2025 Utopia Festival - Guests

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.

Ziv Kitaro

Creative DIrector at Funfacters

Israel

Game Creator, Writer, Devoted Sci-Fi lover, Creative Director at Funfacters.

Emanuel Yitzchak Levi

Poet, Musician, Author

Israel

Poet and musician ("Emmanuel and the Yearnings"). His debut poetry book (“The Sun Sings to Melchior”, Hava La’or Publishing, 2020) has awarded him the Minister of Culture's Prize for Poets in their Early Career.

Eran Hadas

Poet, programmer and media artistRetry

Israel

Poet, programmer and media artist. Co-founder of the Digital Media track at Tel Aviv University and lecturer there, at the School of Visual Theatre Jerusalem, and in other frameworks.

Sarah Blau

Digital artist, lecturer and researcher of technology and art

Israel

Israeli author and playwright, She won the Levi Eshkol's Prize for Hebrew Literature in 2015.

Oded Wolkstein

Translator, Editor, Dr.

Israel

Translator, lecturer, editor, and here and there also a writer. I served as an editor at Keter Publishing, and currently I am also chief editor at the Institute for Translation.

Yonatan Gotlib

Filmmaker, actor, founder of Limbo Cinema

Israel

Writer/director, social media influencer with over 20K followers, news anchor at Ynet, founder of Cinema Limbo, television actor.

Bar Hayun

Content Expert, Israel Space Agency

Content Expert at the Israel Space Agency, lecturer, and creator and host of the podcasts “Kol Hayekum” (for ISA) and “Space Agent” (for KAN).

Eli Keller

Assistant Prof., History and Theory of Architecture, Faculty of Architecture and Town Planning, Technion

Israel

Architect, architectural historian and researcher. In his work, Eli explores the historical and conceptual relationships between technological advancements and speculative, utopian and dystopian architectural imaginations.

Danny Lerner

Writer-Director

Israel

Director, Screenwriter and film-lecturer. Wrote and directed FROZEN DAYS (winner of Best Film award at Haifa Film Festival), THE ASSASSIN NEXT DOOR, THE MINISTER WHO BECAME A SPY and HOMESICK (currently in post-production).

Nadav Aronowicz

Director, screenwriter, producer

Israel

Israeli film director, writer & producer. His directing credits include March '19, The Altman Method and The Glory of Defeat.

Eran May-Raz

Filmmaker

Israel/USA

Filmmaker, content creator and VFX artist.

Omer Tobi

Director

Israel

Tobi’s works have been presented and awarded at many festivals, including Sundance, Karlovy Vary, Locarno, AFI, Jerusalem and Haifa. Tropicana is his first feature film.

David Tauber

Writer and director

Israel

Jerusalem-based filmmaker and screenwriter, married and a father of four. He has written and directed several short films.

Asaf Asulin

Screenwriter/Director

Israel

An Israeli screenwriter and director, born in 1984. His debut feature film, "Horse with No Name", released in April 2025.