Jerusalem International Film Festival wraps with awards

The 27th Jerusalem International Film Festival came to an End

The winner of the Haggiag Family Award for Israeli Cinema Best Full-Length Feature is Intimate Grammar, directed by Nir Bergman, and produced by Assaf Amir

The winner of the Van Leer Award for Israeli Cinema for Best Documentary Film is A Film Unifinished, directed by Yael Hersonski and produced by Noemi Schory and Itay Ken-Tor



Following are the winning films in the Festival competition:

The Haggiag Award for Best Full-Length Feature Film in the amount of NIS 110,000:

The prize in this category, in the amount of NIS 110,000, is divided between director Nir Bergman and producer Assaf Amir for the film Intimate Grammar.

Jury statement:
“For its penetrating description conveyed in cinematic language, illustrating the internal world of the youths and adults, while transmitting a strong sense of time and space.”

The Van Leer Award for Best First/Second Feature Film, in the amount of NIS 45,0000 goes to director Avishai Sivan, for his film The Wanderer.

The JCC US Marketing and Distribution Award for Israeli Feature Films goes to producers Marek Rozenbaum, Itai Tamir, Michael Rozenbaum, Sophie Dulac, and Michel Zana for the film Infiltration.

The Gottlieb Award for Best Screenplay in a Full-Length Feature in the amount of NIS 11,500 goes to scriptwriters Yossi Madmoni, Ari Folman, Ori Inbar, and Doron Tsabari, for the film Revolution 101.

The Haggiag Family Awards for Best Performances in an Israeli Full-Length Feature:

The Haggiag Family Award for Best Actress, in the amount of NIS 10,000, goes to Hila Fledman, Efrat Ben Zur, Alit Kreis, and Gal Salomon, for their roles in And on the Third Day.

The Haggiag Family Award for Best Actor, in the amount of NIS 10,000, goes to Assaf Ben Shimon, for his role in Infiltration.

The Haggiag Family Award for Editing in the amount of 10,000 NIS, goes to Ami Tir and Maor Keshet, for their editing work on the film Revolution 101.

The Haggiag Family Award for Music in the amount of 10,000 NIS, goes to Assaf Tager, for his work on the film Andante.

The Van Leer Award for Cinematography in a Full-Length Film in the amount of 10,000 NIS, goes to Shai Goldman, for his work on the film The Wanderer.

The Members of the Jury for Israeli Full-length Film Competition and Dramas:
Shimon Dotan – Israeli film director and lecturer at NYU; Thomas Hailer – Program Director at the Berlin Film Festival; Suha Arraf – Israeli scriptwriter; Cédomir Kolar – Croatian-born French film producer.

Documentary Film Awards:
The Van Leer Award in this category, in the amount of 45,000 NIS, is divided between director Yael Hersonski and producers Noemi Schory and Itay Ken-Tor, for the film A Film Unfinished.

Jury remarks:
“The film’s power and intensity comes from the unveiling of its excellent research - documentary filmmaking that is sober and not sentimental, with a detached and unique gaze on the cynicism and cruelty of the Nazi extermination machine. The film serves as a wondrous example of the creation and formation of visual imagery and memory, where the faces of the ghetto’s prisoners fill the screen with admonishment and guilt for the degradation of life and contempt for the dead. This is a work of utmost importance that concerns the moral borders of documentary manipulation.”

The Best Director of a Documentary Film Award, in the amount of 20,000 NIS, goes to Eran Paz, for the film Jeremiah.

Short Film Awards:
The Adélie Hoffenberg Award for Independent Israeli Short Film in the amount of 20,000 NIS, goes to Firas Khoury for the film Yellow Mums.

Jury remarks:
“A well-directed, acted, and filmed movie portraying a beautiful story of redemption and atonement. We identified with the rejected characters who manage to create a world of their own and reach out to one another.”

The Van Leer Award for Best Short Narrative Film in the amount of 20,000 NIS, goes to Yarden Karmin, for the film First Aid.

Jury remarks:
“A tight story that fully portrays the essence of a relationship while successfully creating a strong and real female character. Filmed, acted, and directed with a sure hand, First Aid excels in its refined and sophisticated humor.”

The Members of the Jury for Israeli Documentaries, Short Films, and Animated Films:
Orna Ben Dor – Israeli filmmaker; Dr. Shmulik Duvdevani – film researcher and lecturer at Tel Aviv University; Ludi Boeken – Dutch-born director and producer.

The Israeli Film prizes have been awarded at the Jerusalem Film Festival for the past 21 years. We pay homage to Jack Wolgin who donated these prizes for the first 20 years of the Israeli Film Competition, and we are grateful to the Haggiag Family and the Van Leer Group Foundation for their contribution to the art of cinema in Israel.

The Anat Pirchi Awards

The Award for Best Drama, in the amount of NIS 50,000, goes to director Nina Menkes, for the film Dissolution.

An Honorable Mention goes to director Anton Chikishev, for the film Ivan.

The Award for Best Animated Film, in the amount of NIS 20,000, goes to Michal Abulafia and Moran Somer, for their film Miracle Lady.

The prizes have been awarded for the past 15 years by Avraham Pirchi, in memory of his wife Anat.



The “In the Spirit of Freedom” Awards in Memory of Wim van Leer are given in this category to films, fiction or documentary, that deal with issues of human and civil rights, freedom of speech, and expression.

