An intensely painful and sombre film from Israeli writer-director David Volach, about an Orthodox Jewish family, which provides a variation on the theme of Abraham and Isaac. Assi Dayan and Sharon Hacohen play Rabbi Abraham and his wife Esther, and Ilan Griff is Menahem, their adored little boy, all agog at the family's forthcoming trip to the Dead Sea.

The rabbi is ferociously stern with his son, even demanding that he rip up a picture of an African tribesman on the grounds that this man is indulging in "idolatry". Yet his face lights up with love in the little boy's presence. The story is inexpressibly sad, and the movie is intelligent, severe and austere in equal parts.

• Released on Boxing Day.