Biography
Peabody Award-winning, four-time Emmy-nominated director and producer. Founder of Medalia Productions, a creative documentary production company operating in Israel and in the U.S. Hilla is a member of the American Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, and a board member at the Israeli Director's Guild and The Israeli Academy of Film and Television. Hilla is a mentor for the NFCT's Business Card Program for Emerging Filmmakers, she is a mentor at programs such as Dok Incubator and Ex-Oriente, she acts as lector and judge at film festivals and fora. Hilla has been awarded the Paris Human Rights Festival Jury Award, Golden Warsaw Phoenix, as well as the jury award at FIPA and more. She is a regular lecturer at The NY Film Academy, NYU, EWA (European Women's Audiovisual Network) and the New Fund for Cinema's Women Greenhouse on the subject of production, directing and crowd-funding. Her films have garnered critical acclaim and screened internationally in theaters and on television including HBO, MTV, BBC and ARTE. Her range of titles include:
"Transkids" (2019 Dir. Hilla Medalia) Four Israeli teenagers undergo the process of life- and identity-saving gender transformation in a country where military service is mandatory and Orthodox Judaism is the law. The series was broadcast on yes Docu and the first of five episodes was viewed over 271,000 times on YouTube in Israel alone. "Leftover Women" (2019 Dir. Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam) Leftover Women is how the Chinese describe educated women in their mid-twenties or beyond who are still single. With extraordinary access, the film follows three remarkable women on a quest to find Mr. Right before society deems them Leftover. The film premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, screened at HotDocs and at Docaviv where it won the awards for best editing and best directing. "The Oslo Diaries" (2018, Dir. Mor Loushy and Daniel Sivan), In 1992, Israeli-Palestinian relations reach an all-time low. In an attempt to stop the blood-shed, a group of Israelis and Palestinians meet illegally in Oslo. These meetings were never officially sanctioned and held in complete secrecy. They changed the Middle East forever. Premiered at Sundance and was acquired by HBO. 'Muhi - Generally Temporary' (2017, Dir. RinaCastelnuovo-Hollander and Tamir Elterman), Muhi, a brave and spirited boy from Gaza has been living in an Israeli hospital for seven years. Caught between two homes and two peoples, Muhi is unable to return to Gaza. He is raised in paradoxical circumstances that transcend identity, religion and the conflict that divides his world. His time at the hospital is running out and Muhi now faces the most critical choices of his life. Premiered at the San Francisco Film Festival, screened at Hot Docs, AFI and Docaviv where it won the best debut film award. 'Censored Voices' (2015 Dir. Mor Loushy), a documentary about hidden recordings from the Six Day War, has premiered in 2015 at the Sundance Film Festival and screened at Berlinale - Panorama, Hot Docs, IDFA, BFI London, among others. It has won the Israeli Oscar for best documentary and has been released theatrically in the U.S. and Europe. "Web Junkie" (2014 Dir. Hilla Medalia and Shosh Shlam) dealing with Internet Addiction in China, which she co-directed and produced, premiered at the 2014 Sundance Film Festival and has been acquired by the B.B.C. and released in the U.S. and Canada. "The Go Go Boys" (2014 Dir. Hilla Medalia), the inside story of Cannon Films, Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus, premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. "Dancing in Jaffa" (2013. Dir Hilla Medalia) is a hopeful portrait following ballroom dancer Pierre Dulaine as he returns to his home town to teach 150 Jewish and Palestinian eleven-year-olds how to move gracefully together. "Dancing in Jaffa" premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, won the editing award at DocAviv and the «Honorary One Future» award at the Munich Film Festival and six Audience Awards. "Dancing in Jaffa" was released theatrically in the U.S., France and Germany, and participated in the Sundance Institute Film Forward program. For her documentary "After the Storm" (2009, MTV), Hilla won an Audience Award at the Woodstock Film Festival and the Crystal Heart Award at the Heartland Festival. Past projects include "Happy You're Alive" (Channel 1, Israel) and "Numbered" (yes Docu) which won the Silver Hugo at the Chicago International Film Festival and "Best Debut Documentary" at the Israeli Documentary Awards. Hilla has explored the fraught relationship between Jews and Palestinians in her film "To Die in Jerusalem" (2007, HBO), about two teenagers killed in a suicide bombing Hilla holds an M.A. from Southern Illinois University.
