Yeud Levanon is an Israeli director, screenwriter, producer, and author. Levanon was a part of the Young Israeli Cinema collective (‘kayitz’ in Hebrew) whose members called for a revolution in Israeli film, and championed individual, non-commercialised filmmaking. In 1979, as part as his activities in the collective, he became one of the major players behind the establishing of the Fund for Promoting Quality Israeli Filmmaking (that would later go on to become the Israel Film Fund.)
Levanon’s cinematic body of work is very much anchored in a range of Israeli socio-political issues and as such, his films have not once caused their fair share of controversy. In 1976, Levanon teamed up with author, Aryeh Krishek, to make the political film, The Honey Connection (51min.). Whilst the film did win an award for Best Israeli Short in 1977, it was met with considerable public uproar and was ultimately banned by the Board of Film and Play Reviews. In 1995, he directed the film 119 Bullets +Three about the Israeli hard right. The film was shown at many international film festivals and even won a Special Award at FIPADOC in Biarritz, France – however, on account of the contentious subject matter, it failed to secure a distributor or broadcasting platform that would air it in Israel. Highlights of his other films include Off the Air (‘lo l’shidur) (1979), Fun Forever (aka ‘the boarding school’ / ‘hapnimiyah’) (1983), Black Box (1993), and Islands on the Shore (2003).
