The Israeli Film Festival of Philadelphia presents Highway 65 and Matchmaking 2

Celebrating its 29th anniversary, this year’s fest featured dramas, comedies, and documentaries and included two opportunities to meet film directors for post-screening Q&As. As with other film festivals that highlight international artists for American audiences, the IFF brings the work of Israeli filmmakers and actors who are rarely seen in our movie houses to the region (although this is changing on the small screen, with offerings like The Beauty Queen of Jerusalem and Seven Figures on Netflix).

Especially since October 7, 2023 and the subsequent ongoing war in Gaza, there is little American media coverage of the everyday life of Israeli people—many of whom have taken to the streets weekly to protest Netanyahu and his government. The importance of bringing a glimpse of Israeli culture to American audiences cannot be overstated.

The closing day of the festival featured two excellent, very different films: the feminist noir detective thriller Highway 65 and the popular romcom Matchmaking 2 (a sequel to the 2022 movie Matchmaking).

Highway 65

Directed by award-winning Israeli screenwriter and director Maya Dreifuss, 2024’s Highway 65 is an investigative thriller following two complex women: the beautiful Orly Elimelech (Anastasia Fein), a young widow who goes missing and Daphna (Tali Sharon), a no-bullshit detective who has recently been transferred from Tel Aviv to the small northern town Afula (think being transferred from Philly to a small central Pennsylvania town). When Daphna finds Orly’s lost phone, she pursues the search for her, even while being discouraged by her colleagues, who seem unconcerned about Orly’s absence.

Sharon is excellent as Daphna, a 41-year-old woman whose work as a detective is her life’s focus and identity. She regularly shares that she doesn’t cook and has no interest in having children. Daphna is a relatable and very human detective, and her comic moments are a bit reminiscent of Tina Fey’s iconic Liz Lemon (like dripping tahini sauce from her pitas or spooning out a huge chunk of beef in what she thought was vegetarian soup). When a male colleague comes over to her apartment for a date and asks what she’s cooking for dinner, she responds, “Do you think this is a restaurant?”

But Daphna is ultra-serious in her pursuit of what happened to Orly, whose husband was killed a decade ago in combat. She stands up to Orly’s father-in-law, the town’s real-estate mogul who controls the police force and seemingly everything else, and faces violence herself as the family story gets darker, with a surprising twist on the dramatic opening scene.

Highway 65 features beautiful cinematography by Amit Yasur, showcasing Israel’s agrarian northern landscape. Along with Sharon, the entire ensemble of actors makes the tense family and small-town dynamics feel compellingly real. For an American audience, Highway 65, while a dramatic thriller, offers a window into Israeli life and culture.

Matchmaking 2

At the other end of the filmmaking spectrum is Matchmaking 2, a feel-good, over-the-top romantic comedy. While the lives of the characters in Highway 65 are largely secular, Matchmaking 2 takes us into a specific subculture within Israeli society: the Haredi community. Haredi Jews are a subset of Orthodox Jewish people that adhere to the strictest interpretation of traditional Jewish law and reject secular society. Getting married is a primary focus in the Haredi community, and young people are generally set up by a matchmaker to meet a suitable partner via a blind date. You can observe young people in Haredi neighborhoods like Lakewood, NJ or Bnei Brak in Jerusalem, where the film takes place, meeting in hotel lobbies for a soda and shyly asking each other questions to feel out whether or not they might be a match.

While it would be easy for secular people to dismiss this insular culture, in recent years TV shows like Shtisel have helped to create better understanding of Haredi culture. While Shtisel is a drama, Matchmaking 2 is a sweet and touching laugh-out-loud comedy. It centers on the overlapping stories of two young men studying in yeshiva (the typical life path, focused on learning and teaching sacred Jewish texts) and their struggles to find their life partners.

Even within the Haredi world, Matchmaking 2 demonstrates the diversity of that culture. One of the young men, Moti, is engaged to Nechama, whose family comes from a Mizrahi background. (Mizrahi means Eastern and refers to the Jews of Iraq, Iran, Libya, Morocco, and other Middle Eastern countries who were forced out by the dictators in those countries during the last century and who found refuge in Israel. An excellent new podcast, The Nightingale of Iran, takes a deep dive into one Mizrahi family’s history). This mix of cultures offers both comedic opportunities—like when Moti chokes on the spicy fish at a family dinner with his future in-laws, or his father mistakes henna for a dip—and also moments for witnessing genuine cultural compromises, especially around the different interpretations of wedding rituals.

It was a mechiya (Hebrew for sustenance, used to describe something refreshing or joyful) to watch Matchmaking 2 at the Israeli Film Festival: to have the occasion to laugh out loud, to laugh really hard, in community.

Greater cultural understanding is always a necessary ingredient for the possibility of peace. While this year’s festival is over, I hope it will inspire film lovers to learn more about Israeli culture through its outstanding diversity of film.