Lawrence Bender, the producer of such films as Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting, whose movies have been nominated for 36 Oscars and won nine, and Joseph Cedar, the Oscar-nominated director of the movies Beaufort and Footnote and the series Our Boys, will give master classes at the 13th edition of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab, which begins this week in Jerusalem.
The lab, which is for filmmakers making their first or second films, admits several Israeli participants and several from abroad every year. The participants work with mentors who are distinguished film-industry professionals from Israel and abroad to complete their scripts.
The lab has helped filmmakers from 45 countries develop over 114 movies, 75% of which have been shown at prestigious film festivals, winning top prizes at Cannes, Berlin, and many other places, as well as an Oscar, which was awarded to Laszlo Nemes’s Holocaust drama, Son of Saul, in the Best International Feature category in 2016.
This year’s lineup includes projects from Austria, Brazil, France, and Hungary, as well as Israel. The projects include Family Honor, which will be the feature directorial debut of actor Hisham Suliman and Sari Bisharat, and a new film by C.B. Yi, whose first feature film, Moneyboys, premiered at Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Film Festival in 2021.
This has been a standout year for films from the lab. Come Closer, by Tom Nesher, which was developed at the ninth edition, premiered at the Tribeca Festival and won the Viewpoints Award. It went on to win the Best Feature Film prize at the Ophir Awards, making it Israel’s official selection for consideration for a Best International Feature Oscar. Nesher was included on Variety’s list of 10 directors to watch in 2025.
Sundance Film Festival
The 2024 Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival and the World Cinema Dramatic Special Jury Award for Acting were given to Girls Will Be Girls by ninth-edition alumna Shuchi Talati.
“Creators and filmmakers have the ability to create worlds and the responsibility for shaping reality and maintaining the values of humanism, which is so difficult. They have an essential role in persistently preserving humanity through a complex discourse, while distinguishing nuances. From this deep commitment, we see an important role in the existence of the lab, whilst uncompromisingly maintaining freedom of expression and creation,” said Dana Blankstein-Cohen, director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School in Jerusalem.
Mor Eldar, the director of the Sam Spiegel Film and Series Labs, noted: “This is the second year that the International Film Lab begins while Israel is at war. In these difficult days, cultural activity is of great importance. It is imperative to continue supporting and developing voices from Israel and the world together, especially in light of the challenges that the current era creates for international collaborations.”
The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab is supported by the Beracha Foundation, the Rothschild Foundation, the Sam Spiegel Foundation, the Austrian Film Institute, the French Institute in Israel, the Embassy of Hungary in Israel, and Carol Polakoff.