Poly 2024 Archives - Page 3 of 4

Jennifer’s Body

Celebrating the 15 year anniversary to the Sapphic cult comedy-horror.
Before the screening, a short lecture by Gili Porat (podcast “TrashTalk”) on queer viewing of “Jennifer’s Body”.

After winning the Oscar for best original script for “Juno”, Diablo Cody wondered what would be her second Oscar-worthy movie? And thus we got “Jennifer’s Body” – a wonderfully bloody teen comedy that flopped in real time but rose to a cult film status over the years.
After a mysterious incident in the woods, the high school’s most popular student (Megan Fox) becomes very hungry. When male students start to disappear one after the other, her nerdy best friend Needy (Amanda Seyfried), who is having a rather unusual relationship with Jennifer, decides to put a stop to the massacre. Will she succeed?
Also, Chris Pratt is literally on fire in the film!

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

Battle of the Sexes

Emma Stone and Steve Carell star in this recreation of the legendary 1973 tennis match that pitted Billie Jean King against Bobby Riggs.

Scripted by Academy Award winner Simon Beaufoy (“Slumdog Millionaire”) and directed by Valerie Faris and Jonathan Dayton (“Little Miss Sunshine”), “Battle of the Sexes” is a rousing depiction of a historical moment.

King (Stone) is a champion athlete and an outspoken feminist in her professional life, but her personal life is a struggle. Her marriage is failing. Her closeted sexuality feels like a distraction. Outraged that the National Tennis League won’t allow equal pay for men and women, King founds her own tour with Gladys Heldman (Sarah Silverman) as manager. Riggs (Carell) is decades removed from his last championship. Facing dwindling finances and desperate to win back his ex-wife, he proposes a publicity-snaring challenge.

The film reminds us just how much blatant sexism pervaded the so-called sexual revolution. But it also shows the great strides made by trailblazers like King.

Bursting with colorful period production design and costumes, “Battle of the Sexes” is as fleet and fun as it is politically acute, and Stone and Carell make hugely enjoyable adversaries.

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

The Favourite

Early 18th century. England is at war with the French. A frail Queen Anne (Olivia Colman) occupies the throne and her close friend Lady Sarah (Rachel Weisz) governs the country in her stead while tending to Anne’s ill health and mercurial temper. When a new servant Abigail (Emma Stone) arrives, her charm endears her to Sarah. Sarah takes Abigail under her wing and Abigail sees a chance at a return to her aristocratic roots. As the politics of war become quite time consuming for Sarah, Abigail steps into the breach to fill in as the Queen’s companion.

The movie is also available on Disney Plus

“Ella” & “Coffee Grapefruit Cacao

The screening of “Ella” will be preceded by short movie “Coffee Grapefruit Cacao” and “Stuck”, an Israeli short.

In the classic manner of “Sliding Doors”, please welcome the contemporary lesbian version.
Ella wakes up to a frightening number of unanswered calls and a very urgent message from her agent. She’s on a crucial crossroad – an audition that will determine her future. She has to race against the clock to make it on time to the audition, when every decision she makes has its own unique pros and cons, each road provides a different path with different potential to touch hearts, mend family ties, find unexpected romance, succeed or fail in the audition. Which way will lead Ella to her true self?
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Festivals:
Yellowstone International Film Festival 2024
Chéries-Chéris LGBTQI Film Festival 2024
Merlinka International Queer Film Festival 2024
Out On Film – Atlanta’s LGBTQ Film Festival 2024

In association with the Embassy of France

To Live, to Die, to Live Again

Renowned French director Gaël Morel’s new beautiful and moving film had its World Premiere at the 2024 Cannes Film Festival.
Victor Belmondo (“Lie with Me”) and Théo Christine (“My Best Part”) star in a moving and surprising drama that brings a complicated love triangle to the big screen.
Emma loves Sammy, who also loves Cyril, who loves him back. What starts as a non-conventional threesome in the early 90’s, takes a turn with the rise of the AIDS pandemic and with it an unexpected twist that will change the lives of all three, and will lead them to face a new world full of challenges and fears.
The film also features gay icon Amanda Lear.

Gaël Morel was TLVFest’s guest in 2012 with his film “Our Paradise”.

In association with the Embassy of France

What a Feeling

Marie Theres, a successful doctor has some very special plans for her 20th anniversary with her husband Alexander, but he has a completely different idea. He’s about to break up with her that very evening. Alexander wants to be happier, freer and doesn’t want Marie Theres in his life anymore. As a result of this very unpleasant turn, Marie Theres will do what every logical woman might do when everything in her life goes completely wrong: she goes drinking in a lesbian bar. There she meets Fa, who lives in order to enjoy life and prefers non committal relationships. After a night of heavy drinking Fa took Marie Theres home, but Marie Theres cannot remember if they’ve done “anything”.
Two women in their 40s, seemingly completely unrelated to each other, but new feelings make them rethink, is this love? The result is a heartwarming comedy that will make you believe again in love.

Additional screening: Haifa Cinematheque, 1.11, 18:30

In association with the Austrian Cultural Forum

Lesbian International Mix 1

Duration 95 min

Jacob de Haan: A Voice Out of Time

After the screening: conversation with the creators.

The death of Jacob Israel de Haan is commemorated annually by both the ultra-Orthodox Jews of ‘Neturei Karta’ in Jerusalem, and the LGBTQ community in Amsterdam. He is a pioneer for both. In the early 20th century he published the first LGBTQ novel in the Netherlands. He then returned to his Jewish roots, migrated to Palestine as a Zionist, but eventually became the spokesperson for the Orthodox community, spearheading its fight against Zionism. He was still publishing queer poetry in Dutch. He was killed in Jerusalem in 1924, and his assassins were never caught. Today, never-before-heard audio recordings shed new light upon the mystery of the first Zionist political assassination.

Tropicana

After the screening: conversation with the creators.

Special Tel-Aviv Premiere

Omer Tobi, the talented director behind the music videos for gay party line “Arisa’’ and the creator of the musical TV series “HaYoresht” (“The Heiress”), in a surprising, daring and unusual debut film,

Orly Belaish, a lonely middle-aged woman, splits her time between her monotonous job at a supermarket and caregiving for her ailing mother and family members. The mysterious murder of the head cashier at the supermarket leads to Orly’s promotion, and her status in the supermarket rises. Along with this new role, Orly also inherits the deceased cashier’s dark past – a past that will take her on a journey into the depths of her repressed desires, revealing her deep longing for warmth and human connection.

“Tropicana” is a meeting in a forgotten small town in the south of Israel between Ulrich Sidle, David Lynch, the Dardenne brothers and Keren Yedaya. The result is one huge mindfuck.