The Helen Diller Institute’s Fall 2025 Israeli cinema series examines migration and its relationship to identity, belonging, and outsider status, as portrayed through Israeli cinema. This series is hosted by Israeli filmmaker and film professor, Aner Preminger, the Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at the Helen Diller Institute.
Meet the Host: Professor Aner Preminger
Aner Preminger is the 2025–2026 Koret Visiting Professor in Israel Studies at the Helen Diller Institute teaching in the Film and Media Studies Department at UC Berkeley. An independent director, producer, writer, and film scholar, Professor Preminger is Professor Emeritus at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sapir Academic College, Israel. He won the 2017 Jerusalem Prize at the 34th Jerusalem Film Festival, awarded to a Jerusalem filmmaker. He teaches Cinema Studies, as well as acting and directing workshops.
Part I: Screening of My Australia
Friday, October 3, Noon–3 pm PT, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
About the Film:
In a poor neighborhood in 1960s Lodz, Poland, 10-year-old Tadek and his brother are in a gang with a strong anti-Semitic bent. When they are arrested, their mother, a Holocaust survivor, has no choice but to reveal that though raised as Catholics, they are in fact Jews. Telling the younger boy they are going to Australia, the land of his fantasies, the family boards a ship to Israel. This tender and humorous drama is based on the filmmaker’s own experiences. Watch the trailer here.
Register: https://myaustralia.rsvpify.com
Part II: Screening of The Cakemaker
Friday, November 14, Noon–3 pm PT, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
About the Film:
Ofir Raul Graizer was a film student when he first encountered the story that would turn into “The Cakemaker,” a winner of Israel’s Ophir Awards. This film is about an Israeli bakery owner (Anat) and a German baker (Thomas) who comes into her world hiding a secret about her late husband Oren. After Oren’s death, Thomas travels to Jerusalem under a fabricated identity and infiltrates Anat's life. Watch the trailer here.
Register: https://thecakemaker.rsvpify.com
Session III: Screening of America
Friday, December 5, Noon–3 pm PT, The Magnes Collection of Jewish Art and Life
About the Film:
Eli is a former champion swimmer from Israel now giving swimming lessons in Chicago. When he learns his estranged father has died, he dutifully returns to Tel Aviv to sort out his father’s affairs. There he reconnects with his childhood friend and former swimming partner Yotam who lives with his Ethiopian fiancée Iris. There is a palpable attraction between the two men, an attraction they are loath to discuss in this lyrical and understated love triangle. Watch the trailer here.
Register: https://americafilm.rsvpify.com