Once I Was (2010)

Cast: Dror Keren, Don Navon, Maya Dagan, Tuval Shafir, Adir Miller

Rating: NR

Running Time: 118 min.

Synopsis: A teenager learns some important lessons about love and life one summer in this romantic drama from director Avi Nesher. It's 1968, and culturally Israel is finally letting go of the style and mores of 1950s as the upheaval of the 1960s is beginning to make itself felt. Arik (Tuval Shafir) is a sixteen-year-old boy with a taste for detective novels who is looking for a summer job. Arik's father introduces him to someone who can put him to work -- Yankele Bride (Adir Miller) is a matchmaker who finds mates for lonely souls, and he gives Arik a job digging up information on potential mates for his clients. Yankele's philosophy is to give people "what they need, not what they want," and he searches for mates for a variety of clients, ranging from a beautiful midget (Bat-el Papura) to a bitter librarian (Dror Kenen). Arik also finds himself falling in love when he meets Tamara (Neta Porat), a girl with a wild streak who is spending the simmer in Haifa. But Arik isn't sure why the matchmaker who is so clearly infatuated with the pretty Clara (Maya Dagan) is still single, and the boy also tries to make sense of some gossip about how Yankele survived the holocaust. The Matchmaker received its North American premiere at the 2010 Toronto International Film Festival.