Run by students from the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University, the festival has long been considered one of the world’s leading showcases for student and short films.
This year’s edition will feature about 100 student short films from 20 countries, as well as Israeli competitions, master classes, industry events, special screenings, and outdoor programs.
Among the guests of honor will be Ellen Greene, the stage and screen actress best known for playing Audrey in Frank Oz’s cult musical Little Shop of Horrors and starring in Paul Mazursky’s classic Next Stop, Greenwich Village.
Greene will attend a special screening of Little Shop of Horrors, which, like the festival, is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.
The festival will also screen Rafi Bukai’s Israeli classic Avanti Popolo, another 1986 film, in the presence of lead actor Salim Dau.
Oscar-winning Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv and actress-producer Jaime Ray Newman will also be guests of the festival. The couple won the Academy Award for Best Live Action Short Film in 2019 for Skin.
A master class on moving from short films to features
Nattiv, who directed Helen Mirren in Golda and codirected Tatami, a movie about Iranian judokas starring Zar Amir Ebrahimi, will give a master class on moving from short films to features and from Israel to the US film industry. Newman will join him for a special screening and panel on Tatami.
Composer Evgueni Galperine, who is best known for his work on Baby Reindeer, Scenes from a Marriage, Loveless, and The Past, will give a master class and a special workshop for film students.
The festival will also host Yona Speidel, known as Our Lady J, a writer, producer, director, and musician whose credits include Transparent, Pose, and American Horror Story: NYC. Her master class will focus on writing, producing, and directing in Hollywood.
This year’s festival opens with two short films developed through pitching competitions at last year’s event.
The first is Nitzan Gilady’s Solace, starring Reymonde Amsellem. Dafna Englander’s animated short Leave the Light On is the other. Actress Chen Amsalem Zaguri will host the opening ceremony.
The festival is also launching a new Panorama section, devoted to bold, unconventional student films.
Competitions will include the international student film competition, the Israeli student film competition, the independent short film competition, video art and experimental cinema, and a digital media and artificial intelligence competition. The total prize money will be NIS 143,000.
The organizers said that the international competition has special significance this year, given boycott efforts and pressure on film schools abroad.
According to the festival management, more than 1,000 student filmmakers submitted films independently.
Official competitions will include films from many countries
It added that the official competitions will include films from many countries, including Portugal, Burkina Faso, China, Poland, Hungary, Germany, Britain, Austria, Ukraine, Italy, South Korea, India, and Japan.
The Israeli student competition will feature 23 films from six film schools, including Tel Aviv University, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design, Minshar School of Art, Sapir College, Sam Spiegel Film School, and Seminar Hakibbutzim.
The films include works that deal with war, trauma, family, memory, and the emotional fallout of life in Israel today.
Special events will include a tribute to Maya Poder, a film student murdered at the Supernova music festival on October 7, with an interactive 35-mm. screening of Hairspray.
The festival will also award the Yahav Winner Promising Director Award, named for the filmmaker murdered on October 7 at Kibbutz Kfar Aza while protecting his wife, singer-actress Shaylee Atary, and their daughter.
Another special program, Cinema Beyond Borders, will include a screening of Iranian director Navid Nikkhah Azad’s short film The Recess.
It is inspired by the story of Sahar Khodayari, known as the Blue Girl, an Iranian woman who was arrested for disguising herself as a man so she could enter a soccer stadium, and who later committed suicide when she learned she was likely to serve years in prison.
The festival’s traditional Movie Bus project will travel to southern communities, including Ofakim, Yeroham, Eilot, and Ashalim, bringing open-air screenings and meetings with young filmmakers outside the festival halls.
Festival Directors Oshrit Bitton and Daniel Gat said the festival had faced “an unprecedented challenge” this year due to boycott efforts, but that the response from young filmmakers worldwide had been overwhelming.
“The festival this year is not only a celebration of cinema,” they wrote, “it is living proof of a creative spirit that cannot be extinguished.”
