Adi Keissar is an Israeli poet and founder of Ars Poetica, a contemporary Israeli poetry group. She represents a minority group in Israel, and is considered to be a strong female voice that poses a serious alternative to mainstream Israeli poetry and cultural narratives.

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Maya Arad is currently serving as the Writer-In-Residence at the Taube Center for Jewish Studies at Stanford University and is the best-selling author of "Another Place, a Foreign City" (Tel Aviv 2003).

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Dr. Daniel Sobelman is a postdoctoral research fellow with the International Security Program at Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. A graduate of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Dr. Sobelman's research deals with asymmetric coercion, especially as regards the long-time conflict between Israel and Hezbollah.

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We had a great turn out for all three films and enjoyed the lecture by Dr. Yaron Shemer! Many thanks to all who attended and The University of Texas Libraries for co-sponsoring!
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Here's a great piece on the first screening by The Daily Texan: PCL screens film to commemorate death of Israeli filmmaker

"Eight years before her untimely death earlier this year Israeli film critic Uri Klein wrote: "Moviegoers can admire Ronit Elkabetz or recoil from her, or admire and recoil at the same time.  Ignoring her is not an option.”  In her ever-evolving ethnic and gender political consciousness, actress, screen-writer, and filmmaker Ronit Elkabetz cast onto the Israeli screen the predicament, struggles, and desires of a lower-middle class Mizrahi woman.  Dr. Shemer will give a lecture titled, "Ronit Elkabetz: The Defiant Voice of a Mizrahi Woman in Israeli Cinema," which will focus on the subversive intersectionality of gender and ethnicity in Elkabetz’s oeuvre with emphasis on “The Trilogy of Viviane” that she co-wrote and co-directed with her brother Shlomi Elkabetz. "

​Dr. Yaron Shemer is Associate Professor of Israel cultural studies at The University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill.  He earned his B.F.A. from Tel Aviv University and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Film Studies from The University of Texas at Austin.  Shemer is the author of Identity, Place, and Subversion in Contemporary Mizrahi Cinema in Israel (U. of Michigan Press, 2013).  In addition to his work on Israeli cinema, Shemer has also published articles on Middle Eastern cinema.  His current book project “Neighboring Identities: The Jew in Arab Cinema” has awarded him several prestigious fellowships in the US. Yaron Shemer has also produced and directed documentary films in Israel, Poland, and the US.