The Pandemic Diaries

In early March 2020, it became clear that the world was heading into lockdown. From within isolation, ten of Israel’s leading documentary filmmakers turned their cameras inward, observing family life, the home, the street, and the limits of the permitted 100-meter radius — and occasionally beyond. Edited from footage shot by the filmmakers themselves over a two-month period, this unique project documents their lived realities as they search for their distinctive documentary perspectives amid social distancing and confinement. Filmed across multiple locations — from northern Israel to the south, Jerusalem, Nazareth and Tel Aviv, as well as Italy and New York — the series follows the weeks of global lockdown and examines how Israelis, wherever they were, confronted this unprecedented moment. Themes of migration, religion and politics, anxiety, ideas of home, birth and children, love, freedom and nature converge into a single, collective documentary work.