city Tel Aviv: Last News

Disturbed frontman David Draiman took a jab at former Pink Floyd frontman Roger Waters while performing in Tel Aviv recently.During the second half of the concert, which took place on June 28, Draiman – who is of Jewish heritage – performed Israel’s nation anthem ‘Hatikva’ along with an emphatic singalong by fans in attendance as a graphic of the Israeli flag flashed onscreen.Watch the clip below.Following the singalong, Draiman issued a scathing statement against Roger Waters for his anti-Semitic antics – which includes his recent use of a nazi-styled costume while performing in Berlin in May.“Fuck Roger Waters and all the rest of his BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] nazi assholes — every last single one of them. We don’t need that shit.

Gabe ’Nandez recorded his April 2023 EP Pangea (premiered by The FADER last month) at the peak of COVID lockdown in 2020. Now, the New York rapper has returned with his first completely new music of the year.

writers strike that is being branded “Screenwriters Everywhere,” with events planned in major cities including Paris and London. The Writers Guild of America has enlisted members from the International Affiliation of Writers Guilds, Federation of Screenwriters in Europe and UNI Global Union to demonstrate global support for the union’s strike against Hollywood’s largest producers. The unprecedented rallying behind the WGA is especially relevant during this strike given the globalization of content, and the fast-growing international outposts of many “struck” companies, such as Netflix and Prime Video.

Concerned Citizen (★★★☆☆), a cleverly told story of what it means to be a good neighbor and citizen. One who considers himself both, Ben (Shlomi Bertonov), who lives in neat, orderly, Roomba-assisted comfort with boyfriend Raz (Ariel Wolf), plants that tree in an empty sidewalk plot outside their building.Clearly, he deems his efforts a selfless act intended to beautify his rough-around-the-edges neighborhood, located in the outer limits of Tel Aviv.

Mark Sutherland “I know you didn’t come here to listen to this,” sighed Roger Waters as he surveyed the O2 crowd. With most aging rockers on a “first-ever farewell tour”, that statement would likely mean they were about to play some new material. At Roger Waters’ show, sadly, it meant he was about to sing the same old song. Sure enough, an extended rant against “the Israeli lobby” and British MP Christian Wakeford followed.  “They are trying to cancel me,” he claimed, to at first hesitant, but then louder applause. “And it hurts. We’ve done 80 shows and we’ve done nothing but share our love for people. That’s why I’m so pissed off with this Israeli lobby bullshit.” He also accused his critics of, “Making up stuff because you’ve been told to by your masters from the Foreign Office in Tel Aviv.”

Guns N’ Roses were heard soundchecking a previously unreleased song ahead of their recent show in Tel Aviv. Check out audio from the rehearsal below.The rock veterans have been rolling out new versions of their previously unreleased songs during recent live shows.

Manuel Betancourt The fine line between being right and being righteous is at the center of Idan Haguel’s “Concerned Citizen.” The Tel Aviv-set film follows a young gay man living in a neighborhood that’s supposedly on the upswing who has to question whether his commitment to bettering this increasingly gentrified community is all that selfless — or whether, in fact, that moniker he uses to describe himself and which gives the film its title is a smokescreen for more unseemly sentiments about his immigrant neighbors. Haguel’s deft dark comedy is a tight character study of the curdling effects of white guilt and white privilege. Ben and Raz (real life couple Shlomi Bertonov and Ariel Wolf) live in a picturesque apartment. Their shelves are adorned with masterfully manicured house plants and hip coffee table books on Bowie; their every morning is scored by the sounds of their robot vacuum followed by the hum of their blender as they make each other green juices to kick start their day. Together they’ve created a safe haven within their doors that staves off the relatively chaotic urban world right outside their door. Theirs is what we’ve come to label a neighborhood in transition — namely, a community where low real estate prices have begun to attract couples like Ben and Raz who value the “multicultural” vibe of their environment in theory though perhaps not so much in practice.

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Live sports streaming service DAZN and social analytics firm Videocites have forged a partnership to fight rampant sports content piracy in the social media sphere. Dubbed “The Netflix of Sports,” DAZN is a leading premium live sports platform with a footprint comprising Italy, Spain, Germany, Belgium, Portugal, Japan, Canada, U.S. and the U.K. The company boasts that Videocities’ cutting-edge technology will now enable DAZN to automatically remove 98% of the thousands of pirated streams detected on social media within minutes with unprecedented efficiency, it said in a statement. NBA Equity is an investor in Videocites which has several offices around the world, including in Tel Aviv and one recently opened in New York.  

Nick Vivarelli International Correspondent Italy’s Intramovies has acquired global rights outside of Israel and France on Israeli director Dani Rosenberg’s Gaza-Strip conflict drama “The Vanishing Soldier.”  “Vanishing Soldier” is Rosenberg’s second feature after “The Death of Cinema and My Father Too,” which was in the official selection in Cannes 202O and won the Jerusalem Film Festival’s top prize. The film is about an 18-year-old Israeli soldier who flees the Gaza battlefield and heads back to his girlfriend in Tel Aviv only to discover that the military elite is convinced he was kidnapped in the fog of war. What ensues is a tragicomic journey and takes place over a period of 24 hours on the streets of Tel Aviv.

