The TLVFest
June 2019 / Tel Aviv, Israel / tlvfest.com/tlv/he/en
TLVFest has held strong for 13 years and counting despite what founder Yair Hochner describes plainly as “institutional discrimination on the part of the city of Tel Aviv, which refuses to set our funding at the same level as that of other events, such as student, children’s, and young adults film festivals.” Held at the popular Tel Aviv Cinematheque, TLVFest has become one of the epicenters of the LGBTQ international film market, and fiercely delivers its message of tolerance and pluralism against a rising tide of nationalist fervor in its home country. A special event in 2018 called “Who is Afraid of Nudity?,” for instance, programmed three short film series that counter what Hochner calls “the Ministry of Culture’s attempts to restrict freedom of speech by withholding funds from dance, theater, and cinema events that include nudity.” All of this is to say that at TLVFest, Israel’s sexually subversive cinematic side is truly laid bare.