Ya'ackov Bodo

When Yolanda Moscowitz, a retired French teacher, wakes up in a hospital geriatric ward, she is convinced it must be a mistake. But the titanium plate in her hip confines her to a wheelchair and to a lengthy convalescence. Nonetheless, Yolanda discovers a new life in the hospital. She develops a close relationship with Allegra, a solitary woman who is her roommate, and she meets Shaul, a former soccer player, who makes her feel certain emotions she thought had vanished from her life for good.

The story of “Gei Oni” is an historical epic which interweaves the story of the first wave of Jewish European migration to Palestine, at the end of the 19th century, with an unusual love story between Fania, a young Russian immigrant, and Yechiel, a native Jew. Seventeen-year-old Fania, her baby daughter, her elderly uncle, and her emotionally impaired brother arrive at the port of Jaffa, having survived a pogrom in which all other members of their family were killed. Having no real choice, Fania marries Yechiel, a widower whose wife died of malaria, leaving him to care for their two children himself. The two set out to a small settlement near Safed, where Yechiel and a few other daring settlers are trying to cultivate the barren lands which they bought from local Arabs. Fania is burdened by a harrowing secret she is unable to share with anyone else. but unless her husband Yechiel shares her secret, their marriage cannot be consummated.

Robert Hirsch impresses as he takes on 11 different roles in Alex Joffé's comedy about the six sons of a recently deceased Jewish Casanova. To receive their inheritance, the sons must convene in Israel and recite a Kaddish (memorial prayer) for their dad. But planning the gathering is no easy feat. The film's title is based on the nonobservant son's futile attempts to contact his siblings on the one day when working is forbidden by Jewish law.