Moshe Havazelet

Amid the political turmoil of 1950s Israel, a teenage girl named Noa (Dalia Shimko) is caught between her desire to go to college to express her individuality and her parents' wish to send her to a kibbutz -- a type of rural Jewish community based on the idea of communal property. Noa's middle-class upbringing and the options it affords her are catalysts for tension during a time of smoldering unrest.

A group of close friends celebrate the bittersweet changes coming to their lives during the summer of their high-school graduation: adult responsibilities, adult romance -- and the soberingly adult fact that some of their number are being drafted into the Israeli army. This has very much the feel of a high-school beach-party movie -- with music, and in Hebrew -- until a sudden and disturbingly realistic reminder of their own mortality finally slashes through the kids' cheerful, close-knit obliviousness.