Avishai Sivan is a fiction and documentary filmmaker, and a visual artist. The majority of his films tend to be of an experimental nature, traversing the line between fiction and documentary, and exploring crisis of faith themes, and one’s transition from a religious to a secular world. Between the years 2000-2007, Sivan chronicled his attempts at securing funding for his films in a series of video diaries titled, Soap Opera of a Frozen Filmmaker. The diaries’ second instalment, The Man with the D.V. Camera Causes Trouble to the Man with the Film Camera, won him the Best Experimental Film award at the 2007 Jerusalem Film Festival.
His first feature-length film, The Wanderer (2010) was showcased in the 2010 Cannes Film Festival’s Directors’ Fortnight and went on to be shown at various festivals around the world where it was well received, winning the Van Leer Award for Best Feature Film and the Van Leer Award for Cinematography in a Full-length Film at the 2010 Jerusalem Film Festival. His 2015 film, Tikkun competed at the Locarno Film Festival’s official competition and took home the Silver Leopard Award, the FICC/IFFS’s (International Federation of Film Societies) Don Quijote Prize, and a Special Mention for the Cinematography by Shai Goldman. Tikkun proceeded to win a slew of awards at various other festivals, including Best Israeli Feature Film, Best Script, Best Cinematography, Best Actor for Khalifa Natour’s performance, and a Commendation from the Israel Critics’ Forum at the 2015 Jerusalem Film Festival.