Noshing With Yonatan Nir – January 26, 2023

Ira's Everything Bagel

Award-winning documentary film producer and director

Director, The Essential Link: The Story of Wilfrid Israel

This week, Ira spoke with award-winning documentary film producer and director Yonatan Nir. In this documented episode of Ira’s Everything Bagel, Yonatan talks about connecting with people through film; how reality is created through documentaries; the importance of DocuTherapy; growing from pain; how he discovered Wilfrid Israel’s amazing story of saving thousands of Jewish lives in Nazi Germany and turned it into a documentary; and why the story was not well known and why it deserves to be told.

Yonatan’s debut film, “Dolphin Boy”, premiered at HotDocs and received, among other awards, the Jury Mention Award at the Jerusalem Film Festival and Woodstock Film Festival, as well as First Prize at the World Festival for Underwater Images. It was nominated for the Israeli Academy Awards; the International Green Film Awards (Cinema For Peace); the Mind Media Awards and was acquired by Disney Pictures.

Yonatan Nir’s film “My Hero Brother” was the first and only documentary to win both Best Documentary Award and Audience Choice Award at the Santa Barbara International Film Festival. ​ In 2017, Yonatan Nir won the International Director of the Year Award at the DocEdge Film Festival.

During the past decade, his projects have been screened by significant broadcasters such as ARTE, France Televisions, NDR/ARD, NHK, DR, AVROTROS, Channel 4, and many more.

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