Shmuel Shilo Movies

An ambitious female reporter finds herself unable to remain an objective, third party observer while covering the Palestinian-Israeli conflict in this made for television war drama starring Faye Dunaway. Upon arriving Israel on her first foreign assignment, American photojournalist Faye Milano is greeted by David (Amos Kollek), an Israeli reserve officer and writer is also the nephew of Jerusalem Mayor Kollek. Later, while conducting a series of interviews with actual political representatives on both sides of the issue, Faye discovers the identity of David's uncle and skillfully manipulates him into getting her an interview with the mayor. The resulting story, which runs with a photograph of an Israeli police officer clubbing a young Palestinian girl, raises the ire of authorities - who deplore the reporter's penchant sensationalizing the details and seldom bothering to confirm the facts. When Faye learns that a young Palestinian boy was recently shot after hurling a brick at an Israeli soldier, she travels to Jerusalem in order to meet with Mustafa (Mohammad Bakri), the dead boy's brother. As tensions begin to thicken and Mustafa is arrested, Faye snaps a candid shot of the boy being taken into custody. Faye's press credentials are subsequently revoked, however, when the arresting officer is discovered with his throat slashed and the authorities place the blame for the killing on her photograph, which clearly shows the arresting officer's face. After submitting a story about an injured Palestinian boy who had actually suffered from a household accident and not in the conflict as she read leaders to believe, the inexperienced reporter finds that she has unexpectedly gotten in far over her head. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

Decades before Israel was created, dedicated Jewish men and women gathered in Palestine as part of the kibbutz movement. With a variety of ideologies, most of them based on some form of Marxism, kibbutzim (kibbutz-dwellers) almost universally practiced a form of consensual communitarianism: all property was held in common, all tasks and roles were shared (where possible) in rotation, and almost all decisions were based on a vote among kibbutz members. Since this was before the various women's equality movements and so on, these ideas (which did not allow for gender-based distinctions) were pretty radical. Some kibbutzes encouraged religious practice, others were strictly for atheist Jews. In this drama, a group of true-believers in the communist ideal who are also kibbutzim have their faith shaken when Stalin's pact with the Nazis comes to light. Some of the same kibbutzim have a new difficulty when, after the war, they must confront the West German Compensations Agreement. Through that agreement, they are being offered what are (to them) huge sums of money in recompense for the Holocaust. Now they must decide whether to keep the money (and leave the kibbutz) or share it with all the others, as they have done with all outside earnings in the past. ~ Clarke Fountain, All Movie Guide

Director Itzhak Yeshurun uses dissention in a high school as an allegory for the difficulties in mid-'80s Israeli society in this routine drama. One of the students in the school makes others miserable with his abrasive, brooding temperament after his girlfriend dumps him. Things start to go wrong when he and the other students work on a project to build an airplane, and the Arabs in the school are maliciously blamed for the trouble. The ex-girlfriend's punk brother shows up, and the entire situation deteriorates into violence. ~ Eleanor Mannikka, All Movie Guide

Never mind the title: Goodbye, New York mostly takes place in Israel. Julie Hagerty plays Nancy Callighan, a spoiled Irish-Jewish lass who decides to see the world after her husband has betrayed her. En route to Paris by plane, Nancy takes a few too many sedatives, and when she awakens, she's in Tel Aviv, minus money and luggage. Latching onto a cabdriver (Amos Kollek), Nancy settles in a Kibbutz, where she is subjected to traditional limitations on her freedom of choice and movement. Before long, however, she has adjusted to her new lifestyle. With the arrival of her husband, however, Nancy is faced with a momentous decision: should she give up all that she now holds near and dear, or should she return to New York. A darkly funny plot twist makes our heroine's mind up in record time. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

Noa at Seventeen is set in Israel in 1951. Noa (Dalia Shimko) is the teenaged daughter of middle-class Jewish family. A feature-length argument brews over whether the girl will attend college or enter a kibbutz. This culture clash is played out against the larger backdrop of the political turmoil between Israel and its so-called neighbors. The austere, minimalist Noa at Seventeen is head and shoulders above such non-Israeli kibbutz-life films as 1972's Jerusalem, which seem to have been filmed for the express purpose of dressing their leading ladies in bare-midriff blouses and tight shorts. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide