Movies by Yaƫl Abecassis

Surviving with Wolves

Surviving with Wolves

In 1942, the young Jewish girl Misha, her Russian mother Gerusha and her German father Reuven hide from the Germans in a small house in Ardennes, Belgium. Misha is very connected to her mother that advises her that if one day a person comes to her saying "love of my life", she would follow him or her without any question. When her parents are captured by the Nazis, Misha is delivered to a German family and the abusive matriarch gives a bad treatment to the girl. However, she finds support in the family of Ernest and his deranged wife Marthe ...

Without Me

Without Me

Anna, a divorced single mother, employs a mysterious young woman called Lise to care for her children.

Words with Gods

Words with Gods

The first of four installments in the groundbreaking Heartbeat of the World anthology film series. Comprised of several short films by some of the world's most exciting directors, Words with Gods follows the theme of religion - specifically as it relates to an individual's relationship with his/her god or gods...or the lack thereof. In Words with Gods, each director recounts a narrative centered around human fragility, as well as environmental and cultural crises involving specific religions with which each has a personal relationship; incl...

Lullaby to my Father

Lullaby to my Father

The film intertwines historical events and intimate memories. I observe how architecture represents the transformations of society and those who give form to this architecture. We follow the journey of Munio, my father, born in 1909 in Silesia, Poland, the son of a tenant farmer of a Prussian junker. At the age of 18, Munio goes to Berlin and Dessau to meet Walter Gropius, Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then de...

Dancing Arabs

Dancing Arabs

A young Arab is caught between cultures as he is sent to a prestigious Jewish boarding school in Israel in the 1980s.

Live and Become

Live and Become

In 1980 the black Falashas in Ethiopia are recognised as genuine Jews and are secretly carried to Israel. The day before the transport the son of a Jewish mother dies. In his place and with his name (Schlomo) she takes a Christian 9-year-old boy.

Tel Aviv Stories

Tel Aviv Stories

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.

That Lovely Girl

That Lovely Girl

Moshe and Tami are a couple, Moshe is in his fifties and Tami is in her early twenties. They live together in a cruel and violent relationship, from which Tami seems unable to set herself free. Tami and Moshe are father and daughter...

Legend of Destruction

Legend of Destruction

What had initially started out as a Jewish revolt against the Roman occupation, quickly turned into a fierce civil war. The combination of religious messianic zeal and the friction between social classes proved disastrous and resulted in the destruction of Jerusalem and the Holy Temple.

Miss Entebbe

Miss Entebbe

Jerusalem 1976, a coming of age story about a confused girl, set against the Entebbe airplane hijacking.13- year-old Noa, is convinced she can free her friend's mom by kidnapping an Arab boy. Instead, she finds herself involved in a dangerous adventure that quickly develops a life of its own, and becomes deadly serious. Noa and her neighbor friends try to follow the adults patterns of behavior but, while entering the turmoil of political conflict and hatred, they discover that the solution is not to be found in the violent adult arena, bu...

Hunting Elephants

Hunting Elephants

In this hilarious crime comedy, a gifted 12-year-old boy and three elderly men plan a bank robbery in order to seek revenge on the institution for cheating the youngster after the death of his father.

Three-Step Dance

Three-Step Dance

Four separate-but-interconnected stories - one for each season - about life in Sardinia.