
Directing
Shlomi Elkabetz
Born 1972-12-05 · Shchuna D, Be'er Sheva, Israele
Shlomi Elkabetz (Hebrew: שלומי אלקבץ; born 5 December 1972) is an Israeli actor, writer and director. Elkabetz is best known for his Vivian Amsalem trilogy comprising the films, To Take a Wife, Shiva and Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem. Elkabetz co-wrote and co-directed the films with his older sister, Ronit Elkabetz, who also starred in the films as Viviane Amsalem, an unhappy Israeli housewife trapped in a marriage with a pious man she cannot stand. The films were loosely based on the relationship between the Elkabetz's parents. Description above from the Wikipedia article Shlomi Elkabetz, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.
Acting credits
6.5With this two-part feature documentary, Shlomi Elkabetz shares a poignant love letter to his sister, the late actress and director Ronit Elkabetz, and delivers a rare cinematic experience.
Black Notebooks
2021
5.4In 2000, as the Hezbollah organization takes over Lebanon, Yossi, a Lebanese soldier, helps his friend Fouad to flee the country in order to avoid punishment, as he’s been working against them for 16 years. Fouad takes refuge in Israel with his daughter, Tanya. A few years later, a new war breaks out in Lebanon, causing tensions at the Israeli border. Yossi’s wife, Myriam, decides to go there and asks for Tanya’s help to look for their soldier son, who hasn’t given sign of life since then. This journey will allow the two women to share their sorrows and heal together.
Tel Aviv Beirut
2023
NRThe final part of a family trilogy by Ronit and Shlomi Elkabetz. It follows Viviane Amsalem's grueling legal marathon to obtain a divorce.
Il était une fois... « Le procès de Viviane Amsalem »
2016
Behind the camera
7.5The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
2014
7.5The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
2014
7.5The trial story of Viviane Amsalem's five year fight to obtain her divorce in front of the only legal authority competent for divorce cases in Israel, the Rabbinical Court.
Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem
2014
6.5With this two-part feature documentary, Shlomi Elkabetz shares a poignant love letter to his sister, the late actress and director Ronit Elkabetz, and delivers a rare cinematic experience.
Black Notebooks
2021
6.4The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.
To Take A Wife
2004
6.4The story takes place in Haifa, Israel, in 1979, during three days before the Shabbat. A young woman trying to raise three children, work from home, and observe the strict Moroccan traditions of her family finds herself at constant odds with her husband and her brothers, who want her to stay married and leave behind the notions of being loved and free.
To Take A Wife
2004
Zohar, a young dancer, arrives in Berlin to visit her best friend Shira. She meets Gillen, an insecure German poet, and together with Shira’s boyfriend, the four form a friendship that, for a moment, makes anything seem possible. But as the bond between Zohar and Gillen deepens, the bubble they have built around themselves begins to unravel. When a violent incident reveals sides of each other, they had never seen before, the two refuse to let go. What begins as an attempt to repair their relationship, culminates in an intimate and extreme event that will change them both. An intimate portrait of young people searching for belonging and meaning in the world, struggling with the gap between fantasy and reality.
I Can't Say No to Myself
2026
7.0The film captures the daily duality of three young Palestinian women in Tel Aviv, caught between hometown tradition and big city abandon, and the price they must pay for a lifestyle that seems obvious to many: the freedom to work, party, have sex, and choose.
In Between
2016
Mali Azulai (38), a bus inspector in Ashkelon, is on the verge of losing her job after a violent altercation with a teenage passenger. When she returns to an empty bus to retrieve the body camera she left behind, she finds an abandoned baby on the floor and decides to take him home. Her brother Shimon (32), a prison guard struggling through a marital crisis, joins her, and the two shut themselves away with the child. His presence stirs the siblings’ shared wound of abandonment, as long-buried secrets come to light. When the baby falls ill and a hospital visit becomes unavoidable, Mali is forced to choose, hold on or let go and face the cost.
Heart Of Gold
2026
NRIn close proximity and yet without any points of contact: In the West Bank, Israeli settlers and Palestinian farmers live next door to each other - and yet in separate worlds. Omar takes his Palestinian family from their town house to the barren slopes of Mount Hebron, where they are supposed to help look after his sheep farm. The Jewish settler Avidan has settled in the immediate vicinity with a group of like-minded people in order to raise sheep in the desolate land. Avner Faingulernt documents these hermetic worlds in a radical but logical form: as two separate films that only unfold their full effect when viewed as a diptych.
