Ronit Avni | |
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| Occupation | Filmmaker, human rights advocate and media strategist |
| Genre | Documentary |
| Notable works | Budrus Encounter Point |
Ronit Avni is a Canadian entrepreneur, tech founder, human rights advocate, and Peabody Award-winning film director and producer.
Avni was born and raised in Canada. She graduated with honors with an A.B. in political science from Vassar College.
Avni is the founder and executive director of Just Vision, a nonprofit organization that creates digital media, award-winning films (Naila and the Uprising, Budrus, My Neighborhood, Encounter Point), news analysis and public education campaigns in North America and the Middle East. As Executive Director of Just Vision, Avni raised over $10M, managed a diverse team and her films were seen by tens of millions of viewers on TV and online globally. [1] She was a frequent speaker in think tanks, community, government, international, educational and media settings and is known for creating content that addresses sensitive geopolitical topics. [2]
Avni directed and produced the documentary film, Encounter Point , [3] which received the 2006 San Francisco International Film Festival Audience Award for Best Documentary and was an official selection at the Tribeca Film Festival, Hot Docs, Atlanta Film Festival, Vancouver International Film Festival, Dubai International Film Festival and Jerusalem International Film Festival. [4] Encounter Point has screened at the United Nations and in Gaza, Tel Aviv, Jenin and more than 200 cities worldwide and has won 5 international awards. Avni appeared on The Oprah Winfrey Show in 2005 and her work was featured on Oprah.com, and on Christiane Amanpour’s show, Amanpour, on CNN. [5] She produced the documentary film Budrus , [6] which received the Berlinale's Panorama Audience Award [7] Second Prize, the Special Jury Mention [8] at the Tribeca Film Festival and the Audience Award at the San Francisco International Film Festival in 2010. Budrus premiered at the Cultural Bridge Gala [9] at the Dubai International Film Festival in December 2009. It won the Ridenhour Prize and the 2012 PUMA Creative Impact prize. She co-produced Naila and the Uprising, which premiered at DocNYC, IDFA and the Dubai International Film Festival. Her short film My Neighborhood won a Peabody Award.
Avni trained human rights defenders worldwide to incorporate film and digital media into their advocacy campaigns while working for the human rights organization, WITNESS. Avni has trained non-governmental organizations to produce videos as a tool for public education and grassroots mobilizing, as a deterrent to further abuse and as evidence before courts and tribunals. She co-edited the book Video for Change: A Guide for Advocacy and Activism, [10] with staff from WITNESS. She now sits on the WITNESS Board, chairing the Program Committee as WITNESS advises activists and technology companies on the ethical uses of video. [11]
Avni is the founder of Localized, a platform that connects college students and aspiring professionals in emerging markets to global professionals who can offer career guidance and expertise in languages they share. Launching in 2018 in Arabic and English, Localized was selected as one of 12 companies to join the NYU Steinhardt Edtech Accelerator, powered by StartEd in collaboration with Rethink Education Fund. [12] She was a finalist for the 2018 Next Billion Prize at the Global Education and Skills Forum in Dubai, overseen by TechCrunch Editor-at-Large Mike Butcher. [13] A 2018 World Economic Forum Halcyon Fellow, she has spoken and written about the intersection of technology, workforce readiness, education and migration for the World Economic Forum and The National's Future Forum in Abu Dhabi. [14] [15] [16] [17]
Avni is a Young Global Leader, [18] sponsored by the World Economic Forum, a Term Member [19] at the Council on Foreign Relations [20] and has been recognized with a variety of honors, including the Search for Common Ground's Common Ground Award, the Circles of Change Award, Auburn Seminary's Lives of Commitment Award, the Trailblazer Award from the National Council for Research for Women and the Daughters for Life Award. She sits on the jury of both the MacArthur Foundation’s 100 & Change Competition and the Global Teacher Prize. [21] She has trained hundreds of business leaders, MBA students, nonprofit leaders and civil servants to speak persuasively to the media, on stage and in executive settings with KNP Communications. [22]
In 2006, the film Encounter Point was:
In 2010-11, the film Budrus was:
In 2009-11, Ronit Avni was:
The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam, Netherlands.
Christian Frei is a Swiss filmmaker and film producer. He is mostly known for his films War Photographer (2001), The Giant Buddhas (2005) and Space Tourists (2009).
The Full Frame Documentary Film Festival is an annual international event dedicated to the theatrical exhibition of non-fiction cinema founded by Nancy Buirski, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photo editor of The New York Times and documentary filmmaker.
Ondi Doane Timoner is an American filmmaker and the founder and chief executive officer of Interloper Films, a production company located in Pasadena, California.
Julia Bacha is a Brazilian documentary filmmaker. She has filmed under-documented stories from the Middle East including issues related to Palestine. Her 2021 film, Boycott, explores anti-boycott legislation and related freedom of speech issues.
