Erez Laufer

Nine o'clock on Monday morning, August 18, 1969: while the work force was starting the day, Jimi Hendrix was taking the stage at Woodstock. While hundreds of thousands had already left, 25,000 people remained to see this incredible performance. Hendrix, along with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox, offered masterly renditions of the songs of the recently disbanded Experience ("Hey Joe," "Foxey Lady"), and gave a preview of the blues-based Band of Gypsys ("Izabella," "Hear My Train A Comin'"), as well as Jimi's era-defining rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." Though the weekend had witnessed some landmark performances by other great artists, this performance from Hendrix is regarded by many as the defining moment in a festival ripe with defining moments.

Woodstock Diary was originally broadcasted on U.S. TV in August 1994 - in honor of the 25th anniversary of the event. Later it was released on DVD with remastered 5.1 sound. It includes performances not shown in the Woodstock movie but not exclusively. Between the songs there are recent interviews with the producers / organizers of Woodstock Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Michael Lang, the stage announcer Wavy Gravy and Lisa Law (a member of the Hog Farm who helped out at the festival).

An Israeli woman searches for the Palestinian man who shot her son.

20 years after his assassination, Yitzhak Rabin himself tells his dramatic life story.

Based on the real-life death of Mike Brant, who reluctantly became a foreign singing sensation during the 1960s and '70s. Born in a displaced person's camp in Cyprus, the then-named Moshe Brand grew up in a working-class environment, occasionally making time to entertain at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and, eventually, nightclubs both at home and abroad. When Sylvie and Carlos Varton saw one of his performances, they whisked him off to Paris and saw to it that his career took off. Though he was an almost instant success, he is believed to have committed suicide at the age of 28. This film features rare interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as footage from home movies, television appearances, and radio recordings.

The boy for whom football was in his soul, grew up in Tel Aviv in the late 1960s without his parents who left for the USA. At 17, Roni Kalderon became the star of Hapoel Tel Aviv, and was regarded as the great promise of Israeli football. Then, he was invited to go to the Netherlands and play for the coveted Ajax football club. This was only the opening whistle for the real game of his life: he would soon find himself deep in international drug trafficking, constantly escaping from the law, until he disappeared off the face of the earth. The fantastic narratives woven around his enigmatic persona, and the mystery surrounding his disappearance, lead the viewer between reality and the myth around the promising footballer who became a drug lord.

Nine o'clock on Monday morning, August 18, 1969: while the work force was starting the day, Jimi Hendrix was taking the stage at Woodstock. While hundreds of thousands had already left, 25,000 people remained to see this incredible performance. Hendrix, along with drummer Mitch Mitchell and bassist Billy Cox, offered masterly renditions of the songs of the recently disbanded Experience ("Hey Joe," "Foxey Lady"), and gave a preview of the blues-based Band of Gypsys ("Izabella," "Hear My Train A Comin'"), as well as Jimi's era-defining rendition of "The Star Spangled Banner." Though the weekend had witnessed some landmark performances by other great artists, this performance from Hendrix is regarded by many as the defining moment in a festival ripe with defining moments.

Woodstock Diary was originally broadcasted on U.S. TV in August 1994 - in honor of the 25th anniversary of the event. Later it was released on DVD with remastered 5.1 sound. It includes performances not shown in the Woodstock movie but not exclusively. Between the songs there are recent interviews with the producers / organizers of Woodstock Joel Rosenman, John Roberts, Michael Lang, the stage announcer Wavy Gravy and Lisa Law (a member of the Hog Farm who helped out at the festival).

An Israeli woman searches for the Palestinian man who shot her son.

20 years after his assassination, Yitzhak Rabin himself tells his dramatic life story.

Based on the real-life death of Mike Brant, who reluctantly became a foreign singing sensation during the 1960s and '70s. Born in a displaced person's camp in Cyprus, the then-named Moshe Brand grew up in a working-class environment, occasionally making time to entertain at weddings, bar mitzvahs, and, eventually, nightclubs both at home and abroad. When Sylvie and Carlos Varton saw one of his performances, they whisked him off to Paris and saw to it that his career took off. Though he was an almost instant success, he is believed to have committed suicide at the age of 28. This film features rare interviews with family, friends, and colleagues, as well as footage from home movies, television appearances, and radio recordings.

The boy for whom football was in his soul, grew up in Tel Aviv in the late 1960s without his parents who left for the USA. At 17, Roni Kalderon became the star of Hapoel Tel Aviv, and was regarded as the great promise of Israeli football. Then, he was invited to go to the Netherlands and play for the coveted Ajax football club. This was only the opening whistle for the real game of his life: he would soon find himself deep in international drug trafficking, constantly escaping from the law, until he disappeared off the face of the earth. The fantastic narratives woven around his enigmatic persona, and the mystery surrounding his disappearance, lead the viewer between reality and the myth around the promising footballer who became a drug lord.

US director Samuel Fuller once compared filmmaking to a battlefield – an observation which proves itself above and beyond whilst watching Erez Laufer’s documentary, Total Loss – in which he follows the making of director Gur Bentvich’s film, Total Love (2000) on location round the world – from Tel Aviv and Amsterdam to Rishikesh and Goa. Beyond the cross-continent physical journey, Laufer also chronicles the emotional-artistic journey undertaken by director Bentvich, screenwriter Etgar Keret, the principal cast featuring Maor Cohen and Tinkerbell, and the rest of the production crew. At the heart of the film is the task of “guerilla conditions” filmmaking vs. the anarchy and flurry of surprises that reality keeps springing on the crew, including volatile weather, over-the-top actors and the countless constraints imposed on the production by the Indian authorities. This is a film about filmmaking, friendship, and creation.

A fringe theater group that brings the stories of gay people in Israel to the stage takes on the Edinburgh Theater Festival in Scotland.