---
name: "Amos Gitai"
canonical: "https://film.one/person/amos-gitai"
fi1m_id: "amos-gitai"
imdb_id: "nm0321159"
tmdb_id: 20024
wikidata_id: "Q474262"
roles: ["Producer","Director"]
born: "11 October 1950"
reviewed_on_fi1m: 1
average_as: "producer"
average_over: 0
updated: "2026-09-26T03:12:56.562225+00:00"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# Amos Gitai

## Identity

Amos Gitai

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/person/amos-gitai
- **Type:** Person
- **Fi1m ID:** amos-gitai
- **IMDb ID:** nm0321159
- **TMDB ID:** 20024
- **Wikidata ID:** Q474262
- **Same entity:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Gitai, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q474262, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0321159/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20024

Producer and director. Born 11 October 1950 in Haifa, Israele.

## Details

- **Work:** Producer, Director
- **Born:** 11 October 1950, Haifa, Israele
- **Elsewhere:** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amos_Gitai, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q474262, https://www.imdb.com/name/nm0321159/, https://www.themoviedb.org/person/20024

## Streaming the US now

- **Amazon Prime Video:** [*Kippur*](https://film.one/film/kippur.md) (80)

For United States; add `?region=XX` for another country.

## Fi1m on Amos Gitai

> Amos Gitai’s films take their time over people and places. *Kippur* makes a strong case for that patience: we recommend its unsparing attention to a first-aid team, despite an opening that delays the real work.

In *Kippur* (2000), a first-aid team works to help the wounded while remaining exposed to the fighting. Gitai, who directs, co-writes and produces, keeps our attention on how much effort helping another person requires. He finds enough drama there without making every useful act an occasion for heroism. We found the battlefront scenes punishing because the team’s ability to help gives them so little protection. It is a forceful film that earns its discomfort.

His attention to places was there in *House* (1980), his first feature-length documentary, which follows a single house in West Jerusalem through differing accounts of its history. The shift towards fiction features came in the 1990s, but houses, cities and borders remained recurring subjects. Gitai often returns to such subjects across trilogies or continuing series, making room for more than one person’s account. His long takes connect spaces and give us time to notice the surroundings as well as the people passing through them.

Cinematographer Renato Berta has worked with Gitai repeatedly, including on *Kippur*. The extended opening take of *Free Zone* (2005) and the single 81-minute shot of *Ana Arabia* (2013) show how far Gitai is prepared to pursue an uninterrupted scene. That approach gives us time to attend to people and their surroundings, but also makes any lack of dramatic purpose harder to ignore.

The opening of *Kippur*, with Weinrub and his girlfriend, exposes the limit. It ought to establish someone whose private life matters once the fighting begins, but the introduction feels detached from the work that makes the film persuasive. Gitai and co-writer Marie-José Sanselme, a recurring collaborator from 2000 onwards, write more convincingly once the team’s task gives their scenes a direct purpose. Start with *Kippur*, but choose an evening when watching people struggle to help the wounded will not be too much.

## Biography

Amos Gitai is an Israeli film director, writer and producer. Born in Haifa in 1950, he studied architecture at the Technion in Haifa and later earned a PhD in the subject at the University of California, Berkeley.

Gitai served in a helicopter rescue unit during the 1973 Yom Kippur War and was injured when his helicopter was shot down. The experience prompted him to turn to filmmaking. He directed his first feature-length documentary, *House*, in 1980 and went on to make dozens of documentaries and feature films, often addressing Israeli history and society.

His work includes the autobiographical war film *Kippur* (2000), on which he also served as writer and producer, as well as *Free Zone* (2005) and *Disengagement* (2007). He has lived and worked for periods in France and maintains an active international career.

*Sources: en.wikipedia.org, imdb.com, nytimes.com.*

## On Fi1m (1)

- *Kippur* (2000), Fi1m 80, Producer, Writer, Director — [page](https://film.one/film/kippur.md)

## Complete filmography (65)

Every credit, newest first. Titles without a page can be requested for review on the HTML page.

