Autonomies

Set in an alternate present where the state is brutally divided between the secular capital of Tel Aviv and a Jerusalem governed by an ultra-Orthodox “Haredi Autonomy,” this dystopian thriller tells the story of a wheeler-dealer who smuggles contraband between the two regions and a little girl at the center of a secular-Orthodox custody battle. Autonomies shows why Israel is fertile ground for powerful fiction: the series is a boiling cauldron of the issues of identity, religion, politics, and personal freedom that define life in the country today. (New York Jewish Film Festival)