A widowed florist, a retired womanizer, an aging DJ, a street cleaner, and a man who lost his memory are just some of the 99 men filmmaker Hadas Neuman has documented over two years. She wanders through a neighborhood in the city of Givatayim, searching for one man in particular: her father, whom she never met. A single treadmill stands under a spotlight. She steps onto it and walks nonstop for an hour. Behind her, video portraits of the 99 men flicker across the screen. Addressing them directly, she engages in a dialogue that transcends time, reclaiming an opportunity to connect with the past, piecing together fragments of identity and memory. Meeting these men, her father’s contemporaries, who open their lives, homes, and hearts to her, reveals a broader portrait of masculinity, loneliness, regret, love and fatherhood. Blending film and stage, humor and drama, Neuman confronts the absence at the heart of her life. She takes the audience on an introspective journey along the paths of her life in an attempt to find the 100th man.
Hadas Neuman is a filmmaker, theatre-maker, and video artist in the field of documentary art, blending personal cinema, performance, and documentary theatre. She holds a BA in Film from Sapir Academic College and an MA from the Netherlands Film Academy.
Her stage work 100 Men, a poetic journey in search of an absent father via encounters with 99 strangers, was presented in the Storytelling Festival in Amsterdam and The Hague, and in the Israel Festival 2024. It was shortlisted for the 2025 Kipod Hazahav Fringe Theatre Awards (Best Show, Best Ensemble Work, Best Stage Language), and has been touring Israel successfully for the past year. A feature film based on the project is currently in development, supported by the Gesher Fund, the NFCT, and Kan 11.
Other works include A Place to Live (performer-creator, Otef HaNegev Theater), a multidisciplinary documentary-theatre piece that premiered at the Israel Festival 2024, and Two People Will Come, With Balloons, a short film that won the NEXT! Award at Docaviv International Documentary Film Festival 2021. She also co-directed The European Grandma Project, a European feature screened in cinemas across the continent. Her latest piece, Dancing at Every Wedding, will premiere at Tzavta Short Theatre Festival 2025, after being selected for Kundura DocLab (Turkey), and Platform Festival and Menofim Festival (Jerusalem).