Albi Institute influences the creative industries in Israel through pipeline programs that shift the context of creative production in Israel. With the realities of Israeli audiences and politics in mind, these programs seek to expand the space for critical voices in cultural production across fields and industries to thrive and be true vehicles for change.
CoPro Impact Lab
In partnership with the Gesher Multicultural Film Fund, Kayama Institute and Shatil. This lab aims to bring together documentary filmmakers and leading social activists around issues of urgent concern, to forge new coalitions and joint action which will yield positive impact and improve the world we live in. CoPro will select a group of documentary filmmakers who have projects focused on urgent global issues. Over six months, the participants are guided by experts in marketing, distribution, and policy change.
The pinnacle of the program is a live pitching event, where the filmmakers pitch their films and associated impact campaigns to a group of decision and policy makers including foundations, NGOs, campaigners, philanthropists, politicians, brands, and the media. The resulting partnerships enable the films to secure funding, widen audiences and ultimately increase their impact.
At the pitching event, selected projects are awarded an impact grant by Albi and the Gesher Fund. This grant is intended to kickstart their campaigns and bring them to life.
Selection of Works
Abortion in the Holy Land
director: Efrat Shalom Danon
producer: Osnat Trabelsi
In 2024 Israel, women still do not have the rights over their bodies. The narrative of abortions in Israel exposes the sexism and the patronage of men in the medical and political establishment, since the founding of the state until today. The Jewish womb carries a demographic-national role, and the women are merely the means. Through personal and archival stories, the gendered attitude towards women seeking to decide about their bodies and futures is revealed.
Impact producer- Mor Azulay
The First Lady
director: Udi Nir & Sagi Bornstein
producer: Udi Nir & Sagi Bornstein & Georg Tschurtschenthaler
Israeli transgender pioneer Efrat Tilma had to flee the country as a teenager. Now, as a celebrated activist in her seventies, she must fight for her rights once again, while the country spirals into political and social regression.
Impact producer- Roei Shaul Hillel
Strange Birds
director: Shakked Orbach
producer: Dan Shadur
A phone call wakes me up early in the morning. My older brother got into trouble. Again. After another entanglement, I realize that I can no longer ignore the problems that follow him around, and which seem to be taking over my life. I use the camera to get answers from my family and a wall of silence melts away. Through a mix of amusing, intense, and eye-opening encounters, I begin to understand how relations in my family, especially with my mother, were influenced by an unspoken expression - Autism. Strange Birds is an intimate film that reveals an unspoken story about special parenting, autistic parenting, and the children who grow up in its shadow.
Impact producer- Inbal-Roten Sagiv
The Children of San Simon
director: Shahar Gal Noor
producer: Mooly and Tslil Landesman
created by: Shahar Galnoor & Sima Shimony
Sima Shimony, age 69, embarks on a mission to find her friends and staff from the "ALYN" Institute for Children with Disabilities, that was situated in the secluded San-Simon monastery in Jerusalem, in the 1960's. Armed with a small camcorder attached to her wheelchair she sets on a journey together with her friend Pini Newirth to unfold and reclaim the story of the children on the Polio epidemic. Growing up together as equals, suffering excruciating medical procedures with no family at their side, forged a group of remarkable people with disabilities who eventually launched the Disability-Rights movement in Israel. An uproarious and charming depiction of seniors with disabilities navigating their golden years with candid humor and zest.
Impact producer- Yael Yakirevich
Hot Spot
director: Karin Kainer
producer: Ananey Studio
A five-year intimate worldwide coming-of-age journey of a remarkable group of teenagers, some from enemy nations, begins at a controversial boarding school amidst a war zone. There, they contend with love, loss, and national conflict. What will happen to their relationship after graduation when they enter the complex reality?
Impact producer- Einat halevi Levin
The Smugglers
director: Tony Copty, Yaniv Berman
producer: Tony Copty, Yaniv Berman
Michel El-Raheb owns a bookstore café in Jaffa, a city where Arabic texts are difficult to come by. In his quest to provide Arabic books to public, Michel discovers that their absence is not accidental, but by design of the Hebrew state.
Impact Producer – Rami Fahel
Whitewash
director: Yonatan Nir, Gavin Thurston, Andy Byatt
producer: Sipur & Amberjack Films
through intimate nature stories paired with cutting-edge research, Whitewash will reveal the secret conflicts of this extraordinary realm, the narrow meeting point of three continents, home to unique and endemic wildlife, epic mountains, broadleaved forests, salt lakes, Mediterranean scrubland, coniferous forests, and marine habitats unlike anywhere else on Earth.
