema, Tel AvivMograbi theater, Tel Aviv
The Eden Cinema (Kolnoa Eden) was built in 1914 despite objections by the residents of Ahuzat Bayit, the neighborhood that became Tel Aviv. The owners, Moshe Abarbanel and Mordechai Wieser received a 13-year franchise. During World War I, the theater was shut down by order of the Ottoman government on the pretext that its generator could be used to send messages to enemy submarines off shore. It reopened to the public during the British Mandate and became a hub of cultural and social activity. It closed down in 1974.[6]
Mograbi Cinema, Tel Aviv
The Mograbi Cinema (Kolnoa Mograbi) opened in 1930. It was designed in an art deco style that was popular in cinemas worldwide. The building was roofless for the first few years and was eventually topped with a sliding roof. People gathered in front of the theater to dance in the streets when the UN General Assembly voted in favor of the Partition Plan in November 1947. After a fire in the summer of 1986 due to an electric short-circuit, the building was demolished.[6]
Amy Kronish and Costel Safirman, Israeli film : a reference guide, Westport, Conn. [etc.] : Praeger, 2003
Gilad Padva. Israel, Filmmaking. In Gestner, David Ed.), Routledge International Encyclopedia of Queer Culture: Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transsexual Contemporary Cultures (pp. 312-313). New York and London: Routledge, 2005
Gilad Padva. Discursive Identities in the (R)evolution of the New Israeli Queer Cinema. In Talmon, Miri and Peleg, Yaron (Eds.), Israeli Cinema: Identities in Motion (pp. 313-325). Austin, TX: Texas University Press, 2011
Ray Privett, Amos Gitai: Exile and Atonement, New York: Cinema Purgatorio, 2008.
Raz Ysef, Beyond flesh : queer masculinities and nationalism in Israeli cinema, New Brunswick, NJ [etc.] : Rutgers Univ. Press, 2004
Ella Shohat, Israeli cinema : East West and the politics of representation, Austin : Univ. of Texas Pr., 1989 ( an updated new edition will be published by I B Tauris & Co Ltd in 2010)
