The Museum

The Museum is a film that observes, examines and ponders Israel's most important cultural institution, the Israel Museum, who poses for its own complex portrait in this poised observational documentary. Sitting high on the brow of a Jerusalem hill directly opposite the Knesset, the sprawling site—now more than half a century old—contains nearly half a million objects, from the Dead Sea Scrolls to Crusader armour to masterpieces by Rembrandt and Marc Chagall.

Constructed as a set of loose encounters with its human inhabitants, we eavesdrop on the curators, museum guards, archaeological conservators, visiting schoolchildren, and even the resident rabbi, who together form a kaleidoscopic picture of the way art, history and national destiny intersect in the galleries. Through it all, the Israel Museum emerges as a shining example of a nation’s highest aspirations for itself.