Shay Kanot is a director and screenwriter. Kanot, a graduate of Tel Aviv University’s Department of Film and Television Studies, co-created the teen drama series, The Real Thing! (‘chalomot ne’urim’ – ‘teenage dreams’ in Hebrew) along with Matti Harari and Arik Lubetzki. Then, in 2002, he co-created with his then-fulltime collaborator, Reshef Levi, the much lauded police drama, Tik Sagur (‘case closed’) which aired on Israel’s then-newest broadcaster, Channel 10. In 2007, the pair struck gold again with their latest TV crime drama, The Arbitrator. The show enjoyed consistently high ratings and a very successful four-season run.
Kanot was a staff writer on the first season of critically acclaimed drama, Weekends and Holidays (‘Shabatot VeHagaim’) (2001) along with Eran Kolirin and Rani Blair. He later co-directed all season two episodes of the series Meorav Yerushalmi (‘Jerusalem mixed grill’) with legendary Israeli filmmaker and director, Jacob Goldwasser; all five seasons of teen drama Kfula (‘double’) starring Noa Kirel, and most recently the series Bney Or (‘children of light’), which he co-directed with Guy Balila. Kanot is also the co-creator of reality TV programme Once in a Lifetime (originally ‘ha-chayim al-pi Y’, ‘life according to Y’ in Hebrew), along with Lee Yardeni and Maya Klug.
To date, Kanot has directed four feature films: Columbian Love (2004), which was shown at the Jerusalem Film Festival; Kicking out Shoshana (2014), a huge box office hit that drew over 200,000 viewers to cinemas; Ibiza (2015), yet another box office hit with over 100,000 viewers to its name, and Four by Four (2016).