At a time when Israeli film is flourishing and garnering acclaim in Israel and abroad, we have the honor of granting an Achievement Award to one of the figures who planted the seeds of the Israeli film industry as we know it today - Micha Shagrir. In the 1960s, Shagrir worked toward the founding of Israeli television. When he returned from a long internship at the BBCto discover that the project had come to a halt, he began to work independently,Following producing and directing a long line of documentary films for various companies.
During the decades that followed, Shagrir became one of the main conduits of Israel's film industry. He nurtured young filmmakers, forged connections with international production teams, presided over local and international productions, and dreamed the cinematic future that we are all living today.
Over the four decades of his carreer, Shagrir has dealt extensively with the Israeli and Jewish experience. He has documented the aliyah from different countries, and witnessed moments of merciless drama and emotion that surpass the limits of doccumentation. Such is the case in the film we are screening in this year's Festival, I Had a Dream, telling the story of the "Herzl of Ethiopian Jewry," Yona Bogale.
Throughout, Shagrir has remained faithful to the classical Zionist symbiosis between the individual and society, and has been guided by the attempt to view the reality and myths of our lives in a sobering, critical, and loving manner.
Over his many years of film production, Shagrir greatly contributed to the enrichment of local cinema: he stood at the head of the Foundation for the Encouragement of Quality Films, later the Israel Film Fund; he served as the first director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School; he established the foundation in memory of his wife, Aliza Shagrir, for the encouragement of young documentary filmmakers; he initiatiated and led the Cinema Jerusalem Project, dealing with the documentation of this complex city, and he continues to pave new ways for dealing with Israeli and Jewish experiences - from new collaborations with Israeli and Polish filmmakers to the cinematic adaptation of Erri De Luca God's Mountain.
Like Israeli film, Shagrir himself has been faced with difficult times over his many years of film production, And indeed, the biblical verse "They that sow in tears will reap in joy" has come true. For all these, we are happy to present Micha Shagrir with our festival's Life Achievement Award.