Avalon Theatre: A Non Profit Film Center in Washington, DC: Now Showing

Now Showing

LIMITED ENGAGEMENT!

“Ajami offers a portrait of Israeli life that’s both harder-edged and bleaker than American accounts of Israel … With a compassionate sense of human frailty, it depicts a society in which even the most decent people are imprisoned in social identities they didn’t freely choose…”
– John Powers, NPR [READ THE REVIEW]

“ Interweaves a multitude of stories and characters … is a curious artifact of Israeli-Palestinian politics, being undeniably informed by that wider conflict but taking its dramatic cues largely from the sectarian, personal clashes that roil within it … [and] testifies to the power of creative collaboration in finding common ground.”
– Ann Hornaday, Washington Post [READ THE REVIEW]

“Ingenious! You emerge from Ajami moved and also a little worn out, but mostly grateful for the heart, craft and intelligence the movie has shown.”
– A.O. Scott, New York Times [READ THE REVIEW]

“An enormously important film! Israeli films have made enormous formal and aesthetic strides in the last decade, and Ajami…is notable for its innovative style, its willingness to entertain, its attentiveness to other genres than linear-narrative realism, and its departure from the conventional war pictures that have dominated Israeli cinema for decades.”
– Ella Taylor, The Village Voice

A film by Scandar Copti and Yaron Shani

Winner, Special Distinction Award, Camera d’Or Competition, Cannes Film Festival
Winner, Best Film, Director, Screenplay, Editing, Music, Israeli Film Academy Ophir Awards
Winner, Best Feature Film, Jerusalem International Film Festival
Winner, Best First Film, London Film Festival
Winner, Audience Award, Thessaloniki Film Festival
Winner, Best Film, Montpelier Film Festival
Official Selection, Toronto International Film Festival

A powerful crime drama set on the streets of Jaffa’s Ajami neighborhood – a melting pot of cultures and conflicting views among Jews, Muslims and Christians – and told through the eyes of a cross-section of the city’s inhabitants: a young Israeli (Shahir Kabaha) fighting a criminal vendetta against his family, a Palestinian refugee (Ibrahim Frege) working illegally to finance his mother’s life-saving surgery, a Jewish police detective (Eran Naim) obsessed with finding his missing brother, and an affluent Palestinian (Scandar Copti) dreaming of a future with his Jewish girlfriend. As their stories intersect – and the film’s narrative shifts back and forth in time – we witness a dramatic collision of different worlds and the tragic consequences of enemies living as neighbors.

in Arabic & Hebrew w/ English subtitles • Not Rated • 120 min
Learn more & watch the trailer!

NORTH FACE

Best Screenplay – German Film Critics Awards

“The word ‘gripping’ doesn’t do it justice … the taut North Face is a movie about life — fragile and thrilling and worth fighting for.”
– Michael O’Sullivan, Washington Post

“(A) gripping survival drama! Transfixing in the way that well-told life-and-death adventure tales inevitably are.”
– Stephen Holden, New York Times

Based on a true story, NORTH FACE is a gripping adventure drama about a competition to climb the most dangerous rock face in the Alps. In 1936, Nazi propaganda urges German Alpinists to conquer the unclimbed north face of the Swiss massif, the Eiger, bringing two reluctant climbers, Toni Kurz and Andi Hinterstoisser, to begin their daring ascent and attempt to scale the infamous rock face, often called the Murder Wall. While preparing themselves at the foot of the North Face, Toni and Andi unexpectedly run into Luise, the early love of Toni. Now a journalist, she has come with her boss Arau, a loyal Nazi, to report about the first ascent.

With NORTH FACE, director and scriptwriter Philipp Stölzl, a multi-talented and sought-after opera, music video, commercial and feature-film director, has succeeded in newly defining the genre of the mountain film and transposing it to the 21st century.

in German w/ English subtitles • Not Rated • 126 min • 2.35:1
Learn more & watch the trailer!