Cambridge to pay tribute to Sam Spiegel Film School

The Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty of Cambridge is hosting an eight-session tribute, which starts today and run through March.

By HANNAH BROWN
Updated: JANUARY 20, 2016 20:40
Cambridge to pay tribute to Sam Spiegel Film School (photo credit: Courtesy)
Cambridge to pay tribute to Sam Spiegel Film School
(photo credit: Courtesy)
The University of Cambridge will present a tribute to the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel School of Film and Television to mark the 25th anniversary of the school’s establishment.
The Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty of Cambridge is hosting an eight-session tribute, which starts today and run through March.
Under the title “Between Escapism and Strife,” Cambridge has invited eight award-winning Sam Spiegel graduates to present their work in a program designed to focus on varied aspects of Israeli society, among them the secular- religious dilemma, the Israeli- Palestinian conflict, Eastern vs.
Western influences, feminism and more.
The opening event of the tribute will be held in the presence of the Sam Spiegel School founding director Renen Schorr, together with graduate Tamar Kay, the newly announced winner of the Special Jury Award of the Student Competition of the IDFA Festival for her documentary film, The Mute’s House.
In addition to Kay, the Sam Spiegel graduates participating are Talya Lavie, whose debut film, Zero Motivation, won the top prize for narrative feature at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2014; Nadav Lapid, whose latest film The Kindergarten Teacher was on the top 10 list of two New York Times film critics; David Ofek, creator of the television series Bat Yam – New York and Minimum Wage; Dan Geva, director of several documentaries, among them Description of a Memory; Elad Keidan, whose film, Afterthought, won the prize for Best Israeli Feature Film at the Haifa International Film Festival; Yaelle Kayam, whose film, Mountain, premiered at the Venice International Film Festival; and Yehonatan Indursky, who created the television series Shtisel.
“Each year, we invite a number of Israeli artists to Cambridge who are influential in various realms of art,” said Dr. Yaron Peleg of Cambridge, who planned the tribute. “This year marks the first time in the annals of the Asian and Middle Eastern Studies Faculty that we have invited a group of eight varied, diverse Israelis who express the “quality mass” that has emerged from the Jerusalem Sam Spiegel Film School, an institution whose singular method brought about the renaissance of Israeli cinema in Israel and the world.
“We are keenly interested in the means by which the unique voice of each of these graduates has developed in relationship to the political, social and cultural arenas.
The Tribute sessions are free of charge, and we expect an open dialogue with an audience arriving not only from Cambridge but also from London and throughout England at large.”
The Cambridge Tribute is being held through the assistance of University of Cambridge, the Lord Alex Bernstein Estate, Sharon Harel, the Jerusalem Foundation, the Israel Film Fund, and the UK Jewish Festival.