The Israeli occupation of Palestine is one of the most hotly debated and controversial ongoing crises in Western Asia for the past several decades, resulting in numerous affronts to human rights that have stained the last few generations of those who call the region home. While the differences of opinion over what is to be…
Confession time: I was a fan of “Gossip Girl” for longer than I like to admit. Though it was a guilty pleasure, the high-camp, high-class, histrionic exploits of wealthy young New Yorkers made for entertaining TV. That vision of New York City as a playground for the ultra-rich and ultra-beautiful is one shared by Xavier…
Imagine a world where demons share human cities. We never see them, but they see us, surround us, interact with us and depend upon us, while all the time hating us and viewing us with contempt. Such is the premise of Fire City: End of Days, the feature debut from Tom Woodruff Jr. It is…
Israeli director Rama Burshtein’s powerfully moving Fill the Void (original title, “Lemale et ha’halal”), Israel’s submission to the 2012 Oscars, is about love and marriage but, in the Orthodox Hasidic community in Tel Aviv, they do not necessarily go together like a horse and carriage. Hadas Yaron, winner of the Best Actress Award at the…
Intelligence professionals are understandably media shy. Israel’s Shin Bet stays out of the spotlight more than most. Other than the organization’s man in charge, all other senior leaders are unknown to the public. Furthermore, they do not give interviews. That was until filmmaker, Dror Moreh, pulled off a journalistic coup with The Gatekeepers, a documentary…
