The Docaviv Film Festival is Israel’s only film festival solely featuring documentary cinema. It is also Tel Aviv’s largest film festival, and takes place for ten days each year in May. Docaviv features over 80 films from Israel and abroad over its duration, many of which are national premiers, as well as hosting a huge spectrum of events which attract interested members of the public, film-lovers, and industry experts from around the world. In 2012, the Docaviv Film Festival will take place between May 3-12.

EPOS, The International Art Film Festival, is the first film festival to be held in Israel which will be dedicated to encounters between the arts and cinema. The EPOS Festival will be based in Tel Aviv, at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art, however, will see films simultaneously shown across the country. The festival will feature about fifty films, from Israel and around the world, as well as workshops, master-classes, lectures, and interactions with film-makers from around the world. The EPOS International Art Film Festival will take place between February 1-4, 2012.

The Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival is an annual film festival in Jerusalem held each year in December at the Jerusalem Cinematheque. Taking place over the Hanukkah holiday-period and lasting for one week, the festival showcases over fifty films from Israel and around the world, including feature films, documentaries, shorts, animations, and avant-garde films, with the overarching themes of Jewish faith and practice, history, culture, music, the Holocaust, modern life in Israel and the Diaspora, and relationships, between Judaism and other religions, and Judaism and the State of Israel. In 2011, the Jerusalem Jewish Film Festival will take place between December 17-23.

Thursdays on Campus at Tel Aviv University is a series of free events running every Thursday between 6pm and 11pm at Tel Aviv University in the Ramat Aviv neighborhood of North Tel Aviv. The events at Tel Aviv university range from lectures by leading academics on a range of fascinating topics, to travelling exhibitions, film screenings, and live performances and concerts. Every week the university puts on a different schedule of events details of which can be found on the university website.

The Haifa International Film Festival is the first international film festival in Israel taking place every year in the city of Haifa. Ever since the first event in 1983, the Haifa Film Festival has grown in size dramatically and shows an interesting mix of films both Israeli and international to an audience expected to reach 70,000. The 2011 Haifa International Film Festival will take place between 13 and 22 October and will include some 170 premiers, 280 film screenings, and involve over 300,000 people in the activities which include outdoor events, screenings, and workshops.

The annual Jerusalem Film Festival is held in July and screens 150 to 200 films yearly over the course of a week. The festival takes place at the Jerusalem Cinemateque and Sultan’s Pool amphitheater, and showcases the best of international feature films, documentary films, and movies and shorts dealing with issues of Jewish identity and history, freedom and human rights. In 2011, the Jerusalem Film Festival takes place between July 7 and 16, and will feature, in addition to existing cinematic competitions, an international competition for short animation and sci-fi films and other artworks depicting Jerusalem in 2111.