Sponsor Luncheon 2019
The ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL in Los Angeles, the largest showcase of Israeli films in the U.S., is launched its 33rd edition by hosting a Sponsor Luncheon honoring the legendary Roger Corman, Keshet Media Group’s Avi Nir, and Oscar-winning Israeli filmmaker Guy Nattiv.
Nir, the CEO of Keshet Media Group, the largest television broadcasting operator in Israel and a global content, distribution and production force, has been named the recipient of the 2019 IFF Visionary Award. Corman, the legendary film producer, and director, will receive the 2019 IFF Lifetime Achievement Award. Nattiv will be honored with the 2019 IFF Achievement in Film Award. The Sponsor Luncheon will take place on Thursday, June 13th at the Beverly Hilton in Beverly Hills.
FLTR Avi Nir, Roger Coreman, Meir Fenigstein, Guy Nattiv, Jamie Ray Newman © Michelle Mivzari 
FLTR Rick Rosen, Orly Adelson, Meir Fenigstein © Todd Williamson – January Images 
33IFF Sponsor Luncheon © Pal Photography 
FLTR Joe Dante, Roger Corman © Pal Photography 
FLTR Guy Nattiv, Avi Nir, Meir Fenigstein, Roger Corman © Pal Photography 
FLTR Meir Fenigstein, Guy Nattiv, Jamie Ray Newman, Charles B. Wessler © Pal Photography
“We are so proud to honor two distinguished individuals, who made a difference in the world of film and television in the United States, in Israel and around the world. We also recognize our amazing sponsors who, thanks to their support, we can promote the best of Israeli cinema & culture in America,” noted Fenigstein.
Avi Nir, the CEO of Keshet Media Group and an Executive Producer (Homeland, The A Word, Tyrant), has built Israel’s dominant broadcaster into a major global TV, film and digital media force. Known for its innovative approach to both business and content, including many critical and popular hits, Keshet has become an overachiever in the US with Keshet Studios landing as the top non-major independent studio this pilot season following two series orders at NBC (Lincoln) and ABC (The Baker and the Beauty), as well as projects with HBO, Apple, Netflix and others.
Its first feature film, The Sound of Silence, was picked up by IFC in the U.S. and Sony Pictures Worldwide Acquisitions internationally ahead of its premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. Since taking the helm in 2002, nine years after joining Keshet, Nir has been honored as one of the Variety 500 annually, “Most Influential Person in Israeli Culture” and “Television Personality of the Decade,” among others.
For the past 60 years, producer and director Roger Corman has been a trailblazer. The “Godfather of Independent Film,” he is best known for his guerrilla-style filmmaking for over 400 pictures that have tackled a variety of genres. Notable credits include Little Shop of Horrors, The Wild Angels, The Pit and the Pendulum, Death Race 2000, House of Usher and Rock ‘n’ Roll High School.
Noted for his keen ability to spot young talent, perhaps Corman’s most lasting legacy is the legion of talent he has discovered including directors James Cameron, Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Jonathan Demme, Joe Dante, Peter Bogdanovich, John Sayles, Amy Jones; actors Jack Nicholson, Charles Bronson, Sylvester Stallone, Sandra Bullock, Robert De Niro, Bryan Cranston, Will Ferrell, Tommy Lee Jones, Mila Kunis, Lisa Kudrow, Bruce Dern, Peter Fonda, David Carradine, Robert Patrick, Paul Bettany, Dennis Quaid, Talia Shire and producers Jon Davison and Gale Anne Hurd.
In the 1970s, Corman founded New World Pictures, which quickly became the largest independent motion picture distribution company in the United States. In addition to distributing his own productions, New World Pictures was one of the first American distributors to bring foreign cinema to the US; distributing the films of Akira Kurosawa, Francois Truffaut, Federico Fellini, Ingmar Bergman, and Werner Herzog.
In 2005, Corman received the David O. Selznick Achievement Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures at the Producers Guild of America Awards and in 1998, he won the first Producer’s Award ever given by the Cannes Film Festival. In 2009, Corman received an Honorary Oscar.
Guy Nattiv is an Academy Award winning filmmaker from Israel. His first American short film, Skin, won the 2019 Academy Award® for Best Live Action Short. The feature version, also entitled Skin, stars Jamie Bell, and premiered at the 2018 Toronto film festival, where it won the Fipresci Critics Prize. It played the Berlinale, along with Tribeca, and will be distributed globally by A24 and Voltage Pictures summer 2019.
Nattiv’s first feature, Strangers (co-directed with Erez Tadmor), was in competition at the Sundance and Tribeca film festivals. His second feature, The Flood, won the Generations Prize at the Berlinale in 2012 and was nominated for six Ophir Awards. Magic Men, his third feature, (codirected with Erez Tadmor) also won the Ophir Award for Best Actor.
For 33 years, the ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL has presented more than 1,000 feature films, documentaries, television dramas and short films to close to one million filmgoers and brought hundreds of Israeli filmmakers to the U.S. to share their art. The ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL is produced by IsraFest Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization created in 1982. Among the Sponsors of the 33rd ISRAEL FILM FESTIVAL in Los Angeles are long-time partners Millennium Films, Adelson Family Foundation, The Hollywood Reporter, Israel Film Fund, Pacific Holdings, Annenberg Foundation, Variety, Rabinovich Foundation, LOT Polish Airlines, INSYNC Plus, Screen International, Bank Leumi, The Orlando Hotel and the Consulate General of Israel, Los Angeles, to name a few.