"Epos" Festival at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art

The International Festival of Films on Culture and Art returns for its 17th edition with four days of cinema, culture, and art. The program includes a selection of Israeli and international films dealing with art, music, dance, theater, literature, architecture, design, and photography, alongside discussions, introductions, two city competitions, and a variety of additional international films and special events.

Unique Film Competitions Focusing on Tel Aviv–Yafo

“Urban Diary” — Second Year

Apos, in collaboration with the Tel Aviv–Yafo City Museum, will hold a competition featuring premieres of short films that express the character of the city of Tel Aviv–Yafo. The films examine the city from cultural, personal, and social perspectives, offering a glimpse into urban ways of life. The films will later be screened at the Tel Aviv–Yafo City Museum and included in the museum’s collection of stories.

Thursday | 17.9 | 11:30 | Kaufmann Hall

“Shorts” — On Artists and Art in Israel

A framework intended to promote cinematic works dealing with the various fields of art and culture in Israel, and to encourage their preservation through cinema.

Wednesday | 16.9 | 10:30, 12:30 | Asia Hall

Additional Films

Opening Film: “Take the Money and Run”

The festival’s opening film tells the story of artist Jens Haaning, whom a Copenhagen art museum loaned half a million kroner to create a work displaying banknotes on two large canvases. But what remained on the museum wall were two empty frames and the title Haaning gave the work: “Take the Money and Run.” The banknotes had disappeared. Is this art? Is Haaning a brilliant artist or simply a thief?

Closing Film: “The Playboy Photographer”

The festival’s closing film is about Bunny Yeager, the successful photographer for Playboy magazine, who worked within a ruthless industry but fit perfectly into the masculine and exploitative atmosphere of the 1950s and 1960s. Several decades later, feminist movements adopted Yeager as an example of an independent woman who helped women feel proud of their bodies, and her photographs were exhibited in several museums across the United States.

• Seven Masks on the Life of Bruria — Director Bruria Pasternak Sharvit’s autobiographical film about life in the ultra-Orthodox city of Bnei Brak—as a woman, a mother of five, and an artist.

• Raida Adon, Herself (Bracha Zisman Cohen) — Wherever Raida Adon lives, there are suitcases. Only art is home.

• Ida’s Club (Dalit Kimor) — Once a year, a ballroom-dancing competition takes place at Ida’s club. All the contestants passed retirement age long ago, but that does not stop them from dancing and singing, falling in love, and being disappointed.

• Bread of Salt, Dream (Sharon Haleli Assa) — A poetic docu-dance film following the inner and documentary journey of a woman who dances out of a longing to cross the language that separates us.

• Yours, Always — The turbulent love, uncontrollable passion, and publicized infidelities of the legendary couple Simone Signoret and Yves Montand.

• On the Cello: Jacqueline du Pré — Cellist Yo-Yo Ma tells the story of her life and rise to fame, alongside her love affair with Daniel Barenboim and her struggle with illness.

• Rosencrantz, Guildenstern, and Stoppard — A rare glimpse into the life and past of leading playwright Tom Stoppard, who passed away.

• Siri Hustvedt: Journeys in the Writing Room — Most people remember her as the wife of writer Paul Auster. This film attempts to overcome that difficulty and present Hustvedt herself.

• Carmina Burana: The Dance — A spectacular cinematic documentation of a performance by the ballet company of the Slovene National Theatre.

• All Our Blood Is Red — Renowned photographer Martin Schoeller documents people on the margins whom the world prefers to repress.

Films Following Poets / Poetry Movies

Curator: Yasmin Kini

Tributes to poets Yisrael Eliraz and Hedva Harekhavi, and films dealing with the realities of war and artificial intelligence, alongside the premiere of “Taha—The Voice Between the Lines,” a short documentary about poet Taha Muhammad Ali, who died in 2010. Taha, a Palestinian poet whose poetry was translated into dozens of languages, did not deal directly with the conflict, but with feelings of pain, suffering, and hope.

Apos for the Whole Family: Louisa | Award-Winning Play by Train Theater

Created by Iris Domany

In a small studio, a video and animation artist plays with her special, tiny collections, which you can see through the lens of the magnifying camera. Little by little, they come to life and build a unique world and the travel story of Louisa, a girl searching for a sense of belonging. Live. For the whole family, ages 5 and up. Duration: 45 minutes.

Saturday | 19.9 | 10:00, 12:00 | Kaufmann Hall

For the Digitel benefit > Link