Best movies like The Insomniac City Cycles

Three parallel stories of immigrants in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War and about coming together while sealed in a room during the Scud attacks.

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

Meduzot (the Hebrew word for Jellyfish) tells the story of three very different Israeli women living in Tel Aviv whose intersecting stories weave an unlikely portrait of modern Israeli life. Batya, a catering waitress, takes in a young child apparently abandoned at a local beach. Batya is one of the servers at the wedding reception of Keren, a young bride who breaks her leg in trying to escape from a locked toilet stall, which ruins her chance at a romantic honeymoon in the Caribbean. One of the guests is Joy, a Philippine chore woman attending the event with her employer, and who doesn't speak any Hebrew (she communicates mainly in English), and who is guilt-ridden after having left her young son behind in the Philippines.

Life in a Tel Aviv apartment complex, an urban mosaic whose seedy characters, try as they might, can't get out of one another's faces. Gabi, a bobbed haired sexpot, and her lover Hezi—who's older, balding and married—rent a room to have an affair, while Ezra, a pot bellied divorcee, supervises an illegal construction site next door. All this racket drives Schwartz, a Holocaust survivor, to a mental breakdown. Other characters include illegal Chinese immigrants, a teenage boy who's afraid to serve in the army, and a corrupt police detective.

After leaving work one night, Los Angeles attorney Jeff Mills and his colleague rescue a young, beautiful woman from an abusive boyfriend. Jeff soon becomes romantically involved with her and embroiled in the web of intrigue that follows her, despite a string of ominous happenstances and repeated warnings from his secretary.

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...

A group of friends in a Tel Aviv suburb get together to watch Universong, a Eurovision-like television song contest. They gather to watch and are depressed by the lifelessness of the Israeli entry, a parody of many recent offerings, a flashy, grating song about "amour." Realizing that Anat is distraught over the crisis in her marriage, they decide to compose a song to cheer her up. As a lark, they enters their cellphone video of it in next year's contest, and it becomes Israel's entry.

An American wakes up in an English hospital unable to remember anything of his life before a recent car accident. With only a photograph torn from a newspaper to guide him, and an unknown benefactor, he attempts to unravel what looks increasingly like a bizarre murder.

Menahem Lang, an actor with an extraordinary singing voice, returns to Bnei Brak, the city in Israel where he grew up and a center of ultra-orthodox Judaism. Now in his 30s, Lang left the city at 20, following years of rape and sexual abuse by elder, devout family men in the community. Yet, Lang was far from being an isolated case: his conversations with other abused young men document a cycle of sexual predators and tormented lives.

A gay New York Times travel writer comes to Tel Aviv after suffering a tragedy. The energy of the city and his relationship with a younger man brings him back to life.

It articulates the essence of one's internal exile through the portrait of a Jewish-German refugee who arrived in Israel on the eve of World War II, started a family – but has nevertheless, yet to feel at home in his new country. He remains connected to Berlin with every fiber of his being; the city’s culture, its essence, and as far as he’s concerned, Israel is no more than a pit stop. He gradually pulls away from his wife, his son who does not get him, his sisters who are haunted by the past, and the rental flat where he’s lived all these years. He sets up shop in a budget hotel by the Tel Aviv seaside, hangs out with a group of fringe misfits, and dreams of moving back to Berlin.

Tel Aviv, Summer 1989. Boaz, a beautiful and alluring linguistics student, receives anonymous, male written love letters, that undermine his sexual identity and interfere on his peaceful life with his beloved girlfriend.

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.

The unbelievable story of 22 year old Or, who secretly finances his sex change operation in Thailand by lying to his conservative parents and then returns home as a woman to face her new life, her family and the cost of living her dream

Seventy years after his grandfather escapes from Nazi Germany to Palestine, Israeli documentary director Tomer Heymann returns to the country of his ancestors to present his film "Paper Dolls" at the Berlin International Film Festival, and there meets a man who will change his life. This 48-hour love affair, originating in Berghain Panorama Bar, develops into a significant relationship between Tomer and Andreas Merk, a German dancer.

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

A deranged scientist locks 6 people in a steam room and threatens to turn up the heat if the local paper doesn't publish his story about global warming.

Yoav's demons start haunting him after his best friend becomes pregnant, without telling him, and after his boyfriend of 15 years starts talking about children, too. His life unravels, and self-destruction seems inevitable.

