| No Names on the Doors | |
| Director: | Nadav Levitan |
| Producer: | Uri Sabag Nadav Levitan |
| Screenplay: | Nadav Levitan |
| Starring: | Chava Alberstein Mosko Alkalai Assi Dayan |
| Music: | Nachum Heiman |
| Cinematography: | Valentin Belonogov |
| Editing: | Anat Lubarsky |
| Distributor: | Paralight Films |
| Runtime: | 84 minutes |
| Country: | Israel |
| Language: | Hebrew |
No Names on the Doors (he|אין שמות על הדלתות) is a 1997 Israeli drama directed by Nadav Levitan. The film was screened at the Berlin International Film Festival, the Montpellier Film Festival, the Shanghai International Film Festival, and the Melbourne International Film Festival. It received five nominations for an Ophir Award including Best Actor and Best Screenplay and Best Soundtrack.
No Names on the Doors was shot entirely in Kibbutz Yakum and is the third film in director Levitan's trilogy about Israeli kibbutzim, following An Intimate Story (1981) and Stalin's Disciples (1986).
The film is set on a modern kibbutz as the spectre of an Arab invasion lurks in the background and financial pressures are breaking down traditional communal values. A series of fragile, interwoven stories mirror this disintegration of collective ideals: a longstanding friendship between two 40-year-old bachelors (Danni Bassan and Meir Swissa) ends tragically when one decides to get married; a bereaved father is embarrassed to find himself attracted to his dead son's girlfriend (Dorit Lev-Ari); and a mother (Chava Alberstein) perpetuates the memory of her dead son by tending to his room as a memorial. At the same time, an elderly man (Mosko Alkalai) discovers a new, more loving relationship with his intellectually-disabled adult son (Avi Pnini).
Deborah Young of Variety wrote that Levitan's third film in his kibbutz trilogy "brings the action to the present day to show the sad dissolution of collective ideals that were these agricultural co-ops' raison d'etre. Though not exceptionally original, the fragile, interwoven stories have a sincere, heartfelt quality that should play well in specialized film weeks and venues."[1] Kevin Thomas of the Los Angeles Times called the movie "tender" and "moving".[2]