The Matchmaker

The Matchmaker A Film by: Avi Nesher (Israel, 2010, 118 Minutes, Color, Hebrew, English subtitles, Cast: Adir Miller, Maya Dagan, Dror Keren, Dov Navon, Tuval Shafir, Neta Porat, Yarden Bar-Kochva, Bat-El Papura, Kobi Farag, Yael Leventhal, Tom Gal, Eyal Shechte, Eli Jaspan)

The Matchmaker

A Film by: Avi Nesher
(Israel, 2010, 118 Minutes, Color, Hebrew, English subtitles, Cast: Adir Miller, Maya Dagan, Dror Keren, Dov Navon, Tuval Shafir, Neta Porat, Yarden Bar-Kochva, Bat-El Papura, Kobi Farag, Yael Leventhal, Tom Gal, Eyal Shechte, Eli Jaspan)

Arik, a teenage boy growing up in Haifa in 1968, gets a job working for Yankele Bride, a matchmaker. Yankele, a mysterious Holocaust survivor, has an office in back of a movie theater that shows only love stories, run by a family of seven Romanian dwarfs in the seedy area by the port. Yankele introduces Arik to a new world, built on the ruins of an old one. As Arik begins to learn the mysteries of the human heart through his work with Yankele, he falls in love with Tamara, his friend Beni's cousin. Tamara has just returned from America and is full of talk of women's rights, free love and rock and roll. The disparate parts of Arik's life collide in unexpected, often funny and very moving ways as he lives through a summer that changes him forever.

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FESTIVALS & SCREENINGS
• Nominated for 7 Ophir Awards (Israeli Oscar)
• Adir Miller - Ophir Award - Best Actor 2010
• Maya Dagan - Ophir Award - Best Actress 2010
• Chicago International Film Festival - Silver Plaque
• Amakourou Award - Cinema Novo Film Festival, Belgium
• Official selection - Toronto International Film Festival 2010
• Festival do Rio de Janeiro
• Chicago Int. Film Festival
• Toronto Jewish Film Festival
• UK Jewish Film Festival
• Palm Springs Film Festival
• Vancouver Israeli Dance Society
• Cinema Novo Festival
• BUFF film festival, Sweden
• Israeli Film Festival, Paris
• Geneva Jewish Film Festival
• Filmisrael, Amsterdam
• Zlin Film Festival, Czech Rep.
• Vancouver Israeli Dance Society
• Israeli Film Week, Budapest
• AICE - Australia
• Israel Film Festival Moscow
• Venezuela Jewish Film Festival, Caracas
• Singapore Israeli Film Festival
• Hong Kong Jewish Film Festival
• Israeli Film Week, Minsk
• Israeli Film Week, Zagreb
• PKF Rome
• UK Jewish Film Festival
• Israeli Film Festival Tomsk Russia
• Israeli Film Festival Novosibirsk Russia
• Nice Israeli Film Festival
• Pitligiani Kolno'a Festival in Rome
• Barcelona JFF 2013
• Girona Museum of Jewish History 2013
• New Delhi Israeli FF 2013
• Centro Sefarad-Israel, Madri 2013
• Marseille JFF 2013
• Dublin Jameson IFF 2014
• JW3 London 2016
• Festival of Tolerance FF 2017
• Saint George Bussy 2018
• Film Archive Austria 2019
• Reel of Borehamwood, UK 2019
• Monterrey IFF 2019                                                                                                                                                     •Israeli Embassy Belarus 2020

RELATED LINKS
Irish Times
NPR
My Desert