The National Library of Israel will hold the 10th edition of its Docu.Text Festival on August 17-22. Held in collaboration with the Docaviv Tel Aviv International Documentary Film Festival, the festival will present five days of contemporary documentary films from Israel and around the world, and this year’s program will include portraits of some treasured cultural Israeli icons, including many of them strong women who defied stereotypes.
Many screenings will be followed by conversations and meetings with filmmakers, as well as performances related to the films, group meditation, and even folk dancing.
The festival will open with the gala premiere of the documentary film Tonight with Yehoram Gaon, an intimate portrait of the legendary singer and actor, directed by Morris Ben-Mayor, Kobi Farag, and Shay Lahav.
Gaon is known and loved as a Jerusalemite singer of classic Israeli songs, as well as an actor who played the title role in the Israeli musical Kazablan, both on stage and on screen, and who has appeared in dozens of major stage and film and television roles, including portraying Yonatan Netanyahu in Operation Thunderbolt. Both Gaon and the director will be present at the screening of this film, which focuses on the man behind the myth.
The festival will screen four documentaries featuring Israeli women of distinction. Naomi Polani: Last Dance and Farewell, Ada Sereni: The Lady in the Black Dress, The Rovina Legacy, and Girl, Woman.
The first follows 96-year-old singer/actress/dancer Polani, who was once part of the singing group HaTarnegolim (the Roosters), with Yehoram Gaon, as she choreographs a final dance for a troupe of older women. The screening will be followed by a master class with actress and dancer Renana Raz.
The second tells the story of Sereni, the only woman to command Haganah aliya operations in Italy, while the third film presents the intertwined lives of legendary actress Hannah Rovina and her daughter, singer Ilana Rovina. The fourth follows actress Ella Armony after she receives a suitcase with tapes recorded in the 1990s that reveal details of the life of her mother, singer Dafna Armoni.
The festival will screen We Will Dance Again, which premiered at the opening of last year’s festival. The film by Yariv Mozer documents the survivors of the Nova festival and recently won Outstanding Current Affairs Documentary at the 2025 Emmy Awards. It’s an impressive and moving film that features graphic images captured on video and in photos by the victims and first responders, as well as interviews with survivors and the victim’s families.
Another film connected to the war with Hamas, Waiting for Him, directed by Efrat Libi, tells the story of two young women who lost their partners in the war in Gaza. Premiering at the festival, it follows the women’s struggles with bereavement and raising children. The two women will speak with the audience after the film’s screening, along with the film’s director.
THE HOLOCAUST and what led up to it are increasingly present in public consciousness during the outbreak of antisemitism over the past two years, and several films on this subject will be screened.
Kichka: Telling Myself by Gad Aisen reveals the tragic story of illustrator and comics artist Michel Kichka, the son of a Holocaust survivor who has turned his family’s pain into vibrant graphic novels and drawings. Michal Paz Klapp, translator and editor of children and young adult fiction and comic books at Keter Books will speak after the screening.
Adaption to Darkness, directed by Shay Fogelman, tells the tale of Dr. Edwin Katzen-Ellenbogen, a brilliant pioneer in psychiatry who was also a mysterious spy and a notorious hypnotist, and was the only Jew ever convicted as a Nazi war criminal.
The Listener by Dr. Ohad Upaz tells the story of psychiatrist Dori Laub, a Holocaust survivor who pioneered trauma testimony and in 1979 initiated the first Holocaust testimonial documentation project at Yale University. Today, his unique listening method is used to document experiences of the survivors of the October 7 Hamas massacres. The film’s director, who also co-founded the documentation project Edut 710, will speak after the screening, alongside Maya Gan-Zvi, who heads the National Library’s national and international initiative to aggregate all documentation of October 7, 2023 and its aftermath.
Necropolis by Keren Alexander takes viewers on a journey through Jerusalem’s central Jewish cemetery. The film moves between the cemetery above and the excavation of more burial space below and offers a rare glimpse into a culture built around death. A special exhibit from the library’s collections of unusual items related to life and death will be available for viewing.
FOLK-DANCE enthusiasts will enjoy Hora by Avi Weissblei, which looks at the history of this beloved Israeli dance tradition and asks whether it can survive. The screening will be followed by an Israeli folk dancing circle in the Idan & Batia Ofer Park with professional dance leader Mimi Kogan.
The brothers who paved the way for Mizrahi singers such as Zohar Argov, Shimi Tavori, and Haim Moshe to enjoy mainstream success are the subject of The Kings of Cassettes – The Reuveni Brothers by Dani Dothan and Dalia Mevorach.
A look at Iranian culture
The war with Iran is over for now, and this is a perfect time to look at the Iranian culture the regime wants to suppress. Raving Iran by Susanne Regina Meures features Arash and Anoosh, a DJ duo from Tehran battling to play their music despite strong opposition from the local regime. Googoosh – Made of Fire by Niloufar Taghizadeh tells the story of a pop singer whose career was buried by the Iranian Revolution but who later became a voice of resistance and a symbol of hope. The film will be followed by a master class with singer and actress Liraz Charchi.
Does Sound Heal, a documentary by Dom Giorgi explores music, frequency and science with the world’s leading researchers, scientists, professors, sound therapists, composers, philosophers, and medicinal musicians. The screening will be followed by a group meditation session.
The festival will close on August 21 with a screening of Marianne and Leonard: Words of Love by Nick Broomfield, which tells of the poignant and tragic love story between Leonard Cohen and his muse Marianne Ihlen, whom he met in 1960 on the Greek island of Hydra. The outdoor screening will be followed by a live performance of Leonard Cohen’s best songs by Ivri Lider and the Camerata.
For tickets and information, go to https://docutext.nli.org.il/en