Atlanta Jewish Film Festival: Bliss (Hemda)

This tender observational drama explores the fragile equilibrium of an older couple’s relationship as they navigate love, aging, and family obligations. Celebrated Israeli actors Sasson Gabai and Asi Levy costar as Sassi and Effi who, despite a large age gap and daily struggles—Sassi’s impotence and his son’s debts—maintain emotional balance rooted in humor and devotion. Their lives are shaken when two young men—a grandson returning from Europe and a former student of Effi’s—reopen old wounds and create new tensions. With Israeli Academy Award-nominated lead performances, director Shemi Zarhin’s meditative examination of the human desire for bliss gains poignancy, as filming locations in northern Israel, including Zarhin’s hometown, were ravaged in the Israel-Gaza conflict.