Leon Edery

Movies

Seven Blessings
Producer
Marie was just two years old when her mother gifted her to her infertile sister, a common Moroccan custom at the time. 40 years later, Marie travels from France to Israel, where her family now lives, to marry her one true love. Her warm and excited family is preparing for the custom of "Seven Blessings"- a week of festive meals in honor of the bride. But Marie has also come to open old wounds. Between intoxicating family meals, secrets and lies are revealed. Marie is desperate for an apology although her family is sure she should be thanking them. This week turns into a sad comedy about family crimes, forgiveness and loss.
Silent
Producer
The life of Avihao (Morris Cohen), a television personality with an excessively big mouth, is getting more and more complicated: his mother Sarah (Levna Finkelstein) stopped talking, fell into complete silence and his father does not understand why. Aviv (Oshari Cohen), his beloved former student, unexpectedly becomes the leading candidate in the prime ministerial elections even though no one knows what he has to say. He doesn't give interviews, doesn't talk, doesn't give speeches - he just stays silent all the way to victory, a silence that challenges Avihao to the point of risking his career and his family.
Wait for Me
Producer
Sixteen-year-old Maya loves sailing, which she was taught to do by her captain father. She misses her father very much, and runs away on a sailboat in order to reach Cyprus and meet him. But in Cyprus, she misses the cargo ship where her father is supposedly working.
Virginity
Producer
"Boy" is growing up, questioning what becoming a man is all about. On the one hand, he can't wait to leave his traumatic childhood behind, and on the other hand, he is growing up in a far off village with no real friends his age.
Don't Wait for Me
Producer
Matan arrives in a crime neighborhood after his father goes bankrupt and loses their home.
Sublet
Executive Producer
A gay New York Times travel writer comes to Tel Aviv after suffering a tragedy. The energy of the city and his relationship with a younger man brings him back to life.
The Day After I'm Gone
Producer
Yoram, a 50-year-old veterinarian living in Tel-Aviv, is forced to re-examine his relationship with his adolescent daughter Roni, after she wishes to end her life. He decides to take her on a journey to visit her mother’s family, a process of self and mutual discovery in a primordial desert land enveloping the Dead Sea.
Forgiveness
Producer
The days are wartime in southern Israel. It is the beginning of the Jewish year, according to Jewish religious law, ten days of repentance are the days of asking forgiveness. Nissan an Orthodox Jew, feels that he will not be able to continue his life unless he receives forgiveness from his friend Shaul.
That's the Way You Love
Producer
amara, a successful career woman, lives in a world of high expectations and perfect performances. When she gives birth to her first daughter, the change shakes her world, altering the power dynamics in Tamara and her husband's marriage and sex life. While she struggles to maintain her place at work, their intimacy becomes more and more demanding. But Tamara continues the race, crossing her own boundaries again and again. She is torn between her many roles-as a motherwife, and career woman. When her home becomes a battlefield, Tamara realizes she is a queen trapped in her own castle.
Spider in the Web
Producer
A young operative is sent on a mission to follow an older agent who's behavior has come into question.
Working Woman
Producer
While her husband struggles to keep his restaurant in business, a mother of three lands a job as an assistant to a powerful, but sexually harrassive realtor and brings herself to fight back.
The Damned
Producer
Cursed by a Bedouin woman, three young soldiers on a training exercise in the desert slowly descend into madness and turn on each other as the unforgiving landscape plays tricks with their minds.
Junction 48
Executive Producer
Set against a backdrop of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Palestinian rapper Kareem and his singer girlfriend Manar struggle, love and make music in their crime-ridden ghetto and Tel Aviv's hip-hop club scene.
Past Life
Producer
Two Israeli sisters delve into the dark mystery of their father’s former life in Poland during World War II.
Wounded Land
Producer
Police officer Kobi Amar and his Region Commander Yehuda Neumann have been partners at the Haifa police force for years, but now, they face a critical turning point in their relationship and those of their families when one is forced to turn against the other. Furthermore, the tumultuous events of the night, following a brutal terror attack, place Kobi and Neumann's moral and professional values at stake, as well as their long dedicated friendship.
