Trembling Before G-d (2001)

Built around intimately-told personal stories of Hasidic and Orthodox Jews who are either gay or lesbian, this unprecedented feature documentary shatters assumptions about faith, sexuality and religious fundamentalism. It portrays a group of people who face a profound dilemma on how to reconcile their passionate love of Judaism and the Divine with the drastic Biblical prohibitions that forbid homosexuality. As the film unfolds, we meet a range of complex individuals -- some hidden, some out -- from the world's first openly gay Orthodox rabbi to closeted, married Hasidic gays and lesbians to those abandoned by religious families to Orthodox lesbian high-school sweethearts. Many have been tragically rejected and their pain is raw, yet with irony, humor, and resilience, they love, care, struggle, and debate with a thousand-year old tradition.

TREMBLING BEFORE G-D is an international project with global implications that strikes at the meaning of religious identity and tradition in a modern world. For the first time, this issue has become a live, public debate in Orthodox circles, and the film is both witness and catalyst to this historic moment. What emerges is a loving and fearless testament to faith and survival and the universal struggle to belong. Certainly this film is a MUST-SEE!

(In ENGLISH, YIDDISH & HEBREW with ENGLISH & SPANISH subtitles)

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Yeladim Tovim (2005) ילדים טובים

בזנות. יש לו תינוקת משותפת עם מיקה, זונה צעירה ונרקומנית, אמא מאמצת שהיא גם זונה טרנס-ג'נדרית מזדקנת ולקוחות שיוצרים אתו קשר דרך הטלפון הנייד. לילה אחד הוא פוגש את טל, גם הוא זונה ממין זכר. קליינט מזדקן מזמין אותם לביתו. אחרי העבודה השניים מחליטים להעביר את הלילה ביחד. בין לילה החיים שלהם זוכים לקבל ממד אחר, אבל האם התקווה הקטנה שצצה בלבם יכולה לשנות את דרך החיים שלה הם התרגלו כבר מגיל צעיר? בבוקר הם קובעים להיפגש יותר מאוחר במועדון. עד לפגישה הלילית המיוחלת שני הנערים יצטרכו להתמודד עם יממה רגילה ושוחקת של קליינטים, אנשים משולי החברה וגם אירועים בלתי צפויים. הנערים ילמדו כמה וכמה דברים על עצמם ועל יצר ההישרדות שלהם.

Seventeen-year-old Meni (Daniel Efrat) wears only the most fashionable clothes, interested in music, loves the cinema and works as a rent boy. He had a baby from Mika (Nili Tzerruya), a young drug addict prostitute. He has an adoptive mother Grace (Gila Goldstein) who is also a trans-gender prostitute and clients that contact him on his cell-phone. One night he meets Tal (Yuval Raz), also a hustler and they decide to spend the night together. During that night their lives get a new meaning, but can the little hope change the life they are used to from early age? In the morning they decide to meet later at the club. Until the awaited meeting, both of them will have to deal with their weary routine of clients, marginalized people and unexpected events.

ילדים טובים read phonetically as YELADIM TOVIM, it's international title, is an award-winning film is raw and brutal that it examines the harsh lives of rent boys. Daniel and Yuval performed their characters so well that you can't look down on them but feel so much compassion. The director made everything look so real -- the living conditions, the people in the neighborhood and the tragic events. Another MUST-SEE!

(In HEBREW with ENGLISH subtitles)

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LaLehet Al HaMayim (2003) ללכת על המים

אייל, סוכן מוסד, מקבל הוראה "ללוות" את אקסל, שבא לבקר את אחותו שבחרה לגור בארץ. אקסל הוא נכדו של פושע נאצי שמדינת ישראל לא ויתרה על ניסיונותיה ללכוד אותו ולהעמידו לדין. אייל ואקסל מטיילים בארץ, ובמהלך הטיול מתחילה להירקם מערכת יחסים וחברות אשר במהלכה מגלה כל אחד את המורכבות שבקשר, את השפעת הזיכרון והעבר המעיק, ואת הצורך להמשיך וליצוק תוכן ומהות לחייהם כאנשים צעירים.

Eyal (Lior Ashkenazi), grew up to be a tough Israeli "Mossad" agent. Axel (Knut Berger) is a sweet natured German gay man, and the grandson of a famous Nazi thought still to be living secretly somewhere in South America. When Axel comes to Israel to visit his sister, who has rebelliously left her family, Eyal is assigned to be his tour guide, as part of a "Mossad" last attempt to find Axel's grandfather. The two travel throughout Israel together and an unexpected close friendship develops. The unfamiliar emotions the men experience in Israel are merely an introduction to the trying and challenging events awaiting them later in Germany, when Eyal "visits" Axel in Berlin. A visit that forces each of them to face and question the meaning and the kind of life they lead.

ללכת על המים, internationally known as WALK ON WATER, phonetically read as LALEHET AL HAMAYIM in Hebrew, it is a film of intelligent direction and story. Some critiques found its ending implausible but to me, it's the exact contrast. If they only paid attention to every line that has been uttered by each actor, I am sure they'll take back their cynical views. If only the two lead actors went further than their close friendship, I am sure that it would bring so much more excitement to the film.

(In HEBREW, ENGLISH & GERMAN with ENGLISH subtitles)

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