Best movies like Promises

Five broken cameras – and each one has a powerful tale to tell. Embedded in the bullet-ridden remains of digital technology is the story of Emad Burnat, a farmer from the Palestinian village of Bil’in, which famously chose nonviolent resistance when the Israeli army encroached upon its land to make room for Jewish colonists. Emad buys his first camera in 2005 to document the birth of his fourth son, Gibreel. Over the course of the film, he becomes the peaceful archivist of an escalating struggle as olive trees are bulldozed, lives are lost, and a wall is built to segregate burgeoning Israeli settlements.

Beirut, 1982: a young Palestinian refugee and an Israeli fighter pilot form a tentative bond in their attempt to make their way across war-torn Lebanon back to their home.

In the wake of Israel's 2006 bombardment of Lebanon, a determined woman finds her way into the country convincing a taxi driver to take a risky journey around the scarred region in search of her sister and her son.

Three children living in a displacement camp in northern Uganda compete in their country's national music and dance festival.

A thought-provoking documentary on the current and historical causes of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and U.S. political involvement.

Documentary of three gay men living in the Palestine-Israel region trade reflections on their situation and that of the region they live.

A group of Israelis and Palestinians come together in Oslo for an unsanctioned peace talks during the 1990s in order to bring peace to the Middle East.

Eager to provide a better future for her son, Fadi, divorcée Muna Farah leaves her Palestinian homeland and takes up residence in rural Illinois -- just in time to encounter the domestic repercussions of America's disastrous war in Iraq. Now, the duo must reinvent their lives with some help from Muna's sister, Raghda, and brother-in-law, Nabeel.

A spy navigates the precarious terrain of love and survival during an undercover mission in Syria.

Ari Ben Canaan, a passionate member of the Jewish paramilitary group Haganah, attempts to transport 600 Jewish refugees on a dangerous voyage from Cyprus to Palestine on a ship named the Exodus. He faces obstruction from British forces, who will not grant the ship passage to its destination.

GAZA brings us into a unique place beyond the reach of television news reports to reveal a world rich with eloquent and resilient characters, offering us a cinematic and enriching portrait of a people attempting to lead meaningful lives against the rubble of perennial conflict. Throughout its entire history the Gaza Strip has been witness to conflict and upheaval. From ancient times this tiny coastal territory, located at a crossroads between continents, has been a pawn whose fate rested in the hands of powerful neighbours.

A "slice-of-life" documentary set in Gaza City, following the inner and outer lives of a 13-year-old boy, a self-styled revolutionary, as he struggles to find meaning in his life while his friends are killed around him, one by one.

Based on one of the most beloved Young Adult novels of all time: Two kids are stripped naked and left together on an island in a lake - victims of a vicious summer camp prank; But rather than have to return to camp and face the humiliation, they decide to take off, on the run together. What follows is a three day odyssey of discovery and self-discovery.

The story of young Amos Oz, growing up in Jerusalem in the years before Israeli statehood with his parents; his academic father, Arieh, and his dreamy, imaginative mother, Fania.

A Canadian doctor finds her sympathies sorely tested while working in the conflict ravaged Palestinian territories.

David Osit’s thought-provoking documentary is a real-life political saga following Musa Hadid, the Christian mayor of Ramallah, during his second term in office.

Filmmaker Elia Suleiman travels to different cities and finds unexpected parallels to his homeland of Palestine.

Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?

Ajami is an area of Tel Aviv in Israel where Arabs, Palestinians, Jews and Christians live together in a tense atmosphere. Omar, an Israeli Arab, struggles to save his family from a gang of extortionists. He also courts a beautiful Christian girl: Hadir. Malek, an illegal Palestinian worker, tries to collect enough money to pay for his mother's operation. Dando, an Israeli cop, does his utmost to find his missing brother who may have been killed by Palestinians.

Two young men — a Palestinian grad student and an Israeli lawyer — meet and fall in love amidst personal and political intrigue.

