עברית

2025 Utopia Festival

Inconceivable!

2025

29.12.2025-03.01.2026

Imagination is not a luxury, it is a necessity!

The Program

International Jury

Olga Gershenson

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Shorts Competition | Professor of Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies and Film Studies at Amherst UMASS

USA/Israel

Professor of Jewish Studies and Near Eastern Studies and Film Studies at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Keren Omry

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Shorts Competition | Researcher & Lecturer, University of Haifa

Israel

Science Fiction scholar in the English Department, University of Haifa.

Léonard Altmann

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Features Competition | Festivals Manager - Charades

France

Graduated from Essec and ESCP, Leonard worked at Studiocanal Australia, Iconoclast in Los Angeles and Vendôme Films in Paris. He joined Charades as Festivals Manager in 2022.

Omer Harel

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Shorts Competition | Director, Screenwriter and producer

Israel

A 33-year-old filmmaker from Tel Aviv and graduate of the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School. Writer and director of ReFeel, winner of the short film section at the 2021 Utopia Film Festival.

Alexander Vinnitski

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Features Competition | Partner / next2miles

USA/Israel

Film and tv producer with over 18 years of experience and a producing partner of the actress Anna Faris. He also teaches Independent Film Financing at UCLA.

Isaac Ezban

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Features Competition | Filmmaker

Mexico

His first film The Incident (2014) premiered at Cannes and 50 more festivals, gaining support from Del Toro. His second film The Similars (2015) won Best Latinamerican Film at Sitges, making him the first Mexican with two films in two straight years in Fantastic Fest and Sitges. He then got hired by BRON Studios to direct Parallel (2018), first English spoken film, broke box office records with Mal De Ojo (2022), his first full horror entry, and just premiered his new movie Párvulos (2024) at Fantasia, Fantastic Fest and Sitges.

Saul Judd

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Shorts Competition | Curator and Programmer

Germany

Independent film and media/video-art programmer and curator & part of the programming team for the LICHTER Frankfurt International Film Festival, where he is head of the LICHTER Art Award and Programmer/Curator for the LICHTER International short film program.

Addie Reiss

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Shorts Competition | C³PO / Digital Nation Entertainment

USA/Israel

From cinematographer to 4D capture expert, Addie Reiss builds the real-life 'holodeck'—creating star-studded holograms for Digital Nation Entertainment's studio in LA.

Hilla Vidor

Utopia 2025 Jury, “Local Orbit” Features Competition | Actress

Israel

Film actress, working in Israeli and international cinema, exploring complex female characters and questions of identity and transition.

Special Guests and Participants

Tsila Hassine

Shmoogle, Founder & CEO .PhD researcher at the Art & Media Lab, The Sorbonne. Senior lecturer, Shenkar.

Hassine is an artist, lecturer and researcher. Her creative work was exhibited at the Jerusalem Science Museum, the Tel-Aviv Center for Contemporary Art, the Berlin Transmediale, Van Abbemuseum (Eindhoven), Gasworks (London), Maxxi, the Venice Biennale, and more. As of 2019 She is the founder and CEO of the early stage ArtUp “Shmoogle: Search Different, Think Different."

Boaz Armoni

Utopia Association | Filmmaker

Israel

Film maker, military horror “Freak Out” (2015), musical comedy “The Electrifiers” (2019)

Eitan Gafny

Film Director & Author

Israel

Film director who pioneered Hebrew Horror. He's also a published author and a nice person in general, with a terrible fear of cockroaches.

Pablo Utin

Film researcher, journalist and critic

Israel

Film Scholar and critic, Author of 3 books on Israeli Cinema and has a passion for teleporting which he can't currently pursue for lack of proper technology.

Mushon Zer-Aviv

Designer and Educator in Shenkar College, GA member of A Land For All

Israel

Designer and educator in Shenkar College, GA member of A Land For All

Nadav Neuman

Writer focusing on the history and philosophy of ideas, Head of Education at Sapienship

Israel

A writer focused on the surprising connections between strange things - technology, psychedelia, science fiction, mysticism and esoterica, cute animals and strange peoples.

Oren Zuckerman

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) researcher and designer, Director of miLAB, Reichman University’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications

Israel

HCI (Human-Computer Interaction) researcher and designer, Reichman University’s Sammy Ofer School of Communications, Head of HCI MA program, Director of miLAB.

Gali Golan

Utopia Association | SF Enthusiast, Researcher and Speaker

Israel

Amateur lecturer with academic pretensions on all things SF and Fantasy, for over 20 years.

Hadas Erel

Head of Social HRI research, milab, Reichman University

Israel

Prof. Hadas Erel, Head of the Human-Robot Interaction research in the media innovation lab at Reichman University.

