Shmuel Wolf
Acting
Biography
Shmuel Wolf was an Israeli actor. Born in Budapest, Wolf's mother died at a young age and his father, who sold sewing machines, later remarried. Wolf and his stepmother were forced to relocate to the local ghetto during the Holocaust after his father was murdered by members of the Arrow Cross Party. After the ghetto was liberated in 1945, Wolf resided in a Bnei Akiva camp in France from 1948 until emigrating to Israel the following year. He lived in Masu'ot Yitzhak and then Kfar Masaryk. Wolf also served in the Hashomer Hatzair movement and the Nahal movement. He moved to Tel Aviv in 1959. From the 1960s onwards, Wolf focused on his career as an actor. He studied acting with Nola Chilton and he became a regular performer at many theatres which included the Ohel Theatre and the Haifa Theatre. Wolf's most popular stage performances was in Josef Mundy’s play It Comes Around in which he performed over 2,000 times. On film and television, Wolf made his film debut in Sallah Shabati starring Chaim Topol. He was also featured in the 1972 film An American Hippie in Israel. Other films he appeared in included Fifty-Fifty, An Intimate Story and A Woman Called Golda. He also made minor appearances in the television shows Life is Not Everything and Srugim.
Known For
The story of the Russian-born, Wisconsin-raised woman who rose to become Israel's prime minister in the late 1960s and early 1970s.
A Woman Called Golda
Merab, a Georgian taxi driver who mistakenly crosses into Israel while seeing off his Jewish brother, Yasha, gets stuck without documents. He gets entangled in bureaucratic nightmares, mistaken identity, and KGB plots while trying to return home.
The Passport
Jacek, who is Jewish, miraculously manages to survive World War II in Nazi-occupied Poland. As a subplot to Jacek's story, which also involves a love affair with Haling ( Kyra Sedgwick ) and German soldiers' repeated attempts to kill him, is a tale of how young kids in the Warsaw ghetto devise their own method of fighting oppression.
War and Love
Incited by a disillusioned young man who has decided to flee from civilization, a group of 4 people go searching for freedom and happiness on an isolated island . When their boat goes astray and they are left without food, their animal instincts take over, bringing the film to its catastrophic end.
An American Hippie in Israel
Sallah Shabati, the patriarch of a big family recently arrived to Israel from Yemen, tries to make money and get better housing, in a country that can barely provide for its own and is in the midst of absorbing hundreds of thousands of Jewish refugees from Arab countries.
Sallah
In the Southwest of 1915 Carlos backs an intended uprising of the common countymen against his father Phillip, a despotic landowner who exploits the rural poors in his silver mines. But Carlos' indecision and his love for his young and beautiful stepmother leads into a failure.
Carlos
In this surreal comedy, a ghost monk convinces Itzik, a keychain importer living with his mother, to take revenge on those who are responsible for his pathetic situation. Surprisingly, the collaboration with the monk improves Itzic's life.
The Revenge of Itzik Finkelstein
Ahasverus, king of Persia and Media, puts aside Vashti and makes Esther his queen, choosing her among maidens in a kingdom stretching from India to Ethiopia. Esther, using information from Mordecai, her uncle and patron, saves the king from assassination. Haman, the king's favorite, is miffed when Mordecai won't bow to him, so he orders death to all Jews in the kingdom, under the seal of the king. Esther pleads for her people, and Mordecai is in turn given license to make his own edict under the king's seal. Mordecai loses sight of his original intention, and bloody murder ensues. Purim annually celebrates the story. At the end of the film, the actors comment.
Esther
The second chapter in Assi Dayan's trilogy centers on three marginal characters from "Life According to Agfa". Malka, a whore with a Romanian accent who dreams of becoming a singer, Levi, her pimp and Moshe, a homeless man who dreams that Malka will love him and follows Malka and Levi. Levi navigates the trio in a grotesque and turbulent world in which people have lost the purpose of their existence. The result is a black comedy that combines the elements of the film "Bourekas" with poetic enlightening moments, all in the special, confident and blatant style of Assi Dayan.
An Electric Blanket Named Moshe
Not the sort of film we usually see coming from Israel, this teen horror-comedy is a loving tribute to American films of the 80s. Mili and Noam are high-school students who intend to celebrate their six-month anniversary by losing their virginity. What begins as an innocent pedal boat ride full of raging hormones, becomes a struggle against monstrous cats out for blood. This self-parodying low, low budget, independently produced feature is filled with surprises as well as hilarious oddball charm.
Cats on a Pedal Boat
The story of three men living in Tel Aviv. They set off to attend a funeral. Unfortunately, they cannot find the right cemetery. Later the story shifts to their complex love lives.
Things
Don Quixote and Sancho Pancha arrive in Israel in the year 2005. They reach a hill on the Jerusalem by-pass road overlooking the wall, which divides Israel and the Palestinian Authority. They inspect their target. The two men are already in their 70's. Quixote is having difficulties mounting his horse and Sancho struggles with his tools. But Don Quixote is determined to attack.
Don Quixote in Jerusalem
A psychological and existential study of a prisoner charged with guarding an isolated lighthouse. If he makes it through two years, the remainder of his sentence for manslaughter in a bar brawl will be pardoned. Nobody before managed to cope with the solitude. One day, a rat makes its way to the island. The sea and the island, the man and the rat, friendship and vendetta.
Der Leuchtturm
A young man secretly watches his beautiful neighbour through binoculars. When she leaves the building, he follows her into the street and even into a grocery store, buying milk just to have an excuse to be there. Later we see that his refrigerator is already full of milk. After he is injured in a car accident, he finds himself in a train carriage in a strange realm between life and death. There he meets an older man who explains the rules of this new world. He also encounters the woman he loves – someone with whom he can finally connect. Yet he longs to leave this place and return to his life.