With all the popular TV shows and blockbuster titles on IZZY, it’s easy to forget that there’s plenty of incredible short films available on the platform as well. While some of these are for a more niche audience, an IZZY intern reviewed 5 of the lesser-known shorts available on IZZY.
Vice Versa
In an ideal world, everyone wants to go through life making right choices, because the concept of right or wrong is promoted by cultures and religions that make this seem like a palpable concept. However, in reality, no one chooses what or who will cross their lives.
In the film Vice Versa, Yochai is a Yeshiva scholar who loves studying and being a part of his community. On a day like any other, Ayelet, an 18-year-old with an advanced cancer, stumbles upon his life. Ayelet’s father asks Yochai as a future Rabbi to help Ayelet regain her hope and continue to fight the disease.
Yochai knows that helping her is the right thing to do, even though he feels very insecure about talking to a woman. After they start meeting to talk about life and faith, and as their relationship begins shifting to a more intimate connection his confidence on a clear right or wrong starts to fade, and he finds himself facing dilemmas he couldn’t imagine. His Rabbi and mentor asks him to choose between following his desires and feelings or staying in the Yeshiva that is not only his home and community but like a sanctuary in his eyes.
This film was directed by Amichai Greenberg, who wrote the script based on his own brother- Yehoshua Greenberg’s novel written in the late 90’s. The book’s intention was to touch on this taboo subject, and it is beautifully done. The love story is genuine just as much as Yochai’s love for the Yeshiva and his studies.
SHHHHH
This short film is just about as calm and relaxing as the realities of parenthood.
Noa Koler and Erez Drigues play the roles of 2 parents at the end of a long and tiresome day. The scene is familiar to many parents, as one is coming back from work and the other one taking care of the baby and the house.
The priority of the moment is to be quiet as the baby finally fell asleep and the mother can finally take some time for herself and eat dinner with her husband, in complete silence of course. But with every movement of a chair, cutlery on the plate, or sip of soup, the tension between the couple grows.
Yonathan Mordechai, the director, managed to create an evolving and surprising film with little components, but no more than enough. With no lines, no background music, one location and 3 actors. The short film was internationally recognized and received 3 awards: BRUKIVKA International Film Festival: International Horror Short Film Competition Program (2019), Short Film Breaks: Best no dialogue short film (2020), Oregon Scream Week International Film Festival Award- Best International Director (2019).
Aya
It all starts at Ben Gurion Airport…
You are ready to pick up someone who’s arriving in the country…
A driver asks you to hold the name of a person quickly until the person’s driver comes back from the parking lot…
The person arrives, finds his name on your hand…
What do you do?
For most people this story could end right there. You can simply explain the situation and tell this person to wait for his driver and you were simply doing a favor. However, the main character of this short film has very unusual instincts. She decides to let the man arriving at the airport believe she is his driver and take him to his hotel, with no clear reason, building a comfortable suspense throughout the story of why she would make those decisions.
Aya is an interesting character, every scene it is possible to notice a different layer from her personality.Every chance she has she turns in the opposite direction from the obvious and predictable. Until the very end of the film the feeling of understanding her and having no idea of what might be in her mind is very intriguing.
This Israeli-French short film was nominated for the Academy Award in 2015. Sarah Adler a french-israeli actress plays Aya and Ulrich Thomsen a Danish actor plays Mr. Overby. The characters are complete strangers and the audience has no background on their lives, which makes the awkward silences and interactions closer to the viewer.
It’s a film to make you wonder “what if” while everyone seems to have similar instincts and making predictable decisions.
Across the Line
As human beings we tend to connect with people who are similar to us. This can mean different things for each person, like connecting with people that are from the same place you are from, or share the same culture. This instinct often makes us resist connections with people who are different from us, forgetting that in the end we are all the same.
Across the Line is a funny and light short-film that brings important issues forward in a playful way. The film starts introducing Hananel, a religious Jew on his way home for Shabbat. His car stops in the middle of the road where a Palestinian hitchhiker, Munthir, waits until someone offers him a ride. Hananel at first doesn’t consider helping Munthir but is convinced after Munthir helps him fix his car.
Hananel and Munthir don’t speak the same language and understand only a few words from each other’s language. Even though they live so close to each other, their realities couldn’t be further apart. The walls between them disappear when they encounter situations that put their lives at risk.
It’s a beautiful story that shows we are more alike than we believe, and differences that separates us are small compared to the feelings that unite us.
Bon Appetit
A man and his girlfriend are walking to a meeting where he will meet the wife of a Sausage factory owner to sign a contract for his new job at the factory as manager. While he goes upstairs his girlfriend waits for him in front of the building. Time goes by and she begins to worry about him, but when she knocks on the ladies door she says she never saw him.
When the wife of the factory owner is confronted she becomes more and more suspicious.
Morti Vivos Docent
Two doctors working in a morgue at night are ready to perform an autopsy on a notorious criminal. The tension between the two doctors is clear, one being older and mysterious and the other a playful guy trying to break the ice while they’re working. The tension rises and odd conversations begin to scare the younger doctor.
