And the Oscar goes to…

22 February 2017

Hadas Ayalon giving her acceptance speech at the Student Academy Awards

Now that 89^th Academy Awards are just a few days away, we decided it was the perfect time to introduce you to the next generation of award-winning Israeli filmmakers. Some of them are already earning accolades internationally, even before graduating, and we're certainly counting on them to be among the nominees for "Best Foreign Picture" at the Oscars in the coming years, joining TAU graduates Ari Folman ("Waltz with Bashir", 2008) and Yaron Shani ("Ajami", 2009).

Get to know the work of these young filmmakers now, so one day you'll be able to say "I've known about them since…"

Oscar winner – Hadas Ayalon

Although Israel has yet to win the Best Foreign Picture category, we already have a TAU alumni with an oscar under her belt. In 2014 Israel got its very first oscar winner in Hadas Ayalon, an M.A. student at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television, whose film "Paris on the Water" won the Student Academy Awards in the Best Foreign Picture category.

Read the full story about "Paris on the Water" >>

Millennial Insight – Hadas Ben Aroya

In 2016 the winner of the biggest film festival in Latin America – called Mar Del Plata – was a film by Hadas Ben Aroya, then a student at TAU. Her first feature film, "People Who Are Not Me", is an semi-autobiographical look at life in Tel Aviv for people in their twenties.

Still from "People Who Are Not Me"

Read the full story about "People Who Are Not Me" >>

Israeli-Palestinian Cooperation

In 2012 TAU's film project "Water", bringing together Israelis and Palestinians to jointly create films and find a common language through cinema, produced five short films that were chosen to open the 69th Venice Film Festival (second only to the Cannes Film Festival in size and importance in Europe).

Read the full story about "Water" >>

No Such Street – Yonatan Peterz

Finally, in 2013 Yonatan Peterz's short film "No Such Street", about the relationship between a girl and a homeless man who saves her life, was chosen to be screened at the Montreal Film Festival, along with four other TAU student films.

Read the full story about "No Such Street" >>

Where will we find the next Oscar winner? How can Israel promote a film culture that will generate even better, bigger, more memorable movies? Perhaps creating and hosting the biggest student film festival in the world would be a good start?

That's precisely what the students at the Steve Tisch School of Film and Television do every other year. In 2015 the Tel Aviv Student Film Festival, recognized as the biggest in the world, was organized from the top down by young TAU filmmakers. In 2017 the Festival will be held again, bringing together the best aspiring Oscar winners in Tel Aviv and creating a unique creative community.