| Yana's Friends | |
| Director: | Arik Kaplun |
| Producer: | Anat Bikel Moshe Levinson Marek Rozenbaum Uri Sabag |
| Starring: | Evelyn Kaplun Nir Levy Shmil Ben Ari Mosko Alkalai Dalia Friedland |
| Music: | Avi Benjamin |
| Cinematography: | Valentin Belonogov |
| Editing: | Einat Glaser-Zarhin |
| Distributor: | Friends of Film (U.S.) |
| Runtime: | 90 minutes |
| Country: | Israel |
| Language: | Hebrew Russian |
Yana's Friends (Hebrew: החברים של יאנה|translit=HaHaverim shel Yana) is a 1999 Israeli film directed by Arik Kaplun. script editor: Savi Gabizon. Critically acclaimed, it won 10 Israeli Academy Awards including the Ophir Award for Best Picture. It also won the Crystal Globe at the 34th Karlovy Vary International Film Festival in 1999. The film has a very rare 100% rating on the film website Rotten Tomatoes based on 30 reviews, with an average rating of 7.16/10. The site's consensus reads: "A heartwarming movie that handles some weighty subjects with humor".[1]
The plot follows after two families of Russian Olim Chadashim which live in the same building that a student, Eli (Nir Levy), lives in. Eli is studying cinema and he plans to leave Israel in order to further his film studies in New York. The first family was a couple consisting of Yana (Evelyn Kaplon) and Fima (Israel Demidov), who are Eli's roommates. At the beginning of the plot, Fima runs away to Russia and leaves Yana while she is pregnant with Fima's child and holding Fima's debts. As the movie progresses, a romance develops between Yana and Eli during the background of the First Gulf War. The second family consist of Elik and Mila (Vladimir Fridman and Lena Sakhnova), their baby son and Mila's paralyzed grandfather Yitzhak. Elik and Mila send Yitzhak, with his wartime medals to beg for money next to a musician named Yuri (Shamil Ben Ari). Elik insists that Yitzchak collect alms specifically near musicians because there he earns better, because he is seen as one of them and receives their money as well. A love story from the past unfolds anew between Yitzhak and landlord Rosa (Dahlia Friedland). The stories of the characters furthest from each other intersect surprisingly.