Born in Haifa, Israel, in 1950. One of the most important names in Israeli cinema, Gitai works have been presented at Mostra since the 20th edition, in 1996, with “The Arena of Murder”. In 2004, at the 28th Mostra, he was honored with an exhibition of his photos, the publishing of a book and a complete retrospective of his films, including “Kadosh” (1999), “Kippur” (2000) and “Kedma” (2002, awarded with the critics prize at the 26th Mostra). He directed a short film in the collective project “Welcome to São Paulo” (2004), produced by Mostra, and won the Humanity Award at the 31st Mostra, in 2007. He has also directed “Free Zone” (2005), “Disengagement” (2007), “Ana Arabia” (2013), “Tsili” (2014), a segment of “Words with Gods” (2014), “West of the Jordan River” (2017), “A Tramway in Jerusalem” (2018) and “A Letter to a Friend in Gaza” (2018), all of them presented at Mostra. Honored by the 43rd Mostra, Gitai was in São Paulo in 2019 to receive the Leon Cakoff Prize and launch the book “Efratia Gitai – Em Tempos como Estes”, which gathers correspondence from the director’s mother.