EXCLUSIVE: The latest projects from Mr Gaga director Tomer Heymann and Academy Award nominee Dror Moreh will be among the titles on show at the 25th CoPro market in Israel next month.

The Eurovision Song Contest is returning to Peacock for the third year in a row.

Sam Smith‘s set at Summer In The City in Tel Aviv is no longer scheduled after festival organisers said the event’s first day was cancelled due to “unforeseeable problems”.Smith was due to perform in Israel for the first time on May 31 but now the whole day has been scrapped. Ticketholders can still watch live music on June 1, with acts including Robbie Williams and Martin Garrix on the bill.In a statement shared via The Jerusalem Post, festival organisers said: “Due to unforeseeable technical and logistical problems on May 31, the concerts of that evening (including Sam Smith) will not happen.

Katy Perry suffered an awkward blunder as proceedings for King Charles III's coronation kicked off, as she appeared lost looking for her seat in Westminster Abbey. The singer donned a bold, lilac dress with a huge matching hat and opera gloves, making her a real stand-out feature in the crowd.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Business entrepreneur Oudi Antebi spent 18 years in the United States and 20 years in the high-tech space before returning to his native Israel to kickstart a new venture, Session 42, a music production shingle that harnesses the ballooning globalwide power of AI technology.  “I was reading about how AI is just changing everything, and I decided that I wanted to start a company with a focus on creating music, a company that blends technology and music together,” says Antebi.  “I knew that I wanted to find the best technology and AI out there and use this technology and AI to unleash creativity.” 

Elsa Keslassy International Correspondent Leo Maidenberg’s Paris-based company Place du Marché Productions is developing a slate of French and international films and TV series with acclaimed talents, including Daphna Levin, the creator of the Israeli series “Euphoria,” as well as Sarah Kaminsky (“Raid Dingue”) and Leïla Sy (“Banlieusards”). Maidenberg, who launched Place du Marché in 2018 after a career in diplomacy and made his producing debut with Caroline Fourest’s politically charged action film “Sisters in Arms,” has teamed with Kim Younes at Elvie Productions on a pair of high concept Israeli series. The first title produced by the two banners is “The Truth,” a police thriller series co-written and directed by Levin, whose credits also include the original Israeli series “In Therapy.” Set in Tel Aviv, “The Truth” opens on the day of the final verdict for the most controversial murder case in Israel, 10 years after the incident which took place in a high school gym. That same day, a new murder happens in identical circumstances. Juvenile inspector Rachel Zohar, a student at the high school at the time of the first murder, must revisit her trauma to solve the case. Aurit Zamir (“Babysitter”) co-wrote the series with Levin.

EXCLUSIVE: Docaviv, the prestigious all-documentary film festival in Tel Aviv, today announced the International Competition lineup for the 25th anniversary of the event, which takes place May 11-20.

John Hopewell Chief International Correspondent CANNES  — Burgeoning Israeli film-TV studio Sipur and cable channel HOT, behind the original versions of “In Treatment” and “Euphoria,” are introducing at MipTV “Everybody Loves…,” a new global dating reality format. The news comes just days after France’s Mediawan Rights has pounced on international distribution of another Sipur format, “Hungry for Love,” and partners Sipur and MGM’s winning five Israeli Emmy Awards for chilling doc series “The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes.”Tel Aviv-based Sipur has also moved into post on “Bad Boy,” a scripted series from Ron Leshem, creator of the original Israeli “Euphoria” and an exec producer on its U.S version.  

Israeli actor Chaim Topol, best known for his role as Tevye in the film "Fiddler on the Roof," may have had an unexpected double life outside of acting. The actor, who passed away in March, used his VIP status as an actor to work for Mossad, according to a new interview with his family in the Israeli newspaper, Haaretz.

Like Me (★★☆☆☆) makes broad, swift swings between emotional highs and lows.In short order, Tom, portrayed by newcomer Yoav Keren, bounces from a threesome with a handsome gay couple, to being informed by his widower dad Gideon (Danny Geva) that, based on some tell-tale queerness Gideon found on the kid’s phone, he’s giving Tom two weeks to get out of the house.Writer-director Eyal Kantor’s feature debut treads credible ground depicting Tom’s confusion as he processes being rejected by his emotionally distant dad. He still parties when he can with straight bestie Gilad (Mendi Barsheshet) and Gilad’s new Instagram-influencer girlfriend Noa (Roni Adler), but the hurt and anger seething beneath the smiles can surface when he least expects.During a photo shoot, Rami (Gal Amitai), a smitten photographer twice Tom’s age, directs model Tom to pour that pain out, resulting in the most persuasively raw moments of Keren’s performance.

Malina Saval Associate Editor, Features Two years ago, Israeli singer-songwriter Hadar Sopher was in a long-distance relationship that went suddenly awry. “My girlfriend was supposed to catch a train to come for the weekend, and she called me and said, ‘Yo, I’m sorry, I’m not gonna go on the train,’” recalls Sopher of that fateful phone call. “She said, ‘We need to break up. I’m really sorry.’ It was, like, 10 minutes before the train was supposed to leave. I hung up the phone and I was very confused. I felt horrible. I was a mess. And I just didn’t find my closure. I tried to move on, but I was haunted by questions. I just felt like I was constantly thinking about the situation and stuck in some kind of a loop. And then I just woke up in the middle of the night and started to write this song.”

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