Fire Birds
Producer
An eighty-year-old man's body is found with three stab wounds to the chest and a number tattooed along his forearm. Amnon, a police detective and second generation Holocaust survivor, is reluctantly assigned to the case. As the plot weaves between the past and present, their stories unfold.
Sabena Hijacking: My Version
Producer
The Palestinian terror group Black September had hijacked the craft and separated passengers into groups of Jews and non-Jews. They declared that they would blow up the plane if Israel did not release hundreds of Palestinians serving prison terms for charges of terrorism.
Tikkun
Producer
Haim-Aaron is a bright, ultra-orthodox religious scholar living in Jerusalem. His talents and devotion are envied by all. One evening, following a self-imposed fast, Haim-Aaron collapses and loses consciousness. The paramedics announce his death, but his father takes over resuscitation efforts and, beyond all expectations, Haim-Aaron comes back to life. After the accident, try as he might, Haim-Aaron remains apathetic to his studies. He feels overwhelmed by a sudden awakening of his body and suspects this is God testing him. He wonders if he should stray from the prescribed path and find a way to rekindle his faith... The title means "Rectify" in Hebrew; nevertheless the movie is called Tikkun in the English-speaking world.
Yona
Producer
Based on the turbulent life story of the poet Yona Wallach. The film focuses on the period in which she was just a young village girl, a war orphan, clawing her way through the world of Hebrew poetry. With the outbreak consciousness and transition from the village to the big city, Jonah, which examines the limits of herself and wants to know everything, experienced a mental breakdown. Spirit of the times, Jonah was treated LSD. The struggle to return to write and occupy its own place heavy charge her, but earns her immortality on the Hebrew poetry shelf.
Apples from the Desert
Producer
Based on the award-winning play and popular Israeli short story, this poignant family drama follows Rivka, 19-years-old and strong-willed, who struggles to follow the conservative lifestyle of her ultra-orthodox parents in Jerusalem. Determined to break free from her parents’ rigid worldview, she runs away to a secular farming community in the desert. The decision pushes the two generations to confront the chasm between their stringent views of tradition and modernity.
Hill Start
Producer
A Comic drama that tells the story of the Geva family - a bourgeois family from Jerusalem. When the mother of the family, Ora, goes into a coma after a car accident, the family members try to bring her back in every way possible.
Next to Her
Executive Producer
Rachel, 27, is raising her mentally retarded sister Gabby, 24, all by herself. When the social worker finds out she leaves her sister alone in the house while at work, she is forced to place her in a day-care center. For the first time in her life she shares the upbringing of her dear sister with someone else, her daily routine collapses and the huge void, left by her sister's absence, makes room for a man in Rachel's life. That man, Zohar, tears another crack in the symbiotic relationship of the two sisters. Rachel hangs on to his love as if it was a life belt. But her inability to lead a normal, intimate and emotional relationship with anyone but her sister, forces them into a twisted threesome, where boundaries between love, sacrifice, nurturing and torturing – are broken.
Farewell Baghdad
Producer
Between the years 1950-51 close to 130 thousand Jews left Iraq. The most ancient community in the world ceased to exist.
Bulgarian Rhapsody
Producer
The story of two adolescents, Moni and Zhozho, who meet 17-year-old Zheni in 1943 and with whom both fell in love. The events that follow unfold while Bulgaria has to decide on the deportation of 11 343 Jewish citizens in Macedonia and Thrace.
Kidon
Producer
"Kidon" begins in the morning of the 18th of February 2010 in Tel-Aviv when the whole world wakes up discovering, on the front page of all the newspapers, pictures of the Mossad agents caught while killing Mahmoud al Mabhouh in Dubai a month earlier. It was the first time that simple security cameras of a hotel caught secret agents red-handed, what's more Israeli agents. But without doubt, the most surprised of all were the Mossad leaders who were the only ones to know for sure that the 3 men and the woman, whose faces were in all the newsrooms of the world, had nothing to do with them. From then on, a race against time is undertaken hoping to understand why everything is aiming at them.
Hunting Elephants
Producer
In this hilarious crime comedy, a gifted 12-year-old boy and three elderly men plan a bank robbery in order to seek revenge on the institution for cheating the youngster after the death of his father.
