A hundred years ago, women pioneers came from Europe to Palestine to realize the dream of creating a new woman in a new world, a woman who was as independent as a man. The women pioneers left diaries and texts which tell their stories. Their writings shed new light on the archival footage of the time.
The Women Pioneers uncovers the story of a group of women, their passionate battles and painful disappointments, until their defeat and surrender of their own liberation for the national struggle.
NIF Film Club discussed this film with NIF’s VP of Public Engagement Libby Lenkinski and director Michal Aviad.
Watch the film at your own convenience: Stream on Vimeo
Michal Aviad was born and raised in Jerusalem. Throughout the 1980’s, she lived in San Francisco, where she studied cinema and started making documentary films. Since returning to Israel in 1991, she has continued to write, direct, and produce both documentary and fiction films through the lens of women and gender. Aviad’s films were screened in festivals around the world such as Sundance, Telluride, Berlin International Film Festival, Hong Kong International, TIFF, Jerusalem Film Festival, and others. Her films have won numerous prizes including The Peace Prize at Berlinale (The Women Next Door, 1992), Best Israeli Film at Haifa International Film Festival (Invisible, 2011) and Best Documentary at Jerusalem Film Festival (Dimona Twist, 2016). Aviad is a senior faculty member at Tel Aviv University’s Tisch School of Cinema. In January 2020, she was awarded the prestigious Landau Prize for Arts and Sciences.