Sderot's Cinema South Festival opens today for its 25th edition. The Jerusalem Post reports the festival runs November 1-5 at the Sderot Cinematheque. "First of all, let's say that everything happening here is already a miracle," said festival director Reuma Mantzur.

The Post explains why she speaks that way. The festival has lived through more than two decades of frequent, unexpected bombings by Hamas from the Gaza Strip. Then came the October 7 attack in 2023, which took the lives of more than 50 Sderot residents, mostly civilians.

The festival began at Sapir Academic College's School of Audio and Visual Arts, which still sponsors and runs it, the Post reports. Mantzur arrived at Sapir as a student in 2006, when both the festival and the region's filmmaking community were smaller. The festival's pitching events and development incubators help students finishing their graduation films figure out what comes next. The goal, according to the Post, is to help filmmakers develop their work and give them reasons to stay in the South. Mantzur told the Post that as life in the region has grown harder, the desire to create has grown with it.

One program, Through a Woman's Eyes, is a development incubator for Bedouin women filmmakers. The Post reports it is guided by filmmaker Sigalit Banai and works with partners including the Negev Film Fund, with help from the Rahat community center and local professionals. "The directors are Bedouin women, and everyone working around them is local," Mantzur said. The next group of films is already shot and will screen next year.

This year's opening features the first two episodes of the second season of Bros, the series by Guy Amir and Hanan Savyon that airs worldwide on Netflix. Swiss director Thomas Imbach will present two films, Nemesis and The Exposure, and give a master class in cooperation with the Swiss Embassy. Past international guests included documentary master Albert Maysles and director Sergei Loznitsa, the Post reports.

The closing ceremony will launch Negba, a new incubator for young southern filmmakers. Asked what sets Cinema South apart from other Israeli festivals, Mantzur told the Post that the festival is still working out the answer, after years when survival itself came first.