Joseph Pitchhadze is a director, screenwriter, and film professor. Pitchadze was Born in Tbilisi, Georgia, and at the age of six, he and his family moved to Israel. He later enroled at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Film and Television Studies, and it was in the course of his degree that he made the two shorts, Dreaming in Russian (4min., 1990), and Bad Days (22min., 1993).
Pitchhadze’s film, Under Western Eyes was shortlisted for the Berlin International Film Festival where it won the Prize of the Ecumenical Jury, in addition to taking home the Wolgin Prize at the Jerusalem Film Festival. His next film, Bésame Mucho (2000), won him yet another Wolgin Prize, and in the ensuing years he went on to make a string of feature films including Year Zero (2004), and Sweets (2013).
Alongside his filmmaking body of work, Pitchhadze has also directed a number of stage plays, including Rhinoceros (Eugène Ionesco, 2002), and Betrayal (Harold Pinter, 2003); both of which ran at the Library Theatre (aka ‘hasifriya theatre’). At the same time, Pitchhadze was also teaching film studies at a variety of academic institutions and was Head of the production track at Tel Aviv University’s Department of Film and Television Studies.
