You can subscribe to Netflix to watch “Shtisel,” “Unorthodox” and “Fauda,” Amazon Prime to stream “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel” and “Hunters,” or HBO Max to see Seth Rogen in “An American Pickle,” but if your interest is Jewish and Israeli movies, series and documentaries, there are two new streaming platforms eager to provide you with both.
ChaiFlicks is offering subscribers an initial collection of 150 Jewish and Israeli movies, shorts and series for $6 per month/$66 per year, after a 14-day free trial. IZZY, featuring movies and shows from Israel, costs $4.99 per month/$49.99 per year for access to its library of existing and new, original content. Do viewers need or want two more streaming services, two very niche ones at that? And can the market sustain both?
“The people will decide what will be the best channel for them,” ChaiFlicks founder Neil Friedman, president of distributor Menemsha Films (“The Women’s Balcony,” “Heading Home,” “1945”), told the Journal. He acknowledged that his service is “very niche. If you think of art films as a niche and Jewish-themed art films, it’s a niche within a niche,” he said. “But we’ve been working in this niche since 2008 now, acquiring 15 films a year and our expertise has only grown. This is all I do. Jewish culture is what I do 24/7 and I want to share it with the people who are interested in it, too.”
“We don’t see them as competition,” Emily Lapine, IZZY director of growth, said. “Where we differ from ChaiFlicks, we’re doing something very specific, only content that is filmed in Israel. It’s connected to the land and untold stories that come from many different perspectives. The mission is getting more Israeli content out into the world and highlighting independent filmmakers who haven’t necessarily worked with Netflix or Hulu. The level of content coming from Israel, even student filmmakers, has blown us away.”
Friedman believes that these pandemic times are suited to his new venture, as theaters are closed and people are at home watching a lot of TV. “It’s a captive audience, and we’ve curated really good movies for them,” he said, adding that his core viewers are “older folks who go to Jewish film festivals, people who are interested in Jewish history and where they came from.”
ChaiFlicks will offer a combination of 30-40 Menemsha catalog films and double that amount of acquisitions and originals, adding three new titles per week. These include “Left Luggage” with Isabella Rossellini, “La Rafle” with Melanie Laurent, the Australian documentary “Man on the Bus” and the comedy series “Soon by You.”
“Every kind of programming,” Friedman said. “Our mission is to scour the Earth for films of Jewish content from every corner of the universe.”
“The idea is not to put every Jewish film on there, but films of quality, films that are educational, informational and get the wheels turning in the brain.” — Neil Friedman
Among the new offerings is “Bulgarian Rhapsody,” the latest in a trilogy of films from the country; the others will be added later. “The idea is not to put every Jewish film on there, but films of quality, films that are educational, informational and get the wheels turning in the brain,” Friedman said.
IZZY has been in the works since spring with an original plan to launch this fall. “But with the coronavirus and quarantine, we wanted to give people access to our library of content. We ended up launching early with hundreds of hours of highly vetted licensed content from filmmakers and content creators,” Lapine said, mentioning “a laundry list of award-winning films,” cooking shows, travel shows and live broadcasts.
Among them: “Dawn,” a drama set in 1947 Palestine based on an Elie Wiesel novel; the documentary “When the Smoke Clears,” in which wounded Israeli war veterans share their stories; the series “Tech Talk” and “Israel Explained,” and the three-part documentary “Iron Dome,” about the development of Israel’s missile defense system, available outside Israel for the first time. “We have about 10 different shows and films in the works, ready to be produced,” Lapine said. “Each Thursday, we’ll add new content, about 10 every weeks.”
Through some partner Jewish and Zionist organizations, IZZY subscriptions are offering 50% off for the first month, “similar to the cost of renting one movie on iTunes, but with access to hundreds of hours of content,” Lapine said. “At a time when people aren’t traveling and don’t have a connection to global stories, especially out of Israel, IZZY is bringing Israel to people’s living rooms.”
Both streaming services are compatible with multiple devices including iPhone, iPad, Android, Apple TV, Roku and Amazon Fire via their apps and at IZZY and ChaiFlicks.
