Best movies like Cartas para Jenny

Avi Nesher's new film tracks the complex relationship between a Jerusalem Graffiti artist and a mysterious modern day prophet who is imprisoned in an abandoned apartment across the Artist's window.

Red Cow is a coming-of-age film that takes place in the days leading up to the assassination of Rabin and depicts the life of Benny, 16, orphaned from mother at birth and the only child of Joshua - a religious, right-wing extremist, in those critical junctures when she is forming her sexual, religious and political awareness.

In the city of Jaffa; a young girl plans to run away with her secret lover, when a tragedy forever changes the course of their lives. Jaffa is a mixed Arabic - Jewish seaside city near Tel Aviv, where Reuven Wolf (Moni Moshonov) has a garage for repairing cars. His wife Ossi (Ronit Elkabetz), a vain, self-centered woman, just makes everybody's life difficult. The couple's daughter, Mali Wolf (Dana Ivgy), has secretly fallen in love with her childhood friend, the young Toufik (newcomer Mahmud Shalaby), a hard-working youth who has come as a helping hand to his Israeli-Arab father Hassan, a long-time mechanic working for Reuven.

When a couple of American young adults fly to Israel to visit the city of Jerusalem, a biblical nightmare falls upon the city.

The year 2000 approaches in Jerusalem's Orthodox Mea Shearim quarter, where the women work, keep house, and have children so the men can study the Torah and the Talmud. Rivka is happily and passionately married to Meir, but they remain childless. The yeshiva's rabbi, who is Meir's father, wants Meir to divorce Rivka: "a barren woman is no woman." Rivka's sister, Malka, is in love with Yakov, a Jew shunned by the yeshiva as too secular. The rabbi arranges Malka's marriage to Yossef, whose agitation when fulfilling religious duties approaches the grotesque. Can the sisters sort out their hearts' desires within this patriarchal world? If not, have they any other options?

An adaptation of a popular Israeli stage musical. Kazablan is an army veteran turned gang leader in the Israeli port of Jaffa who masks his feelings of bitterness with a lot of bravado. He's sweet on Rachel, a young woman who lives with her father and stepmother. The budding relationship scandalizes the neighbors (not to mention Rachel's parents) and infuriates Yanush, a middle-aged shoe store owner who wants Rachel for himself. (Yanush feels he's entitled to marry Rachel since they're both Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern European origins, whereas Kazablan is a Sephardic Jew from Morocco.) The neighborhood has something else to worry about besides the antics of Kazablan and his gang: the city wants to tear down their crumbling homes. The residents pool their resources to save their houses, but the money that's collected is stolen. When he's jailed for the theft, Kazablan must find a way to clear himself.

Two naive high-school students must deal with the unexpected consequences after a night of passion.

The flat on the third floor of a Bauhaus building in Tel Aviv was where my grandparents lived since they immigrated to Palestine in the 1930s. Were it not for the view from the windows, one might have thought that the flat was in Berlin. When my grandmother passed away at the age of 98 we were called to the flat to clear out what was left. Objects, pictures, letters and documents awaited us, revealing traces of a troubled and unknown past. The film begins with the emptying out of a flat and develops into a riveting adventure, involving unexpected national interests, a friendship that crosses enemy lines, and deeply repressed family emotions. And even reveals some secrets that should have probably remained untold...

Jerusalem, Israel. Professors Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik, father and son, have dedicated their lives to the study of the Jewish scriptures. Eliezer is a stubborn and methodical scholar who has never been recognized for his work; Uriel is a rising star, someone admired and praised by his colleagues. The fragile balance that has kept their personal relationship almost intact is broken in an unexpected way by a simple phone call.

A re-imagining of the old mystical folklore that follows a woman and a tight-knit Jewish community that is besieged by foreign invaders. She conjures a dangerous creature to protect them but it may be more evil than she ever imagined.

