The Ophir Awards, or the Israeli Academy Awards, is the official competition to what Israeli movie will go on to compete with around eighty films from around the world for the honor to be nominated in the foreign language category at the Oscars in Hollywood. Winning the competition has become a lot more thought after as in the past six years four winners of the Ophir Awards went on to be nominated for an Oscar, however none have yet to receive the highest honor to bring the Golden statue back to Israel. This year the five nominees for Best Movie at the Ophir awards are: Bethlehem, Hunting Elephants, Candies, Magic Men and Six Times.
Bethlehem the story of an Israeli secret service agent and a Palestinian collaborator won 6 Ophir Awards including Best Movies, which makes it the official Israeli entry for the Oscars.
i24news’ Morning Edition hosted by Yael Lavie from September 23rd, 2013.
Ron Jacobsohn discuses the 65th Primetime Emmy Awards. Breaking Bad won Outstanding Drama Series for the first half of its fifth season, while Modern Family won Outstanding Comedy Series for the fourth consecutive time. Netflix made history by earning the first Primetime Emmy Award nominations for original online only web television and now winning three wins for Directing and two creative Emmys for House of Cards.
Match Made in Heaven is not your average reality show, it is the first ever series in the world which got a reviling look into the very closed and hidden world of the matchmaking in the ultra-religious Jews who still use the traditional way of getting to know your future mate.
The project which was financed by Israeli satcaster, YES, was filmed over two years and has gotten a lot of international buzz and now several TV networks around the globe are looking into making a localized version about their Jewish communities.
Ron Jacobsohn Attends the Premiere of the Ultra Orthodox Series, Shtisel
Israeli satcaster, YES, produced a new fascinating dramatic series that shows us a glimpse into the mostly unknown inner world of the ultra Orthodox Jews of Jerusalem’s Meah Shearim.
Ayelet Zurer, the star of “Shtisel”, has spent the past decade in Hollywood where she starred in movies like Munich, Angels and Demons and most recently The Man of Steel. Zurer admits she couldn’t work only in Hollywood because Israel is where the heart is.
The stars of “Shtisel” all admitted that the process of learning their characters took them to places they themselves didn’t always knew existed in Israel but that the most fascinating thing for them was that as much as they were curious about the orthodox world those religious Jews they met were curious to learn about the secular world that was completely foreign to them.
Somehow Israel has turned into a television format Mecca over the last several years with shows like Homeland, In Treatment and a slew of game shows like Still Standing, hitting it big on American Prime Time Television. Ron Jacobsohn went to talk to some of the players to inquire what the secret of the success of those Israeli formats is.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
Somehow Israel has turned into a television format empire over the last few years with Israeli shows like Homeland, In Treatment and game shows, Still Standing, hitting it big on American Prime Time Television. JN1 went to talk to some of the local players to find out what the secret of the success of the Israeli formats is.
The Israeli formats have become a hot-ticket in the international markets almost to the point that distributors are afraid not to be able to nab the next Israeli format tells us the executive director at Ananey Communications, Sigal Shaldag.
Sigal Shaldag, Executive Director, Ananey Communications:
I think that now when I’m coming to a market and people met me and they said you know we have to have something from Israel. Everybody heard about the success of Homeland and ‘Hatufim’, you know the format of ‘Hatufim’, and everybody’s trying and I found for example at Mip-TV when I attended, that people are afraid to lose the next format, or the next show from Israel. It’s not that they want something from Israel, they’re afraid to lose the next big thing that that will come from Israel. They line up to meet us and we feel, you know, a big you know, openness in the market to hear the creativity of the Israeli, and I think it’s like the Hi-tech. It used to be Israel equal to hi-tech and innovation and I think we feel it now in the markets is that Israel equal to innovation in content and that’s a very very important, and I think it’s opened the door to all the Israeli companies and I think that it will be, and we can achieve a lot of success in this field, as Israelis.
The pioneer of the Israeli formats internationally, the president of Armoza Formats, Avi Armoza, is very proud of the fact that Israel was recently named number one country in the world for selling its formats.
Avi Armoza, President, Armoza Formats:
I think that this is something to do very much within our culture, within our culture we are storytellers, you know we might not be that successful in the Olympics, but we know how to tell a story and this is the business of television; is it a game-show, is it factual show, is it a drama series. You need to tell good stories and this is something that we know how to do, but yet the local market needs are limited, we’re still a small country with very limited outlets of television and if we, if we as Israelis or the young generation want to work on television, we need to look into the international world as our market. If we know how to make good television, we can do it for the world and not just for the local market.
Nadav Palti, the president of Dori Media Group claims the next natural phase in the selling Israeli formats around the world is that the big networks will also produce their shows in Israel too.
Nadav Palti, President, Dori Media Group:
We’re already in negotiations with a few countries, that they came here, studied the markets, studied the situation, make the budget, analyze it and they now understand how to produce series really, really cheaper, much cheaper and also we already did it, we .. It’s published so I can speak about it, you know that CBS; the biggest network today in the world and ITV produced here in our studio, in Neve Ilan.
Prisoners of War, Hatufim, is maybe the most popular format out of Israel due to the success of the American version of it, Homeland. Karen Shahar the head of distribution for Keshet International who sold the format still doesnǯt believe how huge the show has become internationally.
Keren Shahar, Head of Distribution, Keshet International:
It’s a testament to how the international community and not just the American community, has embraced ‘Homeland’ and ‘Hatufim’; Prisoners of War, you know, that the Israeli series which we sold to over 10 territories. This is something that a year ago, I would have laughed if you would have told me. Five years ago, If I were to say I’m from Israel, they would say “Keshet who? Israel what?” but today when we say we’re from Israel, they immediate response is wow, you guys are so creative, you have so much good stuff , so it’s a great ice-breaker and a great lead to the conversation.
Ron Jacobsohn, JN1 Correspondent:
After concurring the very lucrative American market and the European, Australian and Latin markets, the last frontier seemed to be the Asian market, which has traditionally been hard to penetrate into for western style television shows. But leave it to the Israelis to do the impossible… Keshet International has just finalized a deal with China’s, Shixi Media, to licenses six of its shows for Chinese television. For JN1, I am Ron Jacobsohn in Tel-Aviv.
Clips courtesy of: Keshet International, Showtime Networks, Ananey Communications, Armoza Formats and Dori Media Group
