page_title: Cinema of Israel
section_title: Pre-state films
hierarchical_section_title: Cinema of Israel / History / Pre-state films
context_page_description: Cinema of Israel refers to film production in Israel since its founding in 1948. Most Israeli films are produced in Hebrew. Israel has been nominated for more Academy Awards for Best Foreign Language Film than any other country in the Middle East.
context_section_description: Movies were made in Mandatory Palestine from the beginning of the silent film era although the development of the local film industry accelerated after the establishment of the state. Early films were mainly documentary or news roundups, shown in Israeli cinemas before the movie started.
  In 1933, a children's book by Zvi Lieberman Oded ha-noded (Oded the Wanderer) was made into a silent film, the country's first full-length feature film for children, produced on a shoestring budget with private financing. In 1938, another book by Lieberman, Me’al ha-khoravot(Over the Ruins) was turned into a 70-minute film with a soundtrack and dialogue. Lieberman wrote the screenplay himself. Produced by Nathan Axelrod and directed by Alfred Wolf, it told the story of children in a Second Temple Jewish village in the Galilee where all the adults were killed by the Romans. The children rebuild the village. Production costs came to 1,000 Palestine pounds. It failed at the box office, but is considered a landmark in the history of Israeli cinema.
  One of the pioneers of cinema in Israel was Baruch Agadati.  Agadati purchased cinematographer Yaakov Ben Dov's film archives in 1934 when Ben Dov retired from filmmaking and together with his brother Yitzhak established the AGA Newsreel.  He directed the early Zionist film entitled This is the Land (1935).
caption: Shaike Ophir in The Policeman
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