This feature is one of the Israeli cinematography milestones. It displays the atmosphere of the late Israeli 50s from the view of young boy Alex, just becoming 13. His mom is the classic "Polish Mother", his school friends are young hustlers dreaming of nude girls, his schoolmaster is a nervous Russian immigrant. The street speech is full of Polish, Russian, and Farsi slang, full of the small talk that had later entered the everyday speech. The soundtrack, which is quite remarkable, is built solely on the American music of the period. Everyone in the feature finds one's love and happiness.

Set in mid-70's, 12-year old Dvir Avni navigates between the equality values of his home-born Kibbutz and the relationship with his undermined mother, whom the Kibbutz members will to denounce.

The director's mother's last wish was to be buried as a Muslim in Omer, her Jewish hometown, where she lived for 20 years. During the process of separation from the mother, the film reveals the family intimacy, secrets and dilemmas, raises serious questions about women's identity, nationality and the meaning of home.

Following the shooting of a film on the life of Jesus called This Is My Blood, Marie Palesi, the actress who plays Mary Magdalene, takes refuge in Jerusalem in search of the truth behind the myth. The director of the film, Tony Childress, who also plays Jesus, can think of only one thing: self-promotion. Meanwhile in New York, television journalist Ted Younger presents a programme about the life of Jesus.

A young Orthodox Jewish woman becomes ensconced in a nocturnal community of prostitutes and drug dealers that congregates in the ancient cemetery atop Jerusalem's Mount of Olives.

Azulai is a policeman in Jaffa, whose incompetence is only matched by his soft-heartedness. His superiors want to send him to early retirement, but he would like to stay on the force, and the criminals of Jaffa don't want to see him leave either...

Noemi, the studious, devoutly religious daughter of a prominent rabbi, convinces her father to postpone her marriage for a year so that she might study at a Jewish seminary for women in the ancient Kabalistic seat of Safe.

Haim-Aaron is a bright, ultra-orthodox religious scholar living in Jerusalem. His talents and devotion are envied by all. One evening, following a self-imposed fast, Haim-Aaron collapses and loses consciousness. The paramedics announce his death, but his father takes over resuscitation efforts and, beyond all expectations, Haim-Aaron comes back to life. After the accident, try as he might, Haim-Aaron remains apathetic to his studies. He feels overwhelmed by a sudden awakening of his body and suspects this is God testing him. He wonders if he should stray from the prescribed path and find a way to rekindle his faith... The title means "Rectify" in Hebrew; nevertheless the movie is called Tikkun in the English-speaking world.

A Protestant World War II pilot and a Jewish girl fall in love in Jerusalem, even though their diverse backgrounds threaten to pull them apart.

Eighteen-year-old Shira is the youngest daughter of the Mendelman family. She is about to be married off to a promising young man of the same age and background. It is a dream come true, and Shira feels prepared and excited. On Purim, her twenty-eight-year-old sister, Esther, dies while giving birth to her first child, Mordechay. The pain and grief that overwhelm the family postpone Shira's promised match. Everything changes when a match is proposed to Yochay-Esther's late husband-to a widow from Belgium. Yochay feels it's too early, although he realizes that sooner or later he must seriously consider getting married again. When the girls' mother finds out that Yochay may marry the widow and move to Belgium with her only grandchild, she proposes a match between Shira and the widower. Shira will have to choose between her heart's wish and her family duty. She will find out that the void which she must choose exists only within her heart.

In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Tto rebellious young women - one fleeing the chaos of secular hedonism for the disciplined comforts of faith; the other desperate to transcend her oppressive religious upbringing for sexual and spiritual freedom - cross paths unexpectedly in Jerusalem, to startling consequences.

In 1939, Kalman, an ambitious young businessman, leaves Europe to join his sister Samantha in Palestine. She lives with Dov, an idealistic architect obsessed with the Bauhaus style. With their friends, they form a group, which discusses the future Israeli State.

In his early twenties, Sam Cagnina, oldest son of a Mafia hit man, meets Steven, a handsome 19-year old college student and they fall in love. Then, after a few years Sam offers Steven a "visionary" idea. What if they could find a woman who would fall in love with both of them and agree to live in a "trio" relationship? They spend the next 7 years dating and looking for that special woman. Finally, they meet Samantha, a young, struggling actress. THREE OF HEARTS explores this very unique trio union as they negotiate their living arangements, fall in love and open one of the hottest wellness centres in New York City. Everyone who comes in contact with them is never quite sure how the relationship works. But the one thing which seems certain is their love for each other.

