Contemporary Israeli Documentary Films

‘Children of the Sun’, shows us the storied world of the Israeli kibbutz movement from a largely unexplored perspective – that of the first generation of children who were born on the kibbutzim and lived there for most of their lives. The earliest inhabitants of the collective communities had high hopes for a better way of life, and their children were the first to be raised according to these new ideas. They were destined to become the ‘New Man,’ the new face of the Jewish people. Oblivious to the high stakes placed on their existence, the children simply grew up, gradually absorbing the concepts their parents impressed upon them. Their parents spent time with them once a day but left primary care to nannies. The children became their own family. Denied material possessions, they threw themselves into the unceasing physical labour, strict ideology and ceremonial rites of passage expected of them.