An award of 15,000 NIS, courtesy of the Nathan Cummings Foundation, goes to director Olivier Masser-Depasse, for the feature film Illégal.


Jury remarks:
“In awarding this prize the jury applauds the creators for their brilliant casting, scripting and overall production values in describing how illegal Immigrants risk their lives and sacrifice many treasured values for the chance of a better future. We present the prize for the best fiction film to Olivier Masset-Depasse for his excellent film Illégal.”

An Honorable Mention goes to director Tony Gatlif, for the film Korkoro.

An award of 15,000 NIS, courtesy of the New Israel Fund “Movies for a Change” Award goes to director Lixin Fan, for the film Last Train Home.

Jury remarks:
“In its direct approach, Last Train Home, made by Lixin Fan, highlights the frailties and vulnerabilities of his characters in a way that universalizes their personal story and makes it a story of our times. In its depiction of the fracture of the building blocks of society, the imperatives of the global economic system we live with, which was intended to confer improvements on the lives of humanity has lead instead to the breakdown of home, health and families and de facto slavery for many millions of the intended beneficiaries.”

An Honorable Mention goes to Netta Loevy for World Class Kids.

An award of 10,000 NIS, courtesy of Vivian Ostrovsky, goes to directors Rob Lemkin and Thet Sambath, for the documentary film, Enemies of the People.

Jury remarks:
“Over a period of ten years the protagonist in this film, while describing horrors that even at this remove we find unbearable and incomprehensible, displays a lack of bitterness and vindictiveness that poignantly underscores his own humanity - while trying to understand how this all came about. The decade-long calm persistence or obsession which drives this movie contrasts so powerfully with the paroxysms of evil portrayed that it elevates the movie to another plane. The winner of this prize is Enemies of the People, made by Thet Sambach and Rob Lemkin.

An Honorable Mention goes to Julia Bacha, Ronit Avni, and Rula Salameh, for Budrus.

The Members of the Jury for the “In the Spirit of Freedom” Competition: Eliezer Ya’ari - journalist and author; Yossi Sarid – former MK; Irene Pletka– fine-arts photographer and advocate of education and arts promoting human rights.


The Jewish Experience Awards endowed by Leon and Michaela Constantiner

The Lia Award is presented by the Joan Sourasky-Constantiner Holocaust Multimedia Research Center of the Jerusalem Cinematheque to a film dealing with Jewish identity and heritage.

An award of 11,500 NIS goes to director Todd Solondz, for the film Life During Wartime.

Jury remarks:
“The film presents a complex multi-faceted and alternative look at a damaged Jewish-America family searching for its place in the amalgam of personal, identities, beliefs, and peoples.”

An Honorable Mention goes to Jacob Tierney for The Trotsky.

The Avner Shalev Yad Vashem Chairman’s Award is presented by the Yad Vashem Visual Center.

An award of 11,500 NIS goes to director Fabienne Rousso-Lenoir, for the film Cabaret Berlin.

Jury remarks:
“With an artistic hand, interweaving visual and audio archival footage, the filmmakers focused on the 1920s Berlin cabaret scene where artistic forces, many of them Jewish, built a world of clever and subversive entertainment on the backdrop of post-WWI Germany.”

An Honorable Mention goes to Claude Lanzmann for Le Rapport Karski.

The Members of the Jury for the Jewish Experience Competition:
Dr. Reuven Garber – lecturer of contemporary Jewish philosophy; Prof. Richard Cohen – Chair in French Jewry Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem; Adva Magal – film researcher and lecturer.


A Film Unfinished directed by Yael Hersonski and produced by Noemi Schory and Itay Ken-Tor is awarded the Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory Award – NIS 15,000, courtesy of Craig Emmanuel and the Friends of the Jerusalem Cinematheque, USA.

Jury remarks:
“A Film Unfinished took a Nazi propaganda film and turned it into an intimate look of life and death in the Warsaw Ghetto.”

An Honorable Mention goes to Kevin McNeer Stalin Thought of You.

The Members of the Jury for the Forum for the Preservation of Audio-Visual Memory Award:
Sandra Schulberg – film producer and independent film preservationist; Dan Muggia – Artistic Director of the Israeli Film Festival in Italy and film lecturer; Ron Ofer – documentary filmmaker and film lecturer.

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The Common Language Grant, in the amount of 800,000 NIS, goes to Sarit Haymian for Latif; Adi Adwan for Arbani; Meirav Hatav for Expecting; Micha Livne for Faiza’s Broken Back.

Out thanks to the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, the YMCA, the Righteous Persons Foundation, the Other Israel Festival, and the Second Television & Radio Authority.
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The Jerusalem Foundation Award for Experimental Films and Video Works in the amount of 6,000 NIS goes to director Nadav Bin-Nun, for the film Poetry Meant to Kill.

The Second Place winner awarded editing shifts courtesy of Mamuta at the Daniela Passal Art and Media Center goes to Tali Keren, for the film Autobody.

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The Wim van Leer Award for High School Students goes to the film Puddle directed by Oded Rimon from the Nissui School, Jerusalem.

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The Film Studies Scholarship in Memory of Uri Sabag, courtesy of the Jerusalem Film Center will be awarded towards the beginning of the school year.