Impact Producer – Roy Kimhi
The Freedom Project
director: Efrat Lachter
producer: Michal Weits
Girls are considered cheap in Malawi. You can buy one for just $100. So, how much does it cost tosave a young girl and offer her a glimmer of hope? Is that even something money can buy?
Impact Producer – Maayan Ehrlich
Kiki
director: Natan Rushansky
producer: Daroma Productions
After being kicked out from every available youth-at-risk framework, and after facing criminal charges for drug trafficking and violence, Kiki is about to enter a youth prison by court order. Gal, his sister, manages to convince the authorities to give Kiki one last chance.
Gal is a caregiver for youth-at-risk in a framework that takes youth on experiential, therapeutic field trips through the desert.
Gal and her co-workers take Kiki on a field trip to the desert. She is determined to succeed where everyone else has failed. Will the journey enable Kiki to grow and to take responsibility for his own fate?
Impact Producer – Zohar Galil
In the Name of the Father
director: Bat Dor Ojalbo, Gal Goffer
producer: Yoav Leshem
Docs for Change - In partnership with Makor Foundation
Supporting the development process of impact documentaries that deal with burning social and political issues.
Selection of Works
Death in Umm Al-Hiran
director: Doron Djerassi
producer: Rafael Balulu, Emmanuel Berrebi
Death in Umm Al-Hiran” tells one of the most shocking and significant stories that happened in Israel in the last decade, as it reveals the mechanisms behind the killing and defaming of Yaqoub Abu Al-Qia’an, a Bedouin teacher who died at the hands of the police during an eviction raid. For the first time, the film will consistently and comprehensively reveal one of the most tragic and political affairs ever to have occurred in Israel between the Bedouin population and the State of Israel.
Nurses
director: Israela Shaar-Meoded
producer: Stav Meron
A detective film tracing the fate of Yedida, the lost baby, through the testimonies of the nurses, doctors, and caregivers who worked in the baby wards and hospitals in the 1950s and 1960s. For the first time, the Yemenite Children Affair will be unraveled from an institutional perspective.
Ginzey Ha Melech
director: Udi Kalinsky
producer: Udi Kalinsky
The film is following the daily life at a Haredi Talmud Torah in Safed, capturing scenes and interviews. The film features students, teaching staff, and the principal, Michal Lieberman, an extraordinary woman. Against all odds, Michal established the Talmud Torah, turned it into a state-recognized school, and made it inclusive by accepting all children, regardless of their challenges. She boldly manages the school despite significant opposition due to her being a woman. The film highlights the unique aspiration of "Genazai HaMelech" to maintain strict Haredi education while fostering controlled openness and participation in Israeli society in all sectors, including national and military service. This is Michal Lieberman's vision: a Haredi Talmud Torah educating students to be productive members of Israeli society.
Living in the Shadow of Death
director: Bilal Yousef
producer: Avni Mannes
With daily acts of gun violence and over 100 civilians killed each year since 2019, life in Israel’s Arab communities is unbearable. The filmmaker, unable to provide his young family with a basic notion of security, embarks on a journey to understand the limited options he has left.
The Eclipse (The Battle of Balfour)
director: Doron Tsabari
producer: Doron Tsabari
The film follows the protests at Balfour against Netanyahu's government, continuing the coverage into the year of the judicial overhaul and the protest movement that arose in response. The catastrophe led by Netanyahu and his government on October 7th is the final note.
Podium (You Have Three Minutes)
director: Rachel Leah Jones
producer: Philippe Bellaiche
Since Israel was established and its legislature -- the Knesset -- first convened, Palestinian lawmakers have served alongside Jewish ones. Be they communists, liberals, nationalists, or Islamists — every Palestinian parliamentarian steps up to the podium with pain, frustration, anger, and hope. Yet most of their words fall on deaf ears. Were we to listen to a collection of 3-minute speeches by these parliamentarians, what would we hear? A hungry appeal for a rightful place at the table of governance, sovereignty, and self-determination rather than the carrot, the stick, and the civil rights crumbs begrudgingly and conditionally swept off of it.
The Smugglers
director: Tony Copti & Yaniv Berman
producer: Tony Copti & Yaniv Berman
Michel George El-Raheb owns a small bookshop and café in the city of Jaffa called Yafa Cafe. Facing mounting challenges in running the shop, he calls upon his nephew, film producer Tony Copti, to partner with him. While looking to buy books for the shop, Tony ends up on an eye-opening journey that forces him and his uncle to become book smugglers. The process brings him to question where Jaffa’s books have disappeared after the 1948 war surrounding Israel’s creation, known to Palestinians as the Nakba.
“The Smugglers” is an absurd reflection of Israel’s ongoing oppression of Arabic language and Palestinian culture.
Flagship Artists
Impact Campaigns
Documentary Incubator
Palestinian Creatives Pipeline