Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema

In Israel’s 60th year, the country’s film heritage is getting the spotlight at the Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema, running this week at AMC Pipers Alley 4 and the Wilmette Theatre. The fest cobbles together 20 promising examples from the nation’s half-century of filmmaking. We sampled a handful of these films with no particular method and had very few reasons to kvetch.

We were quietly bowled over by Ayelet Menahemi’s affecting Noodle, a family drama that rightly ushers in the festival Wednesday night. A widowed flight attendant comes home to find that her sister’s Chinese housekeeper has been deported, leaving the servant’s elementary-school-age son behind. Quickly thrust into the role of caretaker, Miri (Mili Avatal) and her supportive family rally together to bring the boy home, patching up some of their own familial scars in the process. The implausible denouement ratchets up the heartache meter, but it works because it does so modestly.

Another poignant tale of two people unexpectedly crossing paths is Strangers. Eyal, an Israeli, accidentally picks up a Palestinian woman’s backpack on a Berlin subway during the ’06 World Cup. When the two rendezvous to return each other’s bags, they fall in love. Recalling Romeo and Juliet or even Spike Lee’s Jungle Fever, this forbidden, roller-coaster of a relationship has all the entertaining twists you could ask for. Directors Guy Nattiv and Erez Tadmor effectively underscore the real stakes, with the Israel/Lebanon conflict playing incessantly on the TV news in the background.

Yet another angle on the Israeli/Arab divide is the documentary Lady Kul El-Arab, a powerful look at an aspiring Arab female model living in Israel who’s torn between the temptation of fame and her conservative Druze upbringing.

Our favorite of the bunch might be Dancing Alfonso, a tender documentary about a flamenco-dancing, elderly man who fights off loneliness in the months following his wife’s death. He doesn’t have problems meeting new women, but keeping them is another matter. There’s a lot packed into these 52 minutes, and Alfonso’s story should resonate for us all.

For historical perspective, Nathan Axelrod’s Etz O Palestine (The True Story of Palestine) documents the development of modern-day Israel. Essentially an hour-long, black-and-white pep rally for the Zionist state, it teaches about the setup of Israel’s universities, theater, musical scene and sporting culture. A quick detour into the 1948 Arab/Israeli war attaches a little necessary drama, but a celebration shortly follows with a killer Yemenite dance.

The Festival runs through Nov 9. For more information, go to chicagofestivalofisraelicinema.org.