f you aren’t sick of the cinema after MIFF, stay seated for the annual AICE Israeli Film Festival. An initiative of the Australia Israel Cultural Exchange, the festival program includes some of the best contemporary features and documentaries produced by Israel’s burgeoning film industry over the last 12 months.

It’s an industry that’s flourishing so strongly that for the third consecutive year an Israeli production has been nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at The Academy Awards. This year that film is Israeli/German co-production Ajami, a tragic story about a community of Muslims and Christians living in Tel Aviv, which will screen on opening night at the festival.

Many of the films in this year’s festival look at the inherent cultural clashes of this diverse country and its landscape, exploring Orthodox religion and life up against contemporary Western society. Others star international actors including Olga Kurylenko (the latest Bond femme fatale) and Joseph Fiennes.

With a dynamic program that reveals this vibrant culture in its many guises, the AICE Israeli Film Festival runs over a week from August 17 to 22 at Palace Como and Palace Brighton Bay.

We have five double passes to give away to a regular festival session of choice (this excludes opening/closing night and Saturdays after 5pm). Send an email to win@broadsheet.com.au with ‘Israeli Film Festival’ as the subject and your preferred session in the email.

www.aice.com.au