Benjamin Freidenberg
Holding a Space for Complexity, Humanity, and Healing through the Art of Cinema
In an era of crisis marked by political rupture, cultural erosion, and war, the Sam Spiegel Film & Television School Jerusalem has been called to respond not only as an academic and artistic institution, but as a community guided by values; a reflection on the role of courageous and compassionate leadership in a harsh and changing world, where maintaining human decency becomes a daily act of resistance.
Amid judicial overhaul and continuous regional turmoil, the school has worked to safeguard creative freedom and shared learning spaces. During the ongoing war, it has provided full scholarships, trauma-informed academic support, and emotional care to students facing displacement, grief, and uncertainty. Its Arabic-speaking study programs for Palestinian talents and creatives have remained active, fostering dialogue in the face of division, manifesting efforts to remain present, even in a multi-frontier, violent reality.
This keynote explores how film education can play an impactful role for the school’s community and extend to an act of civic courage, guided by conviction, grounded in compassion - asking how we as educators can hold space for complexity, humanity, and healing through the art of cinema.
Benjamin Freidenberg is head of Study Programs in Arabic and a lecturer of International Cinema at the Sam Spiegel Film and Television School, from which he also graduated. Benjamin is a film director and cinema studies scholar who holds a bachelor’s and a master’s degrees in linguistics and is currently completing his PhD at the Department of Italian and French Studies at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and Sorbonne Nouvelle University. His research focuses on film language, targeting the linkage between historical linguistics, the development of film craft and cinematographic theories. In 2016, he founded the Jerusalem Filmmakers Guild (NGO), which also represents Palestinian filmmakers from East Jerusalem. In 2019, he co-founded the Jerusalem International Women’s Film Festival. Benjamin previously worked as a content writer and researcher for the Jerusalem Cinematheque Film Archives, Israel Broadcast Authority, and Harvard University Images Collections.