Big Bad Wolves
Producer
Tel Aviv, Israel. The twisted paths of three very different men brutally collide due to a chain of unspeakable murders: a grieving father who has been doomed to seek vengeance and a police detective who boldly crosses the narrow boundary between law and crime meet a religion teacher suspected of being the murderer.
Orange People
Projection
Grandma Zohara occupies a special role within the Moroccan community within Israel. By cradling an object brought to her by her clients, Grandma Zohara gains access to the family's past through her dreams. This allows her to advise families on future decisions. Lately, however, Grandma Zohara is tiring and begins searching for someone to take over this role. She discovers that the only other person endowed with the power of dreaming is her daughter, Simone, who has different plans for her future. With support of Simone's sister, Fanny, who arrives unexpectedly from Paris, Simon gathers the strength to resist her mother's pressure and to pursue her own desire. Together the sisters wage battle for Simone's independence and creativity.
The Ballad of the Weeping Spring
Producer
A beautiful drama about love, friendship and the power of art to transform. Seeking redemption for a mysterious past and a dark secret, musician Yosef Tawila is on a quest to gather the members of his troupe, which disbanded for twenty years.
In the Shadow
Co-Producer
In the former Czechoslovakia, 1950s, police captain Hakl investigates a jewelery robbery. An opened safe deposit leads to a known burglar. What seems an easy case soon starts to tangle. When he is called off the case, he continues on his own. The investigation leads him onto thin ice. Can he beat a stronger enemy and save his family and his own life?
The Dealers
Producer
The Dealers tells the story of Rami and Avishay, 27 years old friends that share an apartment in a small Jerusalem neighborhood. They spend their days smoking and playing in a soccer team with other losers, which its coach Zvika is determined to take the "Jerusalem neighborhood cup" with. In need for money they get entangled in a drug deal with Sagi, a local gangster, which forces them to learn the hard way about taking responsibility, loyalty, and friendship. The movie is a humorous view of the colorful, multi culture, unique and somehow funny Israeli society.
The Fifth Heaven
Producer
Maya, a beautiful, 13, arrives to an orphanage towards the end of World War II. She discovers who her true father is and has a forbidden relationships with an orphanage worker.
Footnote
Producer
Jerusalem, Israel. Professors Eliezer and Uriel Shkolnik, father and son, have dedicated their lives to the study of the Jewish scriptures. Eliezer is a stubborn and methodical scholar who has never been recognized for his work; Uriel is a rising star, someone admired and praised by his colleagues. The fragile balance that has kept their personal relationship almost intact is broken in an unexpected way by a simple phone call.
Com Que Voz
Producer
Com Que Voz is a documentary that recounts the life of Alain Oulman, an important cultural figure during the nineteen-sixties and seventies, who left an indelible mark on Portuguese and French society. The film, shot in Lisbon, Paris and Tel Aviv, features celebrated authors, politicians and musicians, such as: Patricia Highsmith, Amos Oz, Amalia Rodrigues and Mario Soares.
Lebanon
Producer
During the First Lebanon War in 1982, a lone tank and a paratroopers platoon are dispatched to search a hostile town.
Hello Goodbye
Producer
French film icons Gérard Depardieu and Fanny Ardant star in this romantic comedy about a Parisian couple in their fifties who share a comfortable life, a beautiful home, a posh country club and a midlife crisis. Following a dream vacation to Israel where Alain (Depardieu) explores his Jewish roots, Gisèle (Ardant) insists they change their life and move to Tel Aviv. While Gisèle, a Jewish convert, finds her new life inspiring; Alain fights to embrace Hebrew, Jewish tradition and a new circumcision. Will Alain and Gisèle learn whether Shalom represents Hello or Goodbye?
Lemon Tree
Producer
Salma Zidane, a widow, lives simply from her grove of lemon trees in the West Bank's occupied territory. The Israeli defence minister and his wife move next door, forcing the Secret Service to order the trees' removal for security. The stoic Salma seeks assistance from the Palestinian Authority, Israeli army, and a young attorney, Ziad Daud, who takes the case. In this allegory, does David stand a chance against Goliath?
The Secrets
Executive Producer
Noemi, the studious, devoutly religious daughter of a prominent rabbi, convinces her father to postpone her marriage for a year so that she might study at a Jewish seminary for women in the ancient Kabalistic seat of Safe.