jury
International Narrative Competition
Yariv Mozer
Yariv Mozer is an award-winning filmmaker, recipient of the Emmy Award for his documentary We Will Dance Again (2024), produced in collaboration with HOT8, Paramount, BBC, MGM Studios, and Sipur. He is the winner of the Israeli Ophir Award for his documentary Ben-Gurion, Epilogue (2017), and of the Israeli Television Academy Award for his groundbreaking docu-series The Devil’s Confession: The Lost Eichmann Tapes (2022), produced with KAN11, MGM Studios, and Sipur—marking the first Israeli series ever sold to Amazon Prime. Among his other films are his debut feature Snails in the Rain (2013), which opened the TLVFest and won the festival’s Best Acting Award; The Invisible Men (2012), about persecuted gay Palestinians, which received a Special Mention at DocAviv and won Best Outstanding Documentary at the San Francisco Frameline LGBTQ+ Film Festival. Mozer teaches at the Tisch Film School of Tel Aviv University and serves on the board of the Israeli Academy of Film and Television.
Kobi Mizrahi
An Oscar nominated producer, alumnus of EAVE and Emerging Producers workshops. Established KM PRODUCTIONS to focus on creating sustainable relationships with young, innovative directors in order to produce shorts, features, and documentaries, screened at major festivals worldwide such as Cannes, Venice, IDFA, Locarno, Toronto, Telluride, SXSW, DOC NYC among others.
Bar Zinger
Content creator and film critic. My goal has always been to make content around the worlds of film and film criticism more accessible to people and adolescents who haven’t been exposed to it. In an age where long texts are equated as almost a bad word, I believe it is possible to talk and write about film in an accessible manner, which will make even those who ordinarily don’t read or consume content about film want to run to the cinemas and buy a ticket.
International Documentary Comeptition
Dvorit Shargal
A documentary filmmaker with approximately 12 films to her credit. Formerly a journalist and author of the media critique blog, “Velvet Underground”,
Her debut film, “Where is Ela-Kari and What Happened to Noriko-san?” was released in 2014. Following four films about “Children of the World,” she penned a non-fiction book about children’s photographer Anna Riwkin-Brick, titled “If She Has a Camera in Hand, She’s Not Afraid”.
Other notable films include “Live Like There is Tomorrow,” “Gilad’s Protocol,” and “End.Less”.
Liron Erez
Filmmaker and critic, graduate of The School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University. Her documentary short film won the first prize at the student documentary competition at the Docaviv Festival, and was shortlisted at the Israeli Academy awards. She is a film and television critic for the Maariv newspaper, Portfolio magazine, Seret and the assistant editor for the website Geeklopedia. Currently, Liron is working on a feature length documentary.
Rachel Shatz
Film director and editor, graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film School. Rachel directs and edits both documentaries and narrative projects, and has previously won at the Jerusalem Film Festival for her film “Things That Have No Name”.
Israeli Short Films Competition
Dan Shaked
Dan Shaked is an Israeli-American film, television, and theater actor who recently appeared in the YES/Lionsgate miniseries “The German”. His television credits include “The Mysteries of Laura” (NBC), “Body of Proof” (ABC), and Shonda Rhimes’ “Gilded Lilys”. Dan stars in the feature film We the People, which premiered at the 2025 Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival. Additional film credits include “Jobs” (opposite Ashton Kutcher), “Mistrust” (opposite Jane Seymour), “Highway One”, “Storm Up the Sky”, and “Shabbat Dinner”. He holds a BFA in Drama from NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts and trained at London’s Royal Academy of Dramatic Art (RADA).
Orly Ravid
Orly is the Founder and Co-Executive Director of The Film Collaborative (TFC), an Entertainment Attorney, and an Associate Professor of Law and the Associate Dean of the Biederman Entertainment, Media, & Sports Law Institute at Southwestern Law School. At Southwestern Orly is the Director of the pro bono Entertainment & the Arts Legal Clinic. Orly served as an Associate Programmer of documentaries at Sundance and done programming, jurying, and spoken on panels at film festivals worldwide over the last 25 years.
International Short Films Competition
Yoav Keren
Independent filmmaker – screenwriter, editor, and producer. His film Like Me (2022), co-created with Eyal Kantor, made him the youngest producer to have a film streamed on Apple TV and earned the title “The Boldest LGBTQ Film in Israel.” His works have screened at leading festivals in Israel and worldwide
Tom René Zvily
Tom René Zvily wrote, directed, shot, and edited music videos for leading Israeli artists such as Harel Skaat, Zahava Ben, Jacko Eisenberg, and Ilan Peled. A photographer, director, editor, and screenwriter, she is a graduate of Minshar School of Art and the Sam Spiegel School’s Screenwriting Course. Her work includes content and commercials for companies large and small, including Clalit, ASUS Israel, social media influencers, and politicians. As part of her social activism, Tom voluntarily mentors Israeli female singers to promote them in the music industry. She lectures on video editing, volunteers at the Marsha College to advance the LGBTQ+ community, and is currently filming a documentary about herself.
Ofek Testa
An award winning filmmaker and activist furthering trans rights in Israel.
Youth Competition
Bar Neiman
A graduate of the Aleph art High School and winner of the Best Film award in numerous high school competitions both in Israel and abroad, Bar Neiman is a promising director at the beginning of his career who, in his films, deals with romantic relationships between heroes of his generation, with longing and young love, while making impressive use of cinematic tools.
Maya Golek Apter
Maya manages the Educational Department at Tel Aviv Cinematheque. She graduated from the School of Visual Theatre at Hebrew University and holds a master’s degree in arts education from Beit Berl Art school. She has worked at the Cinematheque for 21 years. She believes that cinema changes the way we see the world and that what connects people is greater than what polarizes them
Omri Horesh
The manager at the library of film and the archive of the Tel Aviv Cinematheque, a writer and a man of culture who typically writes about queer relationships, sexuality and identity. He is an undergraduate of cultural studies from the Sapir College and a graduate of Holocaust studies at the Haifa University. His publications include “Internal Organs” and “Boy”.