A Tel Aviv taxi breaks down, and while the driver attempts to repair it, the passengers take shelter and relate tales to each other. One man relates how he became a hero, in a comic fashion, while on Army maneuvers; an elderly woman tells of her first visit to the big city; another woman tells how she and her husband invited his boss and his wife to their home for dinner, with the intent of getting the husband a raise, and they wound up in a hospital thinking they had food poisoning. Another story concerns how the police caught a demented-thief who stole from a bank to give money to the poor.

Dillan Johansen is a disorganized transit authority supervisor suffering from a serious personal tragedy. Dillan's bravery is put to the test the day a major earthquake hits Los Angeles and traps Dillan in an underground tunnel with a handful of subway riders. Dillan works underground to save the panicked citizens from raging fire, rushing water, and a secret cache of toxic chemicals.

A hilarious fantasy about "an almost normal guy who almost reached the blue planet," this 1995 cult classic drew sell-out crowds to Israeli movie houses for over six years. It's a cosmic comedy will take you through the wild beyond on an amazing journey to a thoroughly unexpected place!

A party in Tel Aviv, Israel. Danny is looking for Max to share that she is pregnant with his child; but Max has just started a new relationship with Avishag whose rough sexual fantasy he is trying to make come true.

Ben and Raz are painstakingly pursuing their desire to have a child, and the migrant neighbourhood where this gay couple has set up their new flat is on the up. But a conflict over a newly planted tree in the city brings deep-seated prejudices to light.

Three stories about three women: one is trying to find the right guy; one is trying to get a divorce from her runaway husband so she takes hostages; one turns Tel Aviv upside down in order to save a kitten trapped in a storm drain.

An existential comedy about a neurotic film director whose fears of failure, death and losing control all surface on the night his new film is released - a hysterical unforgettable night at least for him his band of eccentric friends.

In the easy-going, sexually-liberated 1970's Tel Aviv, three young friends, struggling filmmaker Nati, his impressionable girlfriend Ossi and his geeky friend Mushon, move in together in a small apartment in Dizengoff Street number 99. By day, they work a boring desk office job but by night the city is their playground. Their overall goal is to make their way into the commercial movie making business, but harsh realities and romances often sidetrack them. Their fourth friend and Nati's older other girlfriend is aspiring musician, Miri.

A young New York woman, devastated to find out that her husband has been cheating on her, decides to hop a plane to Paris to get away. However, she falls asleep on the plane, misses her connection, and winds up in Israel, with no money, no luggage and no friends.

Set in Tel Aviv, focuses on an interconnected group of friends and their various relationships. At the center is the adorably bookish Omer, about to turn 30, who still hasn't found himself, and his free-spirited best friend Miki, who both end up inadvertently dating the same handsome journalist, Ronen.

The film takes place in Tel Aviv, much of it in a fictitious local pub called Barbie, a satirical nickname for a famous Israeli mental health institution. The pub's name hints at the characters and the events which occur in the pub and which befall its owner (Daliah), the employees and customers. The plot unfolds with a streak of violence which takes a surprising turn.

Aviva, a hard-working hotel cook in the small northern Israeli town of Tiberias, is on the brink of finally fulfilling her lifelong dream. For years she kept her remarkable writing abilities under wraps, until her sister, Anita, introduces her to Oded, an accomplished novelist. Immediately recognizing Aviva's talent, Oded takes her under his wing, promising to help her achieve greatness. But the journey to greatness effects her life and the lives of her family - her unemployed husband, her trouble children, her unstable mother, and primarily her sister, a funny and sensitive woman who have her own dreams. When Aviva discovered that Oded has other plans for her work, her world collapses.

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

Michale is a thirty year old woman. She works with her father in a Tel Aviv accounting office providing services to important religious institutions. She divides her time between her child, her husband, her work and the man with whom she is having an affair. When Michale learns of the tragic death of her lover, her life is shattered.

In a rain swept Tokyo, Eko complicates her life by publishing a 'Call For Dreams' ad in a newspaper. As strangers leave descriptions of dreams on her answering machine, a parallel police investigation of a murder in Tel Aviv unfolds.

A frantic young woman begs a stranger to help save her marked husband, not realizing that the stranger is the hit man hired to kill him. Experimental digital movie shot entirely in one take and in real time.

As in previous editions, lesbian filmmakers were asked to visualize their conceptions and observations of gay eroticism and sexuality, just as, conversely, gay filmmakers were asked to explore lesbian love in the Israeli capital.