The Van Leer Jerusalem Institute is proud to announce the projects selected to participate in the Intellectual Incubator for Documentary Filmmakers, 2026:
Challenges in Documenting Local History
(Projects are listed in alphabetical order by title)
Yousef Abo Madegem, Culture on the Edge
In a city ahead of its time, Bedouin artists are forging cultural breakthroughs even before society is ready to accept them.
Karin Kainer, HOT SPOT
An intimate six-year coming-of-age journey follows a group of Gen Z friends, aged 16 to 22, from around the world, some from enemy nations. Their paths first cross at a controversial international boarding school for peace, located at the heart of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict, during the COVID-19 pandemic, where they live and study together for nearly two years, but when they step into adult life, the real test begins. Confronting first loves, heartbreak, war, loss, questions of identity and gender, their fragile friendships face the hardest challenge of all: can they survive in a divided world and an uncertain future?
Sigi Golan, House of the Rising Sun
Tali, the last secular resident in her building in Beit Shemesh, refuses to sell her home to ultra-Orthodox buyers. Her daughter, the filmmaker, is determined to convince her to leave a place that no longer wants her, as she tries to understand how the city of her childhood has changed beyond recognition. (Donna and Shula Productions)
Jacob Arenber, Participant Observation
For over a decade, Dr. Idan Yaron, an anthropologist and sociologist, has roamed the hills of the West Bank, forging intimate bonds with key figures in Israel’s radical right. He maintains deep friendships with convicted Jewish terrorists and a regular study partnership with Rabbi Meir Kahane’s grandson. Before Dr. Yaron’s eyes, Israel is changing; before ours, Dr. Yaron is changing as well.
Tom Shoval, Dan Shoval; "PO"
A film essay about Chantal Akerman’s La bas gets interrupted by the Twelve-Day War with Iran, sending the
filmmakers to attempt an act of “cinematic seance”.
Mordechai Vardi, Shall the Sword Devour Forever
A rabbi living in Gush Etzion embarks on a personal and open-ended cinematic journey to explore the settlers' vision for resolving the bloody conflict with the Palestinians, and the path toward realizing it, based on the assumption that the people of both nations are destined to remain on this land and will, sooner or later, have to find a way to live together. Until then, neither side can experience a complete sense of home.
Tal Granit, The Bureaucracy of Conscience
Welcome to the IDF’s Conscience Committee, the only body in Israel authorized to determine whether you possess a conscience, and of precisely what kind. The film exposes the bureaucratic mechanism that attempts to measure morality and explores the relationship between the individual and the rule of law in a democratic state.
Matan Ben Moreh, David Ofek, and Osnat Trabelsi, The Existing Order
A three-part documentary series that traces the roots of the Israel Police, from the British Mandate to the present, examining how patterns of control, national conflict, and political affiliations have shaped its relationship with Israeli society. (Supported by the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation and the Rabinovich Foundation)
Uri Rosenwaks, Amos Kenan: The Lost Film
A Lost film by Amos Kenan, produced in the early 1970s in an effort to persuade the international New Left that Israel's position was just following the Six-Day War, remains relevant today, raising the question of whether a liberal existence is truly viable in Israel.
Sharon Yaish, Daniela Reiss, The Signatories
On May 14, 1948, the Declaration of Independence was signed. Thirty-seven women and men signed the document. In 1961, the signatories were asked about the ceremony, the act of signing, and their outlook on the future. These recordings offer us a rare opportunity to look at ourselves anew, to remain in the gap between fantasy and sobriety. Between then and now.
Nir Dvortchin, Under Our Hands
A close look at the people of Yad Vashem, who carry the memory of the Holocaust day by day, and at the tension between commemoration and a contemporary reality saturated with violence, trauma, and moral questions.