School of Creative Technologies (CT)

My background and interests combine film theory and practice.  I currently teach contextual studies across the BA courses in Television and Film Production (TVFP) and Animation, as well as practical units on non-fiction filmmaking. In the past I taught for several years an MA course about Arab Cinemas in the School of Oriental Studies, University of London and a Film History course at Imperial College, London.

My research steams from a cultural studies approach to film. I am interested in the intersection of cinema and dominant discourses, economies of production and political and social environments. Thus far, both the documentary films I made and my academic research revolved around issues of identity, memory, migration and exile, primarily in Israel/Palestine. Theoretically, I place myself in the fields of Middle East Cinema, Transnational and Postcolonial studies and documentary theory and practice.

Current Research

I am currently working on a book based on my PhD. research: Outsiders Within: Palestinian Filmmaking in Israel. I also continue an on-going research about the Haredi (Ultra-Orthodox) cinema in Israel. Both of these topics are related to types of minority and counter-hegemonic cinema.

In addition, I am working in collaboration with Deborah Shaw on a wide scope research project entitled European Funders and World Cinema: transnational collaborations in film.

Current PhD Supervision^{[Back to top]}

Second Supervisor of Andy Russell, “East Asian Film and the World Cinema Fund” (Berlinale Film Festival). A PhD. which is tied with the research project:  European Funders and World Cinema: transnational collaborations in film.

Publications

PhD Thesis ^{[Back to top]}

Friedman, Y. (2010). Palestinian cinema in Israel: negotiating conflicting discourses. Unpub. Ph.D. thesis. London: University of Westminster.

Articles ^{[Back to top]}

Friedman, Y& Hakak, Y The Male body and Fantasies of Transgression in Haredi Action cinema, Jewish Film & New Media (forthcoming, Autumn 2013)).

Friedman, Y (2008) The View from Inside: Recent Palestinian Filmmaking in Israel The Jewish Quarterly No. 211, Autumn.58-60.

Friedman, Y. (2007). The camera and the national ethos: ‘The Battle of Jenin’ in current Palestinian cinema [Hebrew]. South Cinema Notebooks, 2 , 125-137.

Friedman, Y. (2006). There are no soldiers in this film. The Liberal, 9, 48.

Film Projects ^{[Back to top]}

The Twelve Mujahedin  (2006, 55’ documentary). (Researcher/production manager) Produced for Channel 1 television, Israel in association with the New Israeli Foundation for Cinema and Television. 

Promised Land  (2003, 55’ documentary), (Development of idea/co-director, production manager). Produced for Channel 2 television, Israel.

Under the Circumstances (2002, 22’ documentary) (Director/Producer)

Lectures (Guest/Plenary) ^{[Back to top]}

A series of lectures on Israeli cinema and running of Israeli Cinema Film club. London Jewish Cultural Centre (2003-2004).

“Minority cinema in Israel”. Limmudfest, August 2007.

"Inside-out: Filmmakers, filmmaking and the experience of minorities in Israel". Israeli Cinema Showcase, London Jewish Film Festival, 13 April 2008, ICA, London.

“Zionism, Ethnicity and Racism”, Eye on Palestine, Palestinian Film Festival, organized by Frede, Victoria Deluxe and Gent University's Middle East and North Africa Research group, 19 March 2010, Gent. 

Charing Q&A and Panel discussions in The London International Documentary Festival (LIDF) 2009 and the London Palestinian Film Festival 2010.

“Palestinian Filmmaking in Israel”: A public talk. Jewish Studies Department, SOAS, University of London. March 2011.

Conference Papers ^{[Back to top]}

‘Zionism and the National body in Haredi Cinema’.  Secularity and its Discontents: Religious Themes in Israeli Visual Culture.  Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, Cambridge Universit, 11-13 June 2013.

"The Traps of Transnational production contexts: the Palestine/Israel case".  Screen Conference, University of Glasgow  28-30 June 2013.

‘The Male body in Haredi Action cinema’. Meccsa Conference 2013: Spaces And Places of   Culture. 9-11 January, 2013 University of Ulster, Derry/Londonderry.

“Digital revolution, Orthodox Predicaments: Haredi Cinema in Israel”. Staging Illusion (8th-9th December 2011, University of Sussex, UK).

"Negotiations with the past in contemporary Palestinian filmmaking in Israel" (SCMS conference, March 2010, Los Angeles, USA).

“Politics of Self-representation: Young Palestinian filmmaking in Israel” Cinema, Identities and Beyond. (10 November 2006, St. Andrews University, Scotland).

 “Between the National and the International: strategies of production of Palestinian-Israeli filmmakers”. Internationalising Media Studies: Imperative and Impediments (15-16 September 2006, University of Westminster, London).

External Awards, Prizes and Funding ^{[Back to top]}

The Chevening Award, The British Council, (2001-2002) for MA in Documentary Film.

Overseas Research Scholarships Award, UK (2004- 2007) for PhD. Research.

 Research Scholarship, University of Westminster, School of Media, Art and Design (2004 –2007).

Editorial Boards and Professional Committee Memberships ^{[Back to top]}

Editorial Board Member and Review editor of Jewish Film & New Media: an International Journal published by Wayne University Press.