16/06/2020 - The 22nd Docaviv Film Festival will take place from 3-12 September with both online and physical screenings of 120 local and international documentaries; 16 Israeli films will vie for awards

The 22nd edition of the Docaviv Film Festival is set to take place in Tel Aviv from 3-12 September, after being postponed from its original dates in May due to the coronavirus. This year’s festival will take on a hybrid format, with both online and physical screenings – all in compliance with social-distancing guidelines. Audience events will take place both indoors and outdoors throughout the city, as well as on the festival’s website, whereas industry events are planned to move entirely online.

Docaviv’s artistic director, Karin Rywkind Segal, says: “The decision to plan a hybrid festival was made after realising that the safety restrictions that may apply once the cinemas in Israel reopen could limit the capacity of the large crowds that the festival usually enjoys. As a big audience festival, we want to accommodate our loyal audiences who may not be able to attend cinema screenings. Other festivals that went online and a successful curated online programme we launched in May have both proven that an online programme is a wonderful way of reaching people that reside outside of Tel Aviv as well as audiences with disabilities that do not allow them to attend physical screenings. We cannot predict the future, but we are working towards the best and safest solutions to showcase the wonderful films we have curated for this year's programme.”

At the time of writing, no date has been announced for the reopening of cinemas in Israel. The decision to open them on 14 June was withdrawn on 8 June owing to a new rise in COVID-19 cases in the country.

The festival has also announced the line-up of the Israeli Competition, which features 16 titles, 12 of which are world premieres. These include Kings of Capitol Hill [+see also:
film review
film profile] (the latest film by Censored Voices [+see also:
trailer
film profile] director Mor Loushy), A Valley's Lullaby by Ben Shani, And I Was There by Eran Paz, Childhood by Shirly Berkovitz, Four Mothers by Rephael Levin and Dana Keidar, Honorable Men by Roni Aboulafia, Love It Was Not [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Maya Sarfaty, Ma mère Raymond by Yael Abecassis, No Hard Feelings by Arthur Abramov, Rain in Her Eyes by Ron Omer, The Three Yossi by Yael Kipper and Ronen Zaretzky, Rockfour: The Time Machine by Gad Aisen, The War of Raya Sinitsina [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] by Efim Graboy and 'Til Kingdom Come [+see also:
interview: Maya Zinshtein
film profile] by Maya Zinshtein. In addition, Yoav Shamir's The Prophet and the Space Aliens [+see also:
film review
trailer
film profile] and Dror Moreh's The Human Factor [+see also:
film review
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film profile] will have their Israeli premieres in the National Competition.

Another two Israeli films will world-premiere in the newly established Beyond the Screen competitive category, for films whose subjects work to change our political, social and ecological reality: A Waste of Space by Noam Demsky and Ido Bahat, and Marry Me However by Mordechai Vardi.

Other Israeli films set to be screened at the gathering include Another Day in Paradise by Tomer Halfon, Little Victories by Michal Warshai Arluk and Murder at Cinema North by Avida Livny, in the Panorama strand; Coda for a Captain by Keren Alexander and Tuning by Ilan Yagoda, in the Depth of Field competition; and Nurith Aviv's Yiddish [+see also:
trailer
film profile] and Duki Dror’s Lebanon: Borders of Blood, in the Masters section.