Long-hidden secrets are revealed as a Palestinian family gathers for a wedding in Gallilee, in the north of Israel. Daughter Hajar (Hafsia Herzi), youngest sibling of five, has come home from studying abroad with an Anglo-Saxon, Christian boyfriend (Tom Payne). If that wasn’t enough, when patriarch Abu Majd (Makram Khoury) drops into a coma, there’s a clamor to sort out his legacy and open hostilities begin; while the war between Israel and Lebanon is in the backdrop of this one family’s battlefield. The directorial debut of popular Palestinian actress Hiam Abbass (Munich, The Syrian Bride), Inheritance announces the emergence of a major new directorial talent.

The Academy Award nominated documentary, the Gatekeepers, was based on a five hour TV series, following six former directors of the Israeli Secret Service Agency, sharing their insights and reflect about their decisions. Director, Dror Moreh will introduce the TV series’ US premiere. Join us for the special presentation of an episode followed by a conversation with the director.

Israel’s Jordan Valley is one of the country’s most fertile regions—but today that natural bounty isn’t shared equally. The Palestinian farmers now work land that has become desert because of a “drought” caused by deliberate decisions. The proud farmers who remain discuss their way of life as it slips away: Wells go dry as water is siphoned off by Jewish settlers; shepherds’ grazing pastures are annexed by the military. Robbed of their traditional livelihood, many farmers must abandon their treasured independence for menial, low-paying work in cities and neighboring settlements, where the always freshly-watered lawns provide a mocking commentary on inequality.

For those living in the Israeli settlements around the southern West Bank, the Hebron Hills garbage dump is just a place where trash goes and is forgotten. For the hundreds of resourceful Palestinians in the nearby city of Yatta, however, that trash is a treasure, a way to feed their families, a way of life. Directors Shlam and Ushpiz fix their camera on these scavengers who live off of prosperity’s cast-offs, men and boys who brave deplorable conditions and Israeli soldiers to rummage through the trash for material that has a second life—scrap metal, old clothes—and which might bring their families incrementally closer to a better life. A portrait of shared striving which narrows to unforgettable individual stories, using an oblique approach to highlight the vast disparities of wealth in modern Israel. “A truly blood-chilling… excellent film.” —Haaretz

Layla, a sixty-something, Egyptian-born woman has had multiple failed attempts in passing her driving test, but her last best chance is with Nimar, the top driving instructor in Jerusalem, whom she begins practicing with. The lessons turn into cathartic confessions as Anat Zuria’s crew tags along to watch the lessons and catches Layla, recounting the story of her life—her family in Egypt in the midst of a revolution, her broken marriage to an abusive husband and the struggles of her children, particularly her daughter, Hagar, who is preparing to marry a Jewish man. The Lesson is a major new work from Zuria, whose previous films Sentenced to Marriage and Black Bus explored the prohibitions faced by women in Israel, and who Haaretz called “one of the most riveting women in the local film world.”

An optimistic techno-Utopian vision of things as they might be, Under the Same Sun imagines the origin of peace between Israelis and Palestinians in the simple collaboration of two businessmen from clashing cultures—Palestinian Nizar (Ali Suliman) and Israeli Shaul (Yossi Mar). Nizal and Shaul’s partnership is uneasy at first but, as trust gradually grows through the revelation of common experience, they become an efficient unit. Working together, they produce a solar power breakthrough that provides energy to Palestinians in the West Bank and, eventually, use Facebook to launch a landmark peace campaign. Created by a Palestinian director and Israeli producer and made under the auspices of Search for Common Ground, the circumstances of Under the Same Sun’s production mirror its subject matter—meaning that this near-future science fiction doesn’t necessarily need to be fiction.

An Israeli car and a Palestinian car are stuck in traffic in front of a barricade at the entrance of Jerusalem, coming from the Dead Sea. Yuval and Mahmoud, both seven years old boys, find its much more fun to pass the time playing with one another. But when Mahmoud’s father tries to cut into the other’s lane, Yuval’s father bumps into his car in an attempt to prevent him, and things start to get complicated. What began as a game becomes an outright battle over a plastic Batman doll.

Arabani isn’t just the auspicious debut feature of a new talent in writer-director Adi Adwan—it’s also the first feature film ever made by an Israeli Druze filmmaker. Newly divorced from his Jewish wife, Yosef (Eyad Sheety) returns to his hometown, the Druze village of Sumaka. While eventually mending bridges with his mother (Zuhaira Sabbagh), the community as a whole gives a cold-shoulder response to Yosef and his mixed-race teenaged children, daughter Smadar (Daniella Nidam) and adolescent son Eli (Tom Kelrich), who face ostracism, misunderstanding, and intimidation. Deploying an understated, nuanced style, Adwan slowly, confidently unspools his story, detailing the slow erosion of social and emotional barriers and budding of young romance. Adwan’s intimate knowledge of his people’s way of life is evident in every precise domestic detail which, in an accumulation of small moments, builds to make a film of surprising emotional impact