Donna & Shula Productions

Artist Eli Shamir paints the view from his studio balcony - fields stretching to the horizon, ancient oak trees, and a generation of farmers that is disappearing from the vistas of the Jezreel Valley. His large oils are treasured by collectors worldwide. It was director Ben Shani's encounter with one of Shamir's works that spawned the idea of documenting the artist at work. Neither of them had any idea that everything would change as the filming progressed, as an unforeseen danger threatened to rob Shamir of his talent. Filmed over the course of ten years, A lullaby for the Valley focuses on the fascinating figure of Eli Shamir and his paintings. As time passes, like the endless fields of the valley, they are transformed before our very eyes.

A young Holocaust survivor who descends into crime; an Italian-Jewish engineer who wants to see a movie; a German Christian who forgives her husband’s murderer because of her Buddhist faith; and a Jewish woman who carries on an affair with a Nazi and exposes members of the resistance so that she and her children may survive: their fates intersect when two bullets are fired into a queue of people waiting to see “A Man Escaped” at Tel Aviv’s Cinema North in 1957.

As a young promising poet marked for greatness, Yossi Sarid unintentionally found himself in politics and eventually became the leader of the Left. He was ambitious; aspiring to save those on the margins of society but was often rejected by them. His dream of serving as Education Minister came true; when it did, he chose to insist on his principles at the cost of overthrowing the government. For 50 weeks and five days, Education Minister Sarid fought with the Orthodox Shas party that demanded its education movement’s debts be covered, and refused to yield even when he was called as “Evil Haman” and when the Prime Minister said he’d turned into a liability. This is the story of the eternal opposition leader who refused to compromise despite the consequences.