Prizes totaling $70,000 were awarded to promising new talents from around the world

The 12th edition of the Sam Spiegel International Film Lab awarded prizes to two outstanding projects this year. The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab $50,000 Grand Prize, donated by the Beracha Foundation was awarded to Who Lives There, by Omer Ben-David, Vera Grinblat, producer Estee Meckleberg, Israel.. The jury headed by Roland Teichmann, CEO of the Austrian Film Institute, stated “Through an unforgettable portrait of an adolescent learning to navigate the social corridors of her religious boarding school, Who Lives There explores the sacrifices we sometimes must make in the course of defending ourselves, and how we recover from them..”

The Sam Spiegel International Film Lab Emerging Filmmaker Award in the amount of $20,000 was granted to The Good Fence, by Hillel Rate producer Lev Orlov. The jury statement read: “The Good Fence portrays the conflicted relationship between a father and son in the settlements,  in the wake of a family tragedy. It avoids simple answers while looking unblinkingly at the most complex issues of our time.”.

The international jury consisting of Belgian producer Diana Elbaum; 30West co-president Daniel Steinman; and Roland Teichmann, the CEO of the Austrian Film Institute, were present for a hybrid pitching event that took place at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School’s central Jerusalem location.