On the Road to Tel Aviv

I first acknowledged my love for cinema when a French film crew arrived to shoot a film near the river of my kibbutz, a small village in northern Israel, where I grew up. My first actual steps towards realizing my ambitions started during my army service. As a lieutenant I independently filmed with my unit close to fifty hours of film depicting the soldier’s routine, from training to actual battles and operational activity. My army service was cut short when I took a hit in the shoulder during a battle in Southern Lebanon. That also marked the end of the filming processI left the army and travelled in the Far East for a year, and especially in India. When I came back to Israel I registered for university studies and completed a Bachelor of Science in extended physics at Bar-Ilan University and Master of Science in Particle Physics at the Weizmann Institute of Science. The choice of studying physics was not intended as a “future occupation”, but as a profound need to better understand the laws of nature. Notwithstanding the intellectual assets gained by my studying and practicing science, I gradually came to the awareness that I wished to further develop my interest in human feelings and artistic creation. In July, 2004 my cinematic career took its next significant step when during the International Jerusalem Film Festival I received first prize in a one-shot competition. It was a one minute, one-shot film that brings together the historical myth of the founding of my kibbutz seventy years ago, with its turbulent present. More than anything else, winning that prize gave me the courage to give a second chance to an old dream – filmmakingI received a scholarship from the Florida-Israel Institute and got accepted to the Florida State University Film School. The Film Conservatory of FSU was recently recognized by the Directors Guild of America for its distinguished contribution to American culture. It is a highly competitive, two-year, program with only 24 candidates (out of hundreds) accepted each year, and I am proud to be the first Israeli accepted to the program. During the program I wrote and directed a short film entitled “Abe” that won an Academy of Television College Award (Student Emmy) and I produced a thesis film entitled “State of Sunshine” that won an Academy of Film College Award (Student Oscar). “On The Road to Tel-Aviv” is my last short film, and I completed it just before graduating in May, 2008. It is a drama based on my personal experience, and deals with complicated and often misunderstood relationships between Israelis and Palestinians. My artistic goal is to explain the relationship between hatred and fear. This is a story that will help to promote a greater understanding about, and even among, Israelis and Palestinians. In my work as a director, I have found that the influence of electronic media on society to be a most crucial and significant facet of our modern life, one that cannot be ignored when trying to establish one’s standpoint towards our society. Cinema, as a mass medium that is also an art form, appeals to me: it is in art that the most hidden and intricate aspects of every situation come to light. As an Israeli I believe that only by exploring these most personal experiences can a real change be made in the difficult reality that I come from. I thus hope to see my future cinematic work as a true instrument in shaping the society to which I belong.