The ninth annual Congregation Temple Israel (TI) Israeli Film Festival, on Sunday, March 13, will feature “The Flat” and “Above and Beyond.” Both are award-winning and highly-acclaimed documentaries. The event, co-sponsored by TI’s Israel Engagement Committee and the St. Louis Israeli community, will feature both films and Israeli-style refreshments served between movie screenings. RSVPs are required and a $5 donation is requested to cover the cost of refreshments. This film festival is open to the community.

“The Flat” opens the film festival at 4 p.m. in the TI Gall Family Sanctuary. The documentarian’s grandmother passed away at age 98, leaving him the task of clearing out the Tel Aviv flat that she and her late husband shared for decades since emigrating from Nazi Germany in the 1930s. Sifting through a mountain of photos, letters, files and objects, the grandson discovers clues that point to a great mystery, and soon a complex family history unfolds. What results is the troubled and taboo story of three generations of Germans, Jewish and non-Jewish, piecing together the puzzle of their lives in the aftermath of World War II. The film is in Hebrew, German and English, with English subtitles.

At 6:30 p.m., the film festival will screen “Above and Beyond.” In 1948, a group of World War II pilots volunteered to fight for Israel in Israel’s War of Independence. As members of the “Machal,” volunteers from abroad, this ragtag band of brothers not only turned the tide of the war, they also laid the groundwork for the Israeli Air Force. “Above and Beyond” is their story. The film brings together new interviews with pilots from the 1948 war, as well as leading scholars and statesmen, including Shimon Peres, to present an amusing, entertaining, extraordinary story with reverberations up to the present day. The film is in English.

Both films are suitable for middle-school students and older. Reservation is required by Wednesday, March 9 to Rachel Closson at [email protected] or by calling 314-432-8050.