An opus in three parts, Iraq In Fragments offers a series of intimate, passionately-felt portraits: A fatherless 11-year-old is apprenticed to the domineering owner of a Baghdad garage; Sadr followers in two Shiite cities rally for regional elections while enforcing Islamic law at the point of a gun; a family of Kurdish farmers welcomes the US presence, which has allowed them a measure of freedom previously denied. American director James Longley spent more than two years filming in Iraq to create this stunningly photographed, poetically rendered documentary of the war-torn country as seen through the eyes of Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds.

Palestinian director Bassam Jarbawi's debut feature film tackles the physical and emotional toll of one man's return home after 15 years in an Israeli jail.

Bethlehem tells the story of the unlikely bond between Razi, an Israeli secret service officer, and his Palestinian informant Sanfur, the younger brother of a senior Palestinian militant. Razi recruited Sanfur when he was just 15, and developed a very close, almost fatherly relationship to him. Now 17, Sanfur tries to navigate between Razi’s demands and his loyalty to his brother, living a double life and lying to both men. Co-written by director Yuval Adler and Ali Waked—an Arab journalist who spent years in the West Bank—Bethlehem gives an unparalleled, moving and authentic portrait of the complex reality behind the news.

A Palestinian boy becomes entranced with a beautiful Gypsy girl and a fairy tale world she weaves amidst conflict in Gaza. The children explore nature, mysticism and what their future holds, while learning to live with the surrounding brutality c. 1990. Yusef's family scrapes by in a seaside camp while his father's in prison and his heavily-armed brother's on the run, parrying with Israeli troops. Salah, Yusef's schoolmate from a well-off Arab family strives faithfully to assist them, while Yusef helps an elderly, blind neighbor escape from his lonely abandonment into the North American dreamworld he's waited so long for.

Documentarian Ra'anan Alexandrowicz accompanies a Palestinian tour group on a three-day sight-seeing trip to Israel.

Set against a backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian rapper Kareem and his singer girlfriend Manar struggle, love and make music in their crime-ridden ghetto and Tel Aviv's hip-hop club scene.

In 1948, immediately before a ceasefire takes effect, four volunteers fighting for Israel are ordered to take Hill 24, overlooking the road to Jerusalem.

Salam, an inexperienced young Palestinian man, becomes a writer on a popular soap opera after a chance meeting with an Israeli soldier. His creative career is on the rise - until the soldier and the show's financial backers disagree about how the show should end, and Salam is caught in the middle.

A documentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has lasted for more than 50 years. Contains some interviews with the children in this conflict.

The last years have seen a steep rise in the number of Arabs signing up to Israel's army. Considered traitors by many in the Arab community, what drives these young men to fight for a country traditionally in conflict with Arab interests? Does this provide a path for Israeli/Arab integration? In this insightful doc, we follow the first Arab battalion fighting for Israel.

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)

Sami was at his parents’ house back in the village, when peace began to break out. He had gone there with his wife and kid for his brother's wedding . Back in the village people told him, “There’s no place like home,” and asked when he’d be coming back, but deep down Sami knew that he had forgotten. You can’t be away for that long without forgetting something.

An examination of the creation of the state of Israel in 1948 through to the present day. A semi-biographic film, in four chapters, about a family spanning from 1948 until recent times. Combined with intimate memories of each member, the film attempts to portray the daily life of those Palestinians who remained in their land and were labelled "Israeli-Arabs," living as a minority in their own homeland.

Hitparkut (Dissolution) combines an almost surreal fairy-tale energy with brutal black and white realism to explore the condition of violence which permeates contemporary Israeli society. Shot is Yafo (the predominantly Arab area of Tel Aviv), the movie follows the moral collapse and first glimmer of redemption, of a young, morose Israeli Jew, played by Israeli actor Didi Fire

The story is set in the midst of war-torn Gaza during the Second Intifada in 2003, where two 12-year-old boys, one Palestinian and the other Israeli, along with an ex-surfing champion, form an unlikely friendship over their mutual love for the water. The lessons they learn from one another go beyond the waves, helping influence their decision-making and show their community that peace can exist.