World-famous architect Louis Kahn (Exeter Library, Salk Institute, Bangladeshi Capitol Building) had two illegitimate children with two different women outside of his marriage. Son Nathaniel always hoped that someday his father would come and live with him and his mother, but Kahn never left his wife. Instead, Kahn was found dead in a men's room in Penn Station when Nathaniel was only 11.

'You lack inner peace, I can see it in your eyes...' With this abrupt remark thrown at her by a woman visiting Jerusalem's Wailing Wall, filmmaker Moran Ifergan is reminded of the religion she left in her late teens, when she used to frequent this holy site. While her marriage falls apart, Moran takes us on an around-the-clock journey to the women's side of the Wall; mixing between private and public, sound and image, God and His absence.

These are the memories of a lost girlhood. When they were only five or six or ten years old, their parents snatched them from the playground and handed them to much older men to be married. They recall the violence and fear they were subjected to, the pregnancies at the age of eleven or twelve, becoming mothers when they were still little girls themselves. It was an open secret but one they put aside forever, because revealing it might tear their family apart, causing commotion and creating chaos. The memories of their tragic childhood never healed – they were simply suppressed for the sake of their children, their livelihoods, and their husbands. No more.

An accident during a bar mitzvah celebration leads to a gendered rift in a devout Orthodox community in Jerusalem, in this rousing, good-hearted tale about women speaking truth to patriarchal power.

The year is 1983 and Yaakov Cohen, the owner of a Jerusalem printing press, is tired from being pushed around. It seems that he was born on the wrong side, with the wrong family name and in a moment's decision he decides to establish a Sephardic-ultra-Orthodox list that will run to the Jerusalem municipality. He gathers two friends, and together they improvise a campaign - no means, no connections, no money, but with much rage, passion and a sense of justice.

Louis Theroux spends time with a small and very committed subculture of ultra-nationalist Jewish settlers. He discovers a group of people who consider it their religious and political obligation to populate some of the most sensitive areas of the West Bank, especially those with a spiritual significance dating back to the Bible. Throughout his journey, Louis gets close to the people most involved with driving the extreme end of the Jewish settler movement - finding them warm, friendly, humorous, and deeply troubling.

In Israel, a joint French-Israeli scientific mission is set to unearth the secrets of the hill of Kiryath-Jearim (or Kiryat Ya’arim), converted to the site of a Catholic convent, where, according to the Bible, the Ark of the Covenant was kept for at least twenty years before being brought to Jerusalem by King David, father of King Solomon, who would eventually build the Holy of Holies inside the First Temple to house it.

As part of a season marking the 60th anniversary of the founding of Israel, Liran Atzmor's film documents a battle that took place in the Old City of Jerusalem in 1948 from three points of view - photojournalist John Philips, whose pictures for Life magazine depicted the Jews being evacuated from the Old City; Jack Padwa, the producer of a feature film which tells the story from a Jewish British perspective; and photographer Ali Zaarour, who tells the story from the Palestinian viewpoint. (Storyville)

A tale of friendship between two men, one Jewish and the other Arab, as the state of Israel is being created.

A 40-year-old writer returns to his family house where he was raised and that he escaped after half a lifetime - to face his brother who stayed instead, inherited their family bakery and married the woman who they both loved.

Experience the pain of Egyptian slavery through the eyes of Moses' mother as she sets down her baby in to the Nile, the loyalty of Ruth as she pledges herself to Naomi and her God, and the turmoil of the Jews in Babylonian exile. Face the challenge with Esther as she risks her life to plead for her people, and see the suffering of the Jews in Jerusalem under Roman occupation. In the dark centuries following, The Covenant brings you to Shabbat tables of the persecuted Jewish families in Diaspora, ending in the Warsaw ghetto, and culminating in the Holocaust and the promised rebirth of the Jewish State in 1948.