Jury

Carmel Competition - Jury

Arik Lahav-Leibovich

One of Israel’s leading film editors, with decades of experience editing feature films, television series, and documentary projects. He has collaborated on numerous award-winning works in Israel and abroad, including Foxtrot, Zero Motivation, Lebanon, The Band’s Visit, Up the Wrong Tree, Six Acts, The 17th Victim, Teacher Irena, and The Worst Company in the World.
His work has earned him four Ophir Awards for Best Editing, two editing awards at the Docaviv Festival, and nominations for the European Film Awards and the Emmy Awards. In 2022, he published his book The Topography of Editing, which has since been translated into English.

Asi Levy

Film, television, and theater actress, musician, director, and creative artist. A graduate of Yoram Loewenstein’s Acting Studio, she is considered one of Israel’s most respected actresses.
Levy has won two Ophir Awards for film, two Israeli Theater Awards, and the Television Academy Award. She has been nominated numerous times for awards in Israel and abroad, gaining international recognition with prizes at festivals both locally and worldwide, including the Jerusalem Film Festival (twice) and the Haifa Film Festival. She was the first actress in Israel to be nominated for European Actress of the Year at the European Film Academy for her role in Rafael Nadjari’s Stones.
Notable roles include, in film: Aviva, My Love, The World is Funny, Hemedah, Hakafot, Longing, The Prom, Stones, City Connection; in television: BeTipul, The Bourgeoisie, New York, The Harmon, Blackspace, Room Service, Wonderful Divorce; and in theater: His Mother, Good People, Whose Life Is This, Abandoned Property (which she also directed and performed in), among many others on leading theater stages in Israel.
In 2022, she released her debut album, Twenty Nine and the Neighbors. Her acting career spans dozens of roles across film, television, and theater, alongside her work as a singer-songwriter and director. Her work is characterized by emotional intensity, artistic boldness, and a continual pursuit of innovation and discovery.

Lihi Binyamin

Artistic Director of the South Film Festival since 2022. Previously Head of Acquisition and Sales at the distribution company Go2Films, with experience in research, production, and cinematography.
A graduate of the Film Department at Sapir College’s School of the Arts, with her thesis film Family Album screened at the International Short Film Festival Oberhausen, the Women’s Film Festival in Rehovot, and other festivals in Israel and abroad.
Also a visual artist working in analog still photography and writing, graduating with honors from the Photography Department at the Bezalel Academy of Art and Design and recipient of the Rami Halperin Prize. Selected for a research year at Bezalel and participated in a student exchange program at HGB in Leipzig, Germany. Since 2020, member of Indie, a collaborative photography and video gallery. Works exhibited in Israel and internationally.

Kobi Mizrahi

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.
His features include the creative documentary "Necropolis": won best cinematography at DocAviv. Cabaret Total: won 2 Israeli film academy awards, Honorable Mention at Mar del Plata.
The Road to Eilat: 3 awards including Best Feature at Jerusalem IFF, The Dive: 4 awards at JFF, 2 awards at Locarno, screened a.o. at Toronto; Water: Amnesty International Award, opened Venice Critics’ Week.
His short films, including White Eye (Oscar-nominated), Mission Hebron (EFA shortlisted), I See You (winner of the Israeli academy awards) have been screened at major festivals worldwide such as Cannes, Venice, IDFA, Locarno, Toronto, Telluride, SXSW, DOC NYC, Annecy and sold to HBO, Canal+ and more.

Golden Anchor Competition - Jury

Liad Herman

Liad Herman is a social entrepreneur, film presenter, and researcher, and one of the prominent voices of the new generation in Israel’s cinematic discourse. He is a co-founder of the popular podcast “Okhlei Sratim” (Movie Eaters)—a podcast about cinema, philosophy, and everything in between. The podcast invites audiences into the worlds of meaning, emotion, and cultural context that cinema across the ages has to offer.
Herman lectures, writes, and hosts conversations about film in various settings, including cinematheques, festivals, and cultural institutions, bringing a sharp, original, and personal perspective on film history and the ways it resonates in our lives. Through his work, he seeks to blur the boundaries between watching and creating, between screen and reality, and to open a space for dialogue rooted in a deep love of the art of cinema.

Sophie Artus

Director and screenwriter. Began her career as a teacher and neurobiology researcher. At age 30, left the sciences to study film, completing an MFA at the Steve Tisch School of Film at Tel Aviv University.
Her filmmaking, deeply engaged with social issues, includes short films that have screened at numerous international festivals and won awards. Her first feature film, Emek (Valley), which explores the social and family struggles of teenagers in a peripheral city, won Best Debut Film and Best Actor at the 2014 Haifa International Film Festival, as well as Best Film awards at several international festivals.
Halisa (Infusion) addresses cross-cultural and socio-economic encounters through the experiences of mothers at a maternal and child health clinic. The film was nominated for five Ophir Awards, including Best Feature Film, and won the Jury Prize at the 2025 Haifa International Film Festival.
Artus works as a script editor and artistic consultant at the Israel Film Fund and other organizations, and serves on the board of the Israeli Directors and Filmmakers Association.

Liron Ben Shalosh

Screenwriter and actress, recipient of the Ophir Award for Best Leading Actress for her role in Working Woman. Wrote and starred in You Are My Night (premiered at the Cannes Film Festival; awarded at festivals in Tokyo, Thessaloniki, Chicago, Kazakhstan, and more; won Best Film and Best Screenplay at the Haifa Festival and the Critics’ Association Prize; distributed in France, the UK, the Netherlands, and Belgium).
Served as head screenwriter for four episodes of the series Red Dawn (YES/FOX) and created the short film Yes or No, directed by Asaf Korman (Pitching Prize, Jerusalem Film Festival). As an actress, starred in Working Woman, Maya, Falls, as well as in The Silence, In Doubt, Home Port, and others.
Television credits include Lo Larev, Sishu VeSimchu, Normali, The Boys (HBO), Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem, 30 Shekels an Hour, Special, and more. Nominated for Best Television Actress. On stage, performed at the Haifa Theater and was nominated for Best Leading Actress.

