The Heart of the Library: Student Documentaries from the National Library

The Documentary-Social Project of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University

Within a space where time accumulates in layers of words, images, and voices, the National Library of Israel emerges not merely as a repository of knowledge, but as a living space of memory. Among its shelves and reading rooms, past and present converge in a continuous dialogue between preservation and rediscovery. Every manuscript, photograph, book, and recording carries a story, and each story is brought to life anew through a contemporary perspective.

This film series offers a cinematic journey into that world. Through the eyes of emerging filmmakers, it reveals the human stories unfolding within the Library's walls - of staff members, researchers, collections, and rare archival treasures. Moving between object and individual, documentation and interpretation, the films explore how the past continues to resonate within the present.

Like previous editions of the Documentary-Social Project, the films come together as a multifaceted mosaic, illuminating a single theme through a diversity of perspectives. The result is a nuanced portrait not only of a major cultural institution, but also of the Israeli society reflected through it - its memories, tensions, and possibilities.

The series comprises short films created as part of the Documentary-Social Project of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, Tel Aviv University, a program dedicated to fostering personal, thoughtful, and richly layered documentary filmmaking.

Miraculous Detachment

‍ Documentary | 10 min | Israel | 2026
Director: Rotem Pesachovich

A short documentary about five researchers inside an extraordinary aquarium, who see with remarkable clarity what is reflected beyond the glass.

The Archivist from Nahal Oz

‍ Documentary | 20 min | Israel | 2026

Director: Roni Davidi

As part of the National Library of Israel's Israel Archives Network project to preserve and provide public access to Israel's cultural and heritage collections, Lina immerses herself in cataloging the archives of Kibbutz Nahal Oz. While the ongoing situation in Gaza prevents the community's residents from returning home, she devotes herself to preserving the kibbutz's way of life as it once was, through thousands of archival items that have now taken on new meaning.

You Don't Break a Myth

Documentary | 15 min | Israel | 2026

Director: Moshe Cohen-Gil

A family suitcase opened at the National Library of Israel reveals a censored report written by Yeshayahu Drezner, a fighter at Tel Hai, just days after the battle. Through the journey of his daughter, Michal, the film confronts the long-hidden words with the national myth on which generations were raised, revealing what happens when the silence of the founding generation begins to crack.

Archive in Three Boxes

Documentary | 20 min | Israel | 2026

Director: Luba Vikhanski

From a young age, Ohad Sofer dreamed of becoming a professional violist, but life led him instead to head the Music Department at the National Library of Israel. Driven by a deep passion for music, he opens the doors to the treasures hidden within Israel's music archive. Through three remarkable discoveries, the film reveals unexpected musical stories preserved in the collection.

Shelter

Documentary | 14 min | Israel | 2026

Director: Tama Castel

War forces a couple to leave Jaffa for Jerusalem. Amid air raid sirens, the filmmaker finds refuge in the writings of Yona Alon. Together, they search for a way to preserve tenderness in a reality saturated with violence.