Special Guest Speakers Dani Menkin A writer, director and producer. Menkin created the Israeli Acadamy Award winner and short listed for the Oscars HBO/Cinemax documentary 39 Pounds of Love (usa, 2006). The film won many prestigious international film festival awards around the world. Menkin is currently teaching at Syracuse University as an artist in resident. His new film Dolphin Boy (co-directed with Yonatan Nir) is the winner of the Special Mention Award at the 2011 Jerusalem International Film Festival and is nominated for the Israeli Accademy Award. Menkin started his career as a sport reporter with Israeli television. He is a popular international guest lecturer who enjoys sharing his professional experience in making independent movies. Tal Goren Goren started as a political reporter for a Jerusalem newspaper, went on to become a coordinator at the Peres Peace Conference and continued as a researcher for the top political television show, "London & Kirshenbaum", on Israel's "Channel 10". In 2005, Goren moved to film production and established her own production company for corporate films and documentaries. "Family in Captivity", Goren's directorial debut, is the first time that Gilad Schalit's family, a central and galvanizing force in Israeli society, has opened itself to filmmakers. "Family in Captivity" was aired on TV in Israel last year and was described as "the most important movie of the year". Goren, age 33, Graduated communication and management from the College of Management in Tel Aviv. Tzipi Baider A film director and the head of the documentary department at Israel's Channel 10. Baider is responsible for all the singles and series broadcasted in Israel's Channel 10 and therefore is highly involved in the Israeli documentary industry. She is a filmmaker herself and her first work was based on her personal story as an adopted child. She has directed seven films among them "Just the Two of Us" which was a big success. She was nominated by Israel's "The Marker" magazine as one of the forty most promising young people of Israel. Tzipi, age 38, successfully combines these jobs with a third one: being a mother of four. Guy Nattiv Filmmaker Guy Nattiv was born in in Tel Aviv, Israel, where he currently resides. He graduated from the film & television department of "Camera Obscura" School of Arts, Tel Aviv in 2002. In less than five years of film making, Guy has completed two feature films and three acclaimed shorts. His films, "Mabul", "Strangers" & "Offside" (co-written & co-directed with Erez Tadmor) have received over 20 awards at international film festivals including The Crystal Bear at Berlin and Best Short at Sundance. His debut film, "Strangers" (co-written & co-directed with Erez Tadmor), has won international acclaim and participated in the 2008 official selection competition at Sundance Film Festival, Tribeca and many others. Guy's second feature, Mabul, won "Best Film" at the Haifa International Film Festival and was nominated for 6 Israeli academy awards. The feature also won "Best Israeli Supporting Actor" for 2010 and Special Mention Award in Berlin Film Festival 2011. Guy is currently preparing his third feature "Son of God" (with co-director Erez Tadmor) to be shot in Poland in 2011. Marco Carmel A TV and Cinema director in France and Israel. Born in France and has worked for Israeli Educational Television and Israel channel Two, where he directed TV shows, including 26 episodes of the beloved children's show Sesame Street. Among his last works: Father Footsteps, co production Israel-France with Gad Elmaleh, Yael Abecasis and Rchard Berry. From Tripoli to Bergen Belzen, documentary that tells the story og North African Jews in the second World War . My Lovely Sister won 2 Israeli Film Academy Awards and received 9 nominations the same year.