ABOUT
Our company
Yoav Shamir Films is a boutique documentary film production company founded in 2010 by award-winning director Yoav Shamir.
Yoav has a successful decade-long career behind him as a director, cinematographer and producer of multi award-winning films such as:
"Checkpoint" (2003), a film documenting the checkpoints the Israel Defense Forces man in the Palestinian Territories. This break-out film received the Grand Prize "Joris Evens" Award at IDFA, the Grand Prize at Hot Docs, the Grand Prize at the International San Francisco Film Festival and screened in over 150 film festivals worldwide.
"5 Days" (2006), an action film documenting the 2005 Israeli disengagement from Gaza was shot simultaneously with 9-film crews. The film was subsequently screened in more than 15-countries and was honored with a Grand Prize nomination at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival.
"Flipping Out" (2007), documented the lives of ex-Israeli soldiers trying to decompress in India after their military service showing the effects of warfare on young minds. The film was screened at Berlinale in 2007.
"Defamation" (2009), sought the answer to the question of - 'What is Antisemitism today?', and uncovered some hard truths along the way. The film screened at Berlinale 2009 and won the Grierson Award at the London Film Festival, the Jury Prize at the Tribeca Film Festival, the Best Documentary Feature Film prize at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards and the grand prize at the Florence Film Festival amongst countless others.
“10%- What Makes a Hero” (2013), Executive Produced by Michael Moore is a compelling documentary feature film about the minority of people who will always do what is JUST regardless of circumstance.
10% is an entertaining and insightful international quest, exploring the notion of heroism through a multi-faceted lens. From ordinary heroes to freedom fighters, primates to humans, behavioral scientists to geneticists, even Ayn Rand to Raelians, Shamir leaves no stone unturned, and along the way unveils the fundamental truths of human nature.
"Late Bloomers" (2018). A four-part documentary series about a diverse group of retirees who exemplify in their own unique ways a saying attributed to George Bernard Shaw: Youth is wasted on the young. The inspiring life stories of the participants and their candid views about retirement and the effects of age on their bodies, love life and dreams are often surprising, humorous and hopeful.
"The Prophet and the Space Aliens" (2020), Follows Rael, who after an alleged encounter with extraterrestrials - that appointed him the "last prophet" - became the founder and leader of the world’s biggest UFO religion.
Upon receiving a mysterious invitation, award-winning director Yoav Shamir recruits one of the world’s leading historians of religion, Prof. Daniel Boyarin, as his mentor and sets off on a thought-provoking, humorous quest.
The story of this modern day prophet and his ambitious attempts to venture into new territories in search of loyal followers, sheds light on the many themes and questions that religion and faith lay bare.
Our team
Yoav Shamir
Director
Based in Tel-Aviv, Yoav Shamir is an accomplished award-winning documentary director, producer and cinematographer in film and television. His work reflects his passion to probe and uncover difficult and polarizing subject matter through an observational lens, delivering penetrating and ethically challenging interviews with an accessible charm, which entertains and appeals to a broad audience.
Yoav Shamir’s films have screened at international film festivals, and were broadcast onThe following channels internationally: Arte/ZDF, VPRO, BBC, Channel 4, Sundance Channel, ITVS, SBS Australia, CBC Canada, SVT, DR1, Israeli Channel 2, Israeli Channel 1, Israeli Channel 8, France 5, and Canal+.
His critically acclaimed Award winning s documentary feature films include Marta & Luis (2001), Checkpoint (2003), 5 Days (2005), Flipping Out (2007) and Defamation (2009).
Yoav Shamir graduated from Tel-Aviv University with a Bachelor of Arts in history and philosophy, and a Masters in Fine Arts in Cinema.
Yoav has recently decided to expand his career from a Director and Cinematographer into a Production Company providing a variety of production services focused on producing high-quality factual content as well as act as a consultancy service for filmmakers who can benefit from Yoav Shamir's vast production experience.
Tanya Aizikovich
Producer
Tanya Aizikovich graduated from Bezalel Academy of Art and Design with a
Bachelor of Arts in Photography and Video (2005), and from Tel Aviv
University with a Masters in Fine Arts in Film (2009). Her directing debut ‘Veterans’ was part of the documentary film competition at the 2013 Jerusalem Film Festival.
She has been working as producer and cinematographer on a number of documentaries directed by acknowledged filmmakers as well as with numerous human rights organizations.
Tanya joined Yoav Shamir Films in 2009 and is the DOP and co-producer of Yoav Shamir’s “10%- What Makes A Hero?”, and is currently co-producing his new film.
Our Philosophy
“We only make films that we would like to watch”
At Yoav Shamir Films we believe in extensive research and working in small multi-disciplinary teams. We are a one stop film shop - from pre to post-production - we research, write, produce, direct and edit. Filmmaking is the storytelling language that we believe in and we strive to create the the highest quality end product.
In recent years we expanded our services and besides producing our own films we provide production services.
We are a highly experienced team - fluent in Hebrew, Arabic, English, Russian and Spanish - that can provide a variety of production services to suit all customer needs in Israel and the Palestinian Territories. Among our Clients are: PBS, DR1, VPRO, TV Catalunya and many more.
We contribute reports on a regular basis to Dutch VPRO, and Produced a series of reports to Amnesty International.
We also Produce commercial videos, and among our clients are: Siemens and Kuper.
Yoav Shamir is also available for speaking engagements and to run filmmaking workshops worldwide. His latest lecture series took him to Hamburg, Boston, Washington, Cape Town, London and Seoul.
"Truth has a certain Aura,
which does makes a difference!”
– Yoav Shamir
Awards
