Ran Danker – MRQE

Eyes Wide Open (2007/II)

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A middle-aged Orthodox Jew, Aaron (Zohar Strauss), living and working in Jerusalem with his wife and children, meets a homeless 19-year-old student, Ezri (Ran Danker). Aaron offers to give Ezri work as his assistant at his family’s butcher shop. The two men grow close and their attraction becomes sexual. Aaron must now confront his own sexuality, his feelings for Ezri and his obligations to his family and faith. But when the truth gets out, there are serious repercussions for his transgression.

Restless (2008/I)

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Moshe Amar is a once poet and now a “businessman” who left his wife with their new born in Israel twenty years ago and spent them in the land of limitless possibilities trying to leave a mark of immortality but, up to that point, only got the marks that frantic debt collectors are more than happy to give. Tsach is the abandoned son who is now a skilled sniper in the Israeli Army. Tsach resents his father for both abandoning his mother for 21 years and not attending her funeral.

Honeymood

Mon, 01 Sep 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A bride and groom arrive at their lavish honeymoon suite on their wedding night. When the bride, Eleanor, discovers her now-husband has received a ring as a wedding gift from his ex-girlfriend, a knock-out fight ensues. At Eleanors insistence, the newlyweds leave the hotel and set out on an expedition to return the ring. Their simple mission quickly derails into an all-night odyssey through the streets of Jerusalem. Over the course of a single night, the couple are forced to confront past lovers, repressed doubts, and the lives theyve chosen to leave behind.

Mutalim Besafek

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 04:00:00 +0000

Assi, a screenwriter and poet, is stuck in his personal life. He is full of doubt, disturbing thoughts, and existential restlessness. He is sentenced to community service due to a drunken-driving motorcycle accident in which he was involved. For his community service, he is sent to work with juvenile delinquents in Beersheba – the desert city in southern Israel – who are under house arrest and must attend sessions with Assi in the neighborhood shelter as a condition for their parole. Their extreme personalities, their riotous energy, and their charm awaken in him curiosity and attraction; together, they break through the boundaries of the rehabilitative framework.

Lullaby to My Father

Thu, 09 Oct 2025 04:00:00 +0000

The film intertwines historical events and intimate memories. I observe how architecture represents the transformations of society and those who give form to this architecture. We follow the journey of Munio, my father, born in 1909 in Silesia, Poland, the son of a tenant farmer of a Prussian junker. At the age of 18, Munio goes to Berlin and Dessau to meet Walter Gropius, Kandinsky and Paul Klee at the Bauhaus. In 1933, the Bauhaus was closed by the Nazis, who accused Munio of treason against the German people. Munio was imprisoned, then deported to Basel. He left for Palestine. Upon his arrival in Haifa, he began a career as an architect and adapted European modernist principles to the Middle East.

Kalevet

Fri, 22 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A brother and sister who run away from home find sanctuary in a deserted nature reserve. When the sister falls into the trap of a psychopathic killer, the brother sets out on a race against time to find help. In a twist of fate the rescue of the sister becomes inadvertently intertwined with the lives of a group of young tennis players, a ranger and his dog, as well as a team of policemen.

Einayim Petukhoth

Mon, 25 Aug 2025 04:00:00 +0000

A beautifully affecting love story that has rightly earned comparisons to Brokeback Mountain, Haim Tabakman’s potent yet impeccably restrained tale has won awards and accolades at film festivals the world over. Aaron, a pillar in Jerusalem’s Orthodox community is respected by friends and family. However, when he hires handsome runaway student Ezri to assist with his business, sexual tensions bristle and the pair cautiously embark on a love affair. Meanwhile, a neighbouring shopkeeper persists in seeing a man of her own choosing, even though she’s been promised by her father to another. As forbidden truths come to the fore, these lovers are forced to either confront or relent in the face of a centuries-old religious community, with startling results.