A Tale Of Love And Darkness (2016)

Subtle and soulful, this multi-layered biographical saga revolves around Amos Oz, a famous writer who grows up in Jerusalem, during the 1940s and is deeply influenced by his mother's stories and poetry readings.

He reminisces about his life when he was a child living in Mandatory Palestine with his mother, Fania (Natalie Portman) and father, Arieh (Gilad Kahana). His parents are European refugees living in Jerusalem which his mother finds difficult as her sisters and family are located in Tel Aviv and communication between them is difficult. Amos, an only child, is particularly close with his mother, who frequently tells him stories based on her childhood which often have unhappy or violent endings.

Amos is lent out by his parents to a childless couple who is their friend. On one of these visits he is taken to the home of a friend of his parent's friends who are Palestinian. Despite being warned to be quiet and not make too much fuss less he anger his hosts, Amos accidentally injures a child while playing with a swing.

In 1949 Amos and his family gather in the street along with others in their neighbourhood and hear the passing of United Nations General Assembly Resolution 181 officially making Israel a country recognized by the United Nations. Amos' parents are overwhelmed with joy. Soon after civil war breaks out. Amos's father enlists to fight in the 1948 Arab–Israeli War and Amos and other children are recruited to the war effort. One of his mother's friends is also murdered as a consequence of the war.

Fania falls into a depression and becomes unable to sleep or eat. Amos and Arieh try their best to hide her depression from their friends and family. After a change in pills Fania abruptly becomes her old more lively self and tries to act normal for her husband and child. A short time later she relapses once more and goes to visit her sisters in Tel Aviv. While there she commits suicide.

Amos leaves home and goes to live on a kibbutz. Reuniting with his father as a teenager he shows him is new life but admits that despite his attempts at being a strong and healthy farmer he is still a pale and weak intellectual.

An older Amos sits down to write his memoirs, beginning with the word, 'transfer mother'.