Encounter Point is a film directed by Ronit Avni and Julia Bacha. It depicts different families that have been affected by the violence in Israel between Israelis and Palestinians. In this film, Just Vision, a non-profit organization, follows these families for 16 months. It begins this journey by documenting the ongoing troubles between the Israelis and Palestinians. The team conducted 475 preliminary interviews and did two years of research before embarking on this 16-month journey. The crew traveled throughout Israel, from Tel Mond, Tulkarem, Hebron, and Haifa. These parents and loved ones have been attempting to end the violence by joining, or beginning their own peace organizations and awareness campaigns.
Marshall Curry is an American documentary director, producer, cinematographer and editor. His films include Street Fight, Racing Dreams, If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front, Point and Shoot, and A Night at the Garden. His first fiction film was the Academy Award-winning short film The Neighbors' Window (2019).
Pray the Devil Back to Hell is a 2008 American documentary film directed by Gini Reticker and produced by Abigail Disney. The film premiered at the 2008 Tribeca Film Festival, where it won the award for Best Documentary. The film had its theatrical release in New York City on November 7, 2008. It had cumulative gross worldwide of $90,066.
Teddy Leifer is a British film and television producer. He founded Rise Films in 2006, a London-based production company, and was nominated for an Academy Award in 2023.
Just Vision is a non religiously unaffiliated nonprofit organization that utilizes storytelling, media and public engagement campaigns to highlight Palestinian and Israeli grassroots leaders working to end the occupation and conflict through unarmed means. It is based in Washington, New York and Jerusalem.
Budrus is a 2009 Israeli/Palestinian/American documentary film directed by Julia Bacha, produced by Ronit Avni, Rula Salameh, and Julia Bacha, and with a screenplay by Bacha. The film is about non-violent demonstrations conducted by the residents of Budrus during the early 2000s to protest against the building of the Israeli West Bank barrier inside of the village.
Suzi Yoonessi is an American filmmaker. She wrote and directed the award-winning feature film Dear Lemon Lima, and directed the Duplass Brothers film Unlovable and Daphne and Velma for Warner Brothers. Yoonessi's short films No Shoulder and Dear Lemon Lima are distributed by Shorts International and Vanguard Cinema and her documentary film Vern is distributed by National Film Network and is in the permanent collection of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Final Cut for Real ApS is a film production company based in Copenhagen, Denmark specializing in documentaries for the international market. The two Oscar-nominated groundbreaking documentaries The Act of Killing (2012) and The Look of Silence (2014) helped establish the company as a recognized provider of independent creative documentaries on the international stage. The recent years, Final Cut for Real has also expanded to fiction films and virtual reality. In 2019 Final Cut for Real Norway was established.
Signe Byrge Sørensen is a Danish film producer. She is the head of and co-founder of the film production company Final Cut for Real in Copenhagen, Denmark. Sørensen and film director Joshua Oppenheimer were nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature for the 2013 film The Act of Killing. She was also the producer to the critically acclaimed documentary The Look of Silence. Signe Byrge Sørensen a member of The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences and the Danish Film Academy. In 2022, she produced the animated documentary film Flee and was nominated in Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature and Best Animated Feature categories.
Candescent Films is an American film production company that produces and finances documentary and narrative films that explore social issues.
Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi is an American documentary filmmaker. She was the director, along with her husband, Jimmy Chin, for the film Free Solo, which won the 2019 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature. The film profiled Alex Honnold and his free solo climb of El Capitan in June 2017. Their first scripted film venture was Nyad, a biopic chronicling Diana Nyad's quest to be the first person to swim from Cuba to Florida.
Motto Pictures is a documentary production company based in Brooklyn, New York, specializing in producing and executive producing documentary features. Motto secures financing, builds distribution strategies, and creatively develops films, and has produced over 25 feature documentaries and won numerous awards.
Something Better to Come is a Danish-Polish documentary film about children living on a garbage dump near Moscow directed by Oscar-nominated filmmaker Hanna Polak and produced by Sigrid Dyekjær of Danish Documentary. Something Better to Come won the Special Jury Award at the IDFA documentary festival, where the film had premiered.
Retouch is an Iranian short film directed by Kaveh Mazaheri, which was co-produced by Kaveh Mazaheri and Iranian Youth Cinema Society (IYCS). The film is one of the most successful Iranian short films that won the Best Short Fiction Film Award from the Fajr Film Festival and the best international film festivals such as Tribeca, Krakow, Palm Springs, Stockholm, Ojai, Tirana and Traverse City. Retouch has enjoyed a successful film festival run, winning at three Oscar qualifying film festivals, including: Tribeca Film Festival, Palm Springs Shortfest and the Krakow Film Festival.
Deborah Shaffer has a 50-year career as a documentary filmmaker.
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