News & Updates: Israel Film Fest­ival in LA announces its full pro­gram

The 37th Israel Film Fest­ival in Los Angeles just announced its full pro­gram, and it will open on Feb­ru­ary 4 with a gala event spot­light­ing pro­du­cer Lawrence Bender.

Act­ress and act­iv­ist Sharon Stone, known for her roles in such films as Basic Instinct and Casino, will present Bender with the fest­ival’s 2026 Vis­ion­ary Award.

The fest­ival will run until Feb­ru­ary 19, with screen­ings at the Saban Theatre in Beverly Hills, Regal North Hol­ly­wood, and the Fine Arts Theatre in Beverly Hills present­ing the best of recent Israeli cinema.

The open­ing-night event will pair the Bender trib­ute with the Los Angeles premiere of A Let­ter to David, Tom Shoval’s Ophir Award-win­ning doc­u­ment­ary about recently freed host­age David Cunio, which will serve as the fest­ival’s open­ing film.

The open­ing gala is sponsored by NATAL, Israel’s lead­ing trauma-focused organ­iz­a­tion, which provides com­pre­hens­ive ser­vices to indi­vidu­als, fam­il­ies, and com­munit­ies affected by war, ter­ror, and viol­ence.

Bender, who has pro­duced many Oscar-win­ning films, includ­ing the Quentin Tarant­ino clas­sics Pulp Fic­tion and

Inglouri­ous Bas­terds, as well as Good Will Hunt­ing and An Incon­veni­ent Truth, is being honored for a career that has com­bined com­mer­cial reach with a taste for pro­voc­at­ive storytelling.

Bender recently came to Israel to exec­ut­ive pro­duce Red Alert, a Para­mount+ series released in Octo­ber 2025 that dram­at­izes the Octo­ber 7 ter­ror­ist attack.

The fest­ival will also honor dir­ector Eran Rik­lis with its 2026 Cine­matic Achieve­ment Award and will show his latest film, Read­ing Lol­ita in Tehran, a movie based on the best-selling mem­oir about a lit­er­at­ure pro­fessor in Iran. Rik­lis is known for such films as The Syr­ian Bride, Lemon Tree, and A Bor­rowed Iden­tity.

The fest­ival will fea­ture a center­piece trib­ute to the late actor Alon About­boul with a 40th anniversary screen­ing of Rico­chets (Shtei Etzba’ot Mi’Tzidon), the 1986 film that helped define his screen leg­acy and which is about sol­diers fight­ing in the First Lebanon War.

The fest­ival will show new Israeli films, includ­ing fea­ture films and doc­u­ment­ar­ies such as Eti Tsicko’s Nand­auri, Yousef Abo Made­gem’s Eid, Dani Rosen­berg’s Of Dogs and Men, Yariv Mozer’s We Will Dance Again, Zohar Shachar and Jamal Khalaily’s Bella, Nir Berg­man’s Pink Lady, Ben Bachar’s Sav­ing Shuli San, and Or Sinai’s Mama.

Meir Fenig­stein, founder and exec­ut­ive dir­ector of the Israel Film Fest­ival, said the event comes at a moment when Israeli cul­tural cel­eb­ra­tions are espe­cially import­ant.

“Now, more than ever, is a time for all of us to come together to share and cel­eb­rate our rich and cul­tur­ally diverse com­munit­ies and Israeli cul­ture.

“This year, Israel Film Fest­ival audi­ences will truly be enter­tained by grip­ping dra­mas, hil­ari­ous com­ed­ies, and com­pel­ling doc­u­ment­ar­ies cre­ated by both new and renowned Israeli film­makers and star­ring the coun­try’s most gif­ted act­ors,” noted Fenig­stein, a musi­cian who was a mem­ber of the super­group Kaveret, and who star­ted the Israel Film Fest­ival while he was a music stu­dent in Boston.

“We also look for­ward to recog­niz­ing the valu­able artistic con­tri­bu­tions made by this year’s honorees, Lawrence Bender and Eran Rik­lis, and to remem­ber­ing the late actor Alon About­boul.”

Ticket inform­a­tion and the full sched­ule are avail­able on the fest­ival’s site at https://israel­filmfest­ival.com