Liron Levo Movies
Filmmakers Erez Tadmor and Guy Nattiv expand their award-winning 2004 short into a feature length film tracing the unlikely romance between an Israeli kibbutznik and a Palestinian woman as the meet serendipitously on their way to the World Cup finals in Berlin. Eyal and Rana are two soccer fans who, despite being sworn enemies by birth, cannot deny the sparks that they feel after their bags get mistakenly swapped on the subway. In the three days that follow, these two disparate souls somehow manage to transcend the deep-rooted conflicts that have plagued their people for so long, and find true love in the chaos of world cup fever. Then, just as quickly as she appeared, Rana is gone. As news of a second Israeli-Lebanon war makes headlines, Eyal decides to throw caution to the wind and follow his true love back to Paris. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Liron Levo, Lubna Azabal, (more)
Forced Israeli evictions from the Gaza Strip yield tremendous personal strife for a pair of cross-cultural lovers in Disengagement, director Amos Gitai's meditation on the complex relationship between interpersonal and national politics in the Middle East. Juliette Binoche stars as Ana, a woman of mixed Dutch and Palestinian origin residing in Avignon, where her biological father has just died. Newly arrived in town is her adoptive brother, the Franco-Israeli Uli (Liron Levo), with whom Ana shares a relationship so passionate that it consistently transgresses sibling boundaries. While Uli comes to terms with his foster father's passing and prepares for an upcoming work assignment that involves aggressively shuttling Israeli settlers out of Gaza, Ana visits her father's attorney (French screen legend Jeanne Moreau), takes the steps to end her unfulfilling marriage, and hopes to make contact with her long-abandoned daughter, currently residing in the Israeli settlement of Gaza. To achieve this goal, Ana insists on accompanying Uli during his trip -- but doesn't count on numerous complications that arise, including a forced separation from Uli and lengthy travels with the settlers themselves, who have grown doggedly certain that God would never allow their geographic displacement to occur. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Juliette Binoche, Liron Levo, (more)
A Jewish-American woman still reeling from her breakup with her Spanish-Israeli fiancée hits the road with a middle-aged Israeli woman, who is looking to collect the 30,000-dollar debt owed to her by her husband's former business partner, and a Palestinian woman, who claims to know the elusive moneyman's whereabouts, in this road-trip drama from Kippur director Amos Gitai. In her efforts to escape the painful memory of her breakup with former fiancée Julio (Aki Avni), Rebecca (Natalie Portman) agrees to accompany Hanna (Hanna Laslo) on her arduous journey through Israel to the Free Zone -- a tax- and customs-free region where those from countries at war with one another amiably buy and sell cars -- in hopes of collecting a large debt owed to her by her ailing husband's business partner known only as "The American." When Hanna and Rebecca finally arrive in the Free Zone only to discover that Hanna's contact and money have mysteriously gone missing, a Palestinian woman named Leila (Hiam Abbass) agrees to lead the skeptical Hanna to both "The American" and Hanna's rightly due cash. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi
- Starring:
- Natalie Portman, Hanna Laslo, (more)
Directed by Amos Gitai, Alila is based on Yehoshua Kenaz's novel Returning Lost Love and chronicles the trials and tribulations of every day life in Tel Aviv. Most of the film revolves around an apartment block on the working-class borders of Tel Aviv, where the trysts of residents Hezi (Amos Lavie) and Gabi (Yael Abecassis) attract their neighbors' attention, as does the unauthorized construction of an additional wing to the building. A neighboring family patriarch, meanwhile, is dealing with legal troubles (he hired illegal Chinese construction workers), the AWOL status of his son, and his wife's affair with a younger man. A Holocaust survivor (Yosef Carmon) and his Filipino housekeeper (Lyn Shiao Zamir) further illustrate the conflict between Jews, Jews of different extractions, and Arabs in the community. ~ Tracie Cooper, Rovi
- Starring:
- Yaël Abecassis, Uri Ran Klauzner, (more)
Aleksandr Shabatayev's 1997 Hebrew-language comic thriller Nekama Yehudit (AKA Jewish Vendetta) concerns a jealous husband (Leonid Kanevsky) who - certain of his wife's infidelity - feigns a heart attack and uses it to extract a forced deathbed admission of guilt from the woman. She confesses that she indeed once slept with his best friend over three decades ago. Hell bent on revenge, he leaves his home in Israel undertakes a transcontinental journey across the Soviet continent to settle the score. The only problem is that his son and the Russian mafia stand in his way. Levana Finkelstein, Vsevolod Gavrilov and Oshik Levi co-star. ~ Nathan Southern, Rovi
- Starring:
- Leonid Kanevsky, Natalia Schwartz, (more)
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