The Festival Team

Tamar Lieberson

Utopia 2025, Head Festival Producer | Film and Events Producer

Israel

Producer working across film and festival contexts, involved in creative processes and professional collaborations.

Barak Stern

Utopia 2025, Festival Producer | Screenwriter, director, and producer

Screenwriter, director, and producer. A graduate of the Film Department at Minshar for Art.

Ohad Ephrath

Utopia 2025, Screenings & Technical Director | Video producer and editor, tech director at numerous Israeli film festivals

Video producer and editor working as tech director for numerous Israeli film festivals.

Yuval Adar

Head of programing, Utopia IFFF

Israel

A member of the Utopia Festival team for the past 11 years, Adar serves as a curator, content editor, and producer.

Michael Plutno

Program Coordinator, Local Orbit - Israeli Film Program, Utopia | Documentary director and photographer

מרכז תכנית הקולנוע הישראלית, אוטופיה 2025 | במאי וצלם דוקומנטרי

Documentary filmmaker and film theorist, photographer.

Jonathan Kopievker

Festival Programming Team, Magazine Editorial Board, Utopia | Writer and film critic, producer, editor

Cultural researcher, content editor, and film critic at Portfolio Magazine. Has lived and breathed cinema from a young age and lives as someone who writes to find meaning.

Itamar Heifetz

Art Director & Designer, Utopia magazine, events & festival | Artist, Graphic Designer, Typographer

Israel

Artist, graphic designer, typographer, with expertise in typographic and calligraphic design, alongside design for the arts & culture worlds.

Erika Mejia

Magazine Editorial Producer, Website Editor, Utopia | Mejia holds a PhD in Hebrew Literature and is a multilingual translator (Spanish, Hebrew, English, and French)

Israel/Palestine

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Yaara Better Pocker

Digital and Social Marketing, Utopia magazine, events & festival | Content Creator, Producer

Israel

Yaara Better Pocker is a writer, producer and a cliche of herself.

Gil Rimon

Tech Editor, Utopia Website | Web developer, writer

Israel / Portugal

Web developer, writer

Rina Jean Baroukh

Utopia Magazine Co-Editor, Events and Festival Programming Team, Utopia | Literature researcher, writer, translator, editor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and in the Be'er Sheva Writer's House, Editor of the literary magazine "Speculation"

Literature researcher, writer, translator, editor, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, and in the Be'er Sheva Writer's House, Editor of the literary magazine "Speculation".

Hadas Daniel

Festival International Programming Team, Utopia 2025 | Former manager and curator of the "Documentary at Shapira" film project

Cinephile, MA student in Cinema Studies. Former manager and curator of “Documentary at Shapira” project.

Amital Stern

Festival Programming Team, Magazine Editorial Board, Utopia | Stern writes for and about film, theater, and other arts & culture texts

Amital Stern writes film, theater and other texts. She teaches experimental writing workshops.

Tal Sara Meiri

Festival International Programming Team, Utopia | Creative and Technical Producer, Culture Researcher & DJ

Artistic director and film curator., Music, film and culture researcher, DJ and actress.

Yotam Dobrin

Festival International Programming Team, Utopia 2025 | Film Critic

Film programmer, co-founder of the Instagram page “The 4th Wall”, film critic at the websites “Seret” and “Geeklopedia”.

Yanai Sened

Festival Programming Team, Magazine Editorial Board, Utopia | Doctoral Student at Fordham University, New York City

Israel

Yanai Sened is an (ex) Programmer, (ex) Teacher, and philosophy PhD candidate, Fordham University, New York City.

Gili Porat

Film producer, curator and researcher

Israel

Film producer, curator and researcher. Porat is the Holon Cinematheques producer and co-founder of the "Trashtalk" podcast, alongside Shani Kiniso.

Dana Tor

Researcher and writer in the field of Psychoanalysis

Researcher and writer in the field of Psychoanalysis, holder of Master's degree in English Literature from TAU, in Lacanian psychoanalytic formation.

Yuval Ofer

Artistic Consultant, Utopia Magazine, Events and Film Festival | Producer, Writer, Creative, Curator, DJ and Redhead by Choice

Producer, content writer and curator, DJ and activist. Former journalist and news-editor. Ofer is a member of the Utopia magazine editorial board and an artistic consultant for the film festival.

Uri Aviv

Director, Utopia Festival & Association | Arts & Culture Project Management and Production, Program Curation, Artistic Consultancy, Speaker and Writer | Science Fiction Evangelist

Director of the Utopia Festival for Science Fiction and Future Story-telling. As the Promethean Consultancy, program curator, PMO, artistic consultant and producer, writer and speaker on topics of technology and society, science fiction and the future.