In the Desert: A Documentary Diptych
2018
Neo was three and a half years old when a devastating car accident left him with a severe brainstem injury. After five days suspended between life and death, he wakes up unable to breathe, speak, walk, or eat on his own. In the hospital, his parents, Lior and Galit, pick up a camera and never put it down. Shaped from hundreds of hours of intimate footage, 'I Am Neo' is a portrait of a child and his family slowly rebuilding their lives, revealing both the fragility of life, and the strength of the human spirit.
I Am Neo
2026
NRAfter leaving the ultra-Orthodox world, 21-year-old Sarah sets out on a five-year journey, sparked by a raw, intimate expression of female vulnerability: an unplanned pregnancy. Without a permanent home, her changing body dictates the rhythm of her life as she moves between temporary apartments. Motherhood forces her to face herself, while the past she fled resurfaces. Caught between constant motion and inner withdrawal, Sarah struggles to form a new identity and find a place to call home.
Sarah
2026
3.3Noam, a young gay man, discovers that his father, who just died, had a secret affair with a married man. He follows and meets that man. He now holds his father’s secret.
Heritage
2017
6.4The Ohaion family is mourning the death of one of their relatives. In keeping with tradition, they gather together in the home of the deceased and stay there for seven days. Forced to put up with one another day and night, the brothers and sisters soon let their bitterness and arguments override the sense of communal reverence. The atmosphere becomes unbearable and long-buried truths finally surface.
The Seven Days
2008
6.4The Ohaion family is mourning the death of one of their relatives. In keeping with tradition, they gather together in the home of the deceased and stay there for seven days. Forced to put up with one another day and night, the brothers and sisters soon let their bitterness and arguments override the sense of communal reverence. The atmosphere becomes unbearable and long-buried truths finally surface.
The Seven Days
2008
4.0Eid, a young Bedouin from Rahat, spends his nights in Skype calls with Dounia, a married Arab actress living in Paris. Dounia is both his audience and his muse for a play he is writing about his life. When his parents force him to marry a woman he doesn’t know, Eid fears he will not be able to complete his dream. Eid will try to change his fate, determine the ending of his play himself, and tell his story—even if no one is there to listen.
Eid
2024
NRAn archival montage of late Israeli director and actress Ronit Elkabetz, as told through the radical collection of her extraordinary wardrobe. A cinematic essay about the power of cinema, the power of clothes, and one unforgettable woman standing for and embodying the deepest human desire for freedom and liberty.
Je t’aime Ronit Elkabetz
2022
6.0Avigail, an overweight and insecure 18-year-old midshipwoman, returns home to the stuffy apartment in Jerusalem which she shares with her dysfunctional mother and with her young sister. Avigail hopes to untie the chains of her childhood, But something else happens when she returns home: Her young sister got knocked up. Now, instead of getting rid of her virginity- she has to get rid of a baby.
Cuz You're Ugly
2026
9.0Palestinian testimonies collected after the second Intifada revealed a harsh daily life reality that, for Israelis, had always belonged to the "others" - the Palestinians - and hence was denied. A few years later, trespassing what had been taboo until then, Israeli officers who served during the Intifada told of their memories. Memories of violence, of suffering, of humiliation. The stories from both sides matched. Against the backdrop of local empty landscapes, an Israeli officer remembers... a Palestinian civilian remembers as well. A journey into the collective memory of Palestine and Israel takes place.
Edut
2011
9.0A film teacher has to teach in Sderot and change the lives of his students.
Shooting Life
2018
NRIsraeli street-artist Addam Yekutieli kept his anonymity and signed his works with the pseudonym "Know Hope". He began drawing human-like characters that rapidly gained attention and granted him the title the "Israeli Banksy". But when he experiences an eruption of autoimmune arthritis, he is forced to rethink his artwork in light of his new physical disability. The film documents moments in which a personal human drama generates art and political action. The anonymity of the hit-and-run street artist is replaced with intensive and intimate social interactions, exploring how painful memories and experiences may be alleviated through art.
Know Hope
2025
