A genre of comic melodramas produced in the 1960s and '70s, Bourekas films are among the most popular films ever made in Israel. In Israeli Bourekas Films, author and filmmaker Rami Kimchi sets out a history of Bourekas films and discusses their origin.

Kimchi considers the representation of Sephardi or Mizrahi Jews in the films, noting that the material culture reflected in the the films presented a culture that was closer to the European Yiddish culture than to the Middle Eastern world of the Mizrahim. Kimchi reflects on the enormous popularity and commercial success of Bourekas films, uncovers how they were made, who made them and why, and discusses the impact of the films on Israeli cinema today.

Israeli Bourekas Films is a film insider's view of the characters, stories, and cultures that made Bourekas films such an important part of Israeli life.

About the Author

Rami Kimchi teaches film and television in the School of Communications at Ariel University, and held guest appointment at University of Michigan and University of California, San Diego. He is an international award-winning filmmaker and a culture critic. He is the author of Shtetl in the Land of Israel: The Bourekas Films and Their Origin in Classical Yiddish Literature.

Reviews

"Israeli Bourekas Films offers much needed analysis of the phenomenon popularly called 'Bourekas films' and how they draw on representations of shtetl life from Yiddish literature."-Deborah Starr, author of Remembering Cosmopolitan Egypt: Literature, Culture, and Empire

Book Information
ISBN 9780253063410
Author Rami Kimchi
Format Hardback
Page Count 206
Imprint Indiana University Press
Publisher Indiana University Press