Fellowships

Micha LivneLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2023

Micha Livne has been an independent producer, camera man, video editor, and director since 1983. He has a graduate degree from Beit Zvi School of Performing Arts and Cinema in Ramat Gan, Israel. His most recent works include Moranov (2021) and Closed Story (2015), both of which were screened at the Docaviv Film Festival.

Ohad UfazLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2023

Ohad Ufaz is a filmmaker, film scholar and a Senior Lecturer at Oranim Academic College in Kiryat Tiv’on, Israel. He defended his dissertation, “Camera of Encounter: On the question of documenting and bearing the Other’s testimony in film” at Hebrew University in 2021. Since 1997, Ufaz has directed films that have been broadcast and screened internationally including The Boys from Lebanon (2008) and Going Dutch (2002).

Joshua GreeneLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2022

Joshua Greene is a Holocaust biographer whose books have sold more than a half million copies worldwide. He is the recipient of numerous awards for literary excellence and was honored by the New York Public Library’s Distinguished Authors series.

He is a frequent speaker at government, educational, religious and community venues.

His editorials on war crimes and Holocaust memory have appeared in The New York Times, The Chicago Tribune, and The Los Angeles Times, and he has been a consultant for National Public Radio and Fox News, among other national media.

Mr. Greene earned his graduate degrees at Hofstra University and has taught Holocaust history at Hofstra and Fordham Universities. He is also the producer of a dozen documentaries for PBS, Discovery, and a variety of overseas networks. His current book, Unstoppable: The Incredible Journey of Auschwitz Survivor Siggi B. Wilzig, sits on several bestseller lists.

Yulia Ruditskaya Laurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2022

Yulia Ruditskaya is a Brooklyn-based artist, animator and filmmaker. Born in Minsk, Belarus, her whimsical style of animation and illustration has been screened at festivals from Portugal to Japan, gaining wide recognition around the world. Since 2002, Yulia has worked as а director, animator, illustrator and designer for various independent projects for brands, musicians, educational and non-profit clients. Her work has included music videos, artistic and independent passion projects.

One of her recent projects, “Animators for Belarus,” included contributions from more than 50 animators from 19 different countries, all of whom wanted to show support for Belarusians in their peaceful protests for fair elections and freedom. The animators offered their interpretation of recent events in Belarus, creating the following dramatic chronicle: https://portal.eclat.org/exhibition/antiutopie-widerstand/animators-for-belarus/

Asaf GalayLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2021

Asaf Galay is an award-winning filmmaker whose documentaries examine the creativity of modern Jewish culture. His recently-completed documentary The Adventures of Saul Bellow will be screened as part of the PBS American Masters series. It was awarded a grant by the National Endowment for the Humanities and was a winner of the Library of Congress Lavine/Ken Burns Prize for Film.

He is currently directing and producing Cartooning America about one of the world’s most popular and controversial cartoon characters in the 1930s, Betty Boop. This film is also supported by the NEH. His celebration of kitsch pop music Army of Lovers in the Holy Land won top honors at the 2018 Haifa Film Festival. He also directed and produced The Muses of Bashevis Singer about the great Yiddish writer Isaac Bashevis Singer. His earlier films include The Hebrew Superhero which looks at comic book culture in Israel while Hasidistock is a “joyous and surprisingly profound” documentary on ultra-Orthodox Jewish pop singers.

Daphne GeismarLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2021

Daphne Geismar plans, designs, and produces books on art and history for museums and publishers including the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Museum of Modern Art, NY; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and Yale University Press. Her designs have won numerous awards from organizations such as the American Alliance of Museums, the Association of American University Presses (AAUP), The Association of Art Museum Curators, and the New England Book Show. She has been a juror for AAUP and the American Institute of Graphic Arts.

Geismar is the author and designer of Invisible Years. Published in 2020, it is a breathtaking and intimate portrait of her extended Jewish family living in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands. Through interwoven letters, diaries, and interviews, Geismar presents the story of nine family members—in there own words—alongside a trove of photographs and artifacts.

For her MFA in graphic design at Yale University, Geismar’s thesis project revealed new findings about Direction magazine—an anti-fascism periodical run by artists and writers at the outset of World War II. As an educator, Geismar developed and taught a photography and writing program for teenage mothers at Middlesex Hospital; she teaches book design at the University of Connecticut; and she has lectured and been a visiting critic in graphic design at a number of colleges and universities.

Joanne W. RudofLaurel Fox Vlock Filmmaker-in-Residence 2020

Joanne Weiner Rudof retired as the archivist at the Fortunoff Video Archive for Holocaust Testimonies, Yale University in September 2017 after thirty-three years.

She has written numerous articles, book chapters, and conference papers on Holocaust testimonies and been editor and producer of documentaries including Voices from the Yugoslav Holocaust, Remembering Częstochowa, Parallel Paths, and the award winning national PBS broadcast, Witness: Voices from the Holocaust for which she was co-editor of the book with the same title.

She has coordinated over twenty Holocaust testimony projects in North and South America, Europe, and Israel and advised others in initiating video testimony projects documenting genocide, oppression, and human rights violations. Rudof raised the funds and coordinated the digital conversion of over 10,000 hours of video testimonies recorded on obsolete formats. She was a 2019 recipient of an award from Lessons & Legacies and the Holocaust Education Foundation in recognition of her “Distinguished Contribution to Holocaust Education.” She edited the first three video testimonies recorded by the Holocaust Survivors Film Project for a public presentation on May 2, 2019 marking forty years since they had been recorded.