May Abadi Grebler

Cinematographer (DOP) and director, graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School (2017). Her debut short film “Mamushke” won the Berenstein Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival. As a DOP, she shot “HALISA” (dir. Sophie Artus) and “Youthful Grace” (dir. Yuval Shani), as well as over 40 short films, including “Signer” by Nurith Aviv and “If It Ain’t Broke” by Elinor Nechemia (Cannes, 2021). In her work, moving between documentary and fiction, she stands out with a sensitive and poetic visual style.

Israeli Film - Jury

Bernd Buder

Bernd Buder, born 1964, studied political science at the FU Berlin and is a freelance curator, lecturer and film journalist. Since 2015 programme director of the FilmFestival Cottbus - Festival of East European Film, since 2021 programme (co-)director at the Jewish Film Festival Berlin Brandenburg. Programme advisor at the Cinedays Festival in Skopje and consultant of the SloVision Slovenian Film Days in Berlin. In the past he was, among other things, head of the East-West co-production market connecting cottbus, programme director of the Berlin Filmkunsthaus Babylon and programme consultant for various film festivals (Prishtinë Film Festival, Skena-Up Film and Theatre Festival Prishtinë, goEast Film Festival, dokumentArt Neubrandenburg, Turkish Film Week Berlin, Zagreb Film Festival, Berlinale- Forum). Member of the European Film Academy.

Shmulik Duvdevani

Dr. Shmulik Duvdevani teaches at the School of Film and Television at Tel Aviv University and has been the film critic for ynet for 25 years. His areas of expertise are Israeli cinema and documentary film. He is the author of the books First Person, Camera (2010) – a pioneering study of personal documentary cinema in Israel, and The First Moderns (2023), a comprehensive study of Israeli documentary cinema in the 1960s and 1970s. He is a member of the board of the Docaviv Festival and serves as a reader for the Israel Film Fund, the Makor Fund, and the Rabinovich Foundation.

Lisa Shiloach-Azorad

Senior executive and producer in the Israeli television and film industry.
Co-founder and former CEO of July-August Productions. Held numerous key management and production positions, including Director of Kan 11 (Israel’s public television channel) and CEO of the Israel Film Fund.
Extensive experience in management, production, development, and content creation across a wide range of genres for both the local and international markets. Initiated, developed, and produced dozens of original and international projects in drama, documentary, culture, and entertainment. Lecturer at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, public representative on the Israeli Public Broadcasting Corporation, and Chair of the Copro Foundation, which supports the marketing of Israeli content and the creation of international co-productions.

Nir Bergman

Nir Bergman was born in Haifa, Israel in 1969. He graduated with honors from the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem in June 1998.
His debut film, BROKEN WINGS, was released in 2002, was a major success. The film won several international awards and was distributed by SONNY CLASSICS.
Since then, Bergman has written and directed several award-winning feature films as well as successful TV series, among them he co-wrote and directed IN TREATMENT which was later adopted by HBO. Currently Bergman is one of Israel's leading film and TV directors.

Israeli Short Films - Jury

Ohad Milstein

Milstein is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and lecturer at Bezalel Academy of Art & Design Jerusalem. His recent film "Monogamia" (2023) Won the Grand Prix, Semaine de la Critique Locarno Film Festival. “Summer Nights” (2021) won the Israeli Academy Award - Best Documentary and the First Prize of DocAviv Film Festival. His cinematic works include: “Knock on the door" (2023), "Flood" (2018), “Week 23” (2016) and others.

Gan De Lange

Screenwriter, director, and visual artist. A graduate with honors of the Sam Spiegel Film School. Her short films, including Babaga, Mother of, Revital Is an Alien, and The Bird Who Wanted, have been screened at major international festivals such as Cannes and Telluride. They have been nominated for Ophir Awards, won prizes in Israel and abroad, and were selected for Sam Spiegel’s lists of outstanding films.
She co-founded Moon Lab, a studio for practical effects in film, television, and theater. Her artwork has been exhibited at the Tel Aviv Museum of Art and in galleries across Israel. Her filmmaking combines visual poetry, fantasy, and humor with explorations of solitude, otherness, and love.

Dana Goldberg

Screenwriter and film director, poet and social entrepreneur. Recipient of the Ministry of Culture Award for Filmmaking in 2022. To date, she has written and directed three feature films:
Alice (2012) - winner of the Best Screenplay Award, Best Actress Award (Ilanit Ben Yaakov), and an honorable mention at the 2012 Jerusalem Film Festival.
Death of a Poetess (2017) - starring Evgenia Dodina and Samira Saraya, winner of the Best Actress Award (Saraya) at the 2017 Jerusalem Film Festival and the Best Screenplay Award at the 2018 UK Jewish Film Festival.
Debbie Was Here (2023) - winner of the Artistic Achievement Award at the 2023 Haifa Film Festival.
Goldberg has written and directed over 10 short films, as well as 10 experimental pocket films. Her work explores themes of gender, identity, motherhood, ethics and the language of cinema.

Ada Rimon

A Jerusalem native now based in Haifa, Ada Rimon is an artist and animator, and a graduate of the Screen-Based Arts Department at Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.
Lives and creates with Ofek Shamer, producing both commercial and independent films that combine material and digital techniques.
Currently preparing for an upcoming exhibition while raising two children.