The 26th Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, which will be held this year from August 14-20 at the Tel Aviv Cinematheque and around the city, just announced its guests, opening films, and artistic program, which will highlight the creativity and resilience of Israel’s aspiring filmmakers.
Usually held in June, the festival was moved to August this year because the academic year was delayed due to the war. Many of the films will address issues related to the war and the October 7 attack that sparked it.
Among this year’s guests will be the acclaimed Pulitzer Prize-winning screenwriter, director, and playwright David Mamet, whose plays and movies include Glengarry Glen Ross, Speed-the-Plow, House of Games, and Heist, and who has visited Israel to take part in film festivals several times.
Ugandan director/screenwriter/producer Isaac Godfrey, Geoffrey Nabwana, best known for Who Killed Captain Alex? and many other action films will take part, as well as Oscar-nominated editor and Cesar Award winner Juliette Welfling (The Butterfly and the Diving Bell, Emilia Perez), and the director of the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, Dr. Lars Henrik Gass.
The guests will hold master classes and screen their films, some of which will be shown for the first time in front of an Israeli audience.
The two opening-night films will be short films that won the previous pitching competition, Roy Kanievsky’s live-action The Guard and Uri Gold’s animated film, Glug. Actor Yossi Marshek will host the opening ceremony.
Over 100 short films from 20 countries, including Ukraine, Japan, South Korea, and Burkina Faso, as well as Israel, will participate in the festival competitions this year. A number of films made by refugees from the Ukraine-Russia war will participate in the international competition.
In the Israeli competition, Amit Vaknin’s It’s Not Time for Pop will be screened. It took part this year in the student competition of the Cannes Film Festival and was the only Israeli film to represent the country there.
Line up of top actors in the films
In Israel, top actors often appear in student films, and among the actors in this year’s Israeli films will be such stars as Suzanna Papian, Ala Dakka, Shlomo Bar-Aba, Dana Ivgy, Liat Harlev, Leib Lev Levin, and many more.
Many events will commemorate those lost in the war and the massacre, including director Yahav Winner, who was killed in Kfar Aza and former student Maya Foder, who was murdered at the Nova Music Festival. Much of the festival’s events will examine the role of filmmakers in processing and depicting such tragedies.
The festival is produced and managed by film students of the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University and is considered one of the most important festivals in the world for student films and short films.
The festival directors, Ori Arthur Wolf and Gal Ostrinsky, said in a statement:
“Since the beginning of the war, the importance of the festival has become clearer for us in the pre-festival activities we held, whether it was in screenings for children who were evacuated from their homes or in Zoom meetings we held with creators from abroad, which were a point of light for the students. The Tel Aviv International Festival of Student Films is an event that inspires hope and creativity, which our spectators and volunteers look forward to every year. In our opinion, culture not only has a visual and enjoyment value that helps us escape into imaginary realms it also connects us back to reality from new angles, voices the cries of the heart, public protests, and gives peace and emotional assistance to those who need it. We hope that the festival will give strength to our audience in these difficult times and we wish for the immediate return of all the abductees and the end of the war.”