Julie Shles

In 1993, 16-year-old Hanit Kikos disappeared from Ofakim, Israel. A few days later, Suleiman al-Obeid Hoda was arrested, confessing that he raped and murdered her but gave conflicting confessions to investigators. 30 years after his imprisonment, the films with those involved in the affair shine a new light on the case.

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Five minutes from the sated center of Tel Aviv, lays a huge, bold, brutal labyrinth. The city's central station has become a compound without rules. No man's land. It's hard to tell who is against whom, who controls whom: The Ghanians against the Eritreans against Sudanese against the locals against anyone black or non Jewish. A mosaic of people trying to survive while trapped in their roles in a dog eat dog world. Through the people, a portrait emerges, the face of this place that is that of the country. A mixture of languages, religions, locals and foreign refugees. A gunpowder barrel that has exploded spreading fear, racism, aggression and violence.

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Joy Levine lives in an old apartment that, in complete contrast to her, is shabby and worn-out on the outside while well-kept and filled with joy on the inside. Her life changes when she auditions for a TV show called "Gotta Be Happy". To her astonishment, she is chosen, and her mission is to throw a surprise party for her parents on the upcoming show. However, there is a price to pay for all this: she has to let the viewers into her private inner world and share with them an event that has been overshadowing her family's life and hers for the past 22 years; an event that made a tight-knit bunch of friends shun her parents, Chaya and Yitzhak Levine.

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David is a garage electrician, who dreamt all of his life of becoming a magician, but had no luck in it. His girlfriend Batya wants an ordinary life, but David is still looking for his dream, so he links up with Romanian immigrant Shimon, who is an expert magician.

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Dani Bassin is a popular singer in Israel. Baba luba follows him on his journey back to Brazil, his native country, 36 years after his father left him and his mother there. Since he was four years old Bassin has not heard a thing from him. When Bassin and the film crew arrive in Brazil they have very few leads concerning his father's whereabouts, they do not even know whether he is still alive. They undertake a real search, which has been captured on film with the suspense of a detective story. Bassin discovers a police file on his father and he finds out that his father has twice remarried. He meets family members of whom he never knew they even existed. Finally he meets his father. Director Julie Shles has managed to register both the exciting and dramatic episodes of the trip, as well as the moments of despair and agitation. This also makes the film a universal study of the ideas about fatherhood and family ties and the search for love that every human undertakes.

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