- *The Road to Jericho* (2026), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Golem in Pompei* (2025), Director, Writer, Theatre Play
- *Why War* (2025), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Shikun* (2024), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *Marco Melani: The Man with the Golden Eye* (2021), Actor
- *Laila in Haifa* (2021), Screenplay, Director
- *A Tramway in Jerusalem* (2018), Director, Screenplay, Producer
- *A Letter to a Friend in Gaza* (2018), Director, Screenplay
- *West of the Jordan River* (2018), Director
- *Rabin, the Last Day* (2015), Director, Producer, Writer
- *Tsili* (2015), Director, Writer
- *Words with Gods* (2014), Director, Writer
- *Architecture in Israel* (2013), Director
- *Ana Arabia* (2013), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Venice 70: Future Reloaded* (2013), Director
- *Lullaby to my Father* (2012), as Narrator (voice) · Producer, Cinematography, Director
- *Roses on Credit* (2010), Director, Adaptation
- *Carmel* (2009), Director, Writer, Producer
- *One Day You'll Understand* (2008), Adaptation, Director, Producer
- *To Each His Own Cinema* (2007), Director, Writer
- *Disengagement* (2007), as Dani · Director, Writer
- *News From Home/News From House* (2006), Director, Writer
- *Free Zone* (2005), Director, Writer, Co-Producer
- *Promised Land* (2004), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Welcome to São Paulo* (2004), Director
- *Alila* (2003), Writer, Director, Executive Producer
- *September 11* (2002), Director, Writer
- *Kedma* (2002), Director, Screenplay
- *Eden* (2001), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Wadi Grand Canyon, 2001* (2001), Director
- *Kippur* (2000), Director, Writer, Producer — Fi1m 80, [page](https://film.one/film/kippur.md)
- *Kadosh* (1999), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Day After Day* (1998), Writer, Director
- *A House in Jerusalem* (1998), Director, Writer
- *Zion, auto-émancipation* (1998), Director
- *War and Peace in Vesoul* (1997), Director
- *The Arena of Murder* (1996), Director, Writer
- *Things* (1995), as Goldman · Screenplay, Director
- *In the Valley of the Wupper* (1994), Director, Writer
- *Golem: The Petrified Garden* (1993), Writer, Director
- *Golem, the Spirit of Exile* (1992), Director, Writer
- *Wadi 1981 - 1991* (1992), Director
- *Birth of a Golem* (1990), Director
- *Berlin-Jerusalem* (1989), Director, Writer, Producer
- *Brand New Day* (1987), Director
- *Esther* (1986), Director, Producer, Writer
- *Pineapple* (1984), Director
- *Bangkok-Bahrain* (1984), Director
- *Not Gone and Not Forgotten: A Story of Urban Redevelopment and Community Organizing in Los Angeles* (1983), Additional Camera
- *Field Diary* (1982), Director, Producer
- *Wadi* (1981), Director
- *House* (1980), Director
- *In Search of Identity* (1980), Director
- *Charisma* (1976), Director, Cinematography
- *Waves 2* (1976), Director
- *Shosh* (1974), Director
- *Paper is Fire, Fire is Paper* (1973), Director
- *Hayam* (1973), Director
- *Black is White* (1972), Director
- *Maïm* (1972), Director
- *Textura [1]* (1972), Director
- *Metamorphosis of a Melody*, Director
- *Dona Gracia*, Writer, Director
- *Architectura*, Director
- *Wadi Salib Riots*, Director

## Gallery

- ![Amos Gitai at the premiere for The Road to Jericho at Venice Film Festival 2026.](https://film.one/media/person/3932018/gallery-cbcc72ab098f.jpg) Amos Gitai at the premiere for The Road to Jericho at Venice Film Festival 2026. — CaseyJNewell, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/27/Amos_Gitai_at_Venice_Film_Festival_2026-1.jpg/1280px-Amos_Gitai_at_Venice_Film_Festival_2026-1.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)
- ![Photo of Ophrah Shemesh and Hanna Schygulla in Amos Gitai's "Golem, l'esprit de l'exil", 1992](https://film.one/media/person/3932018/gallery-1eb7e9a55ee3.jpg) Photo of Ophrah Shemesh and Hanna Schygulla in Amos Gitai's "Golem, l'esprit de l'exil", 1992 — Amos Gitai, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8d/Golem_l%27esprit_de_l%27exil_-_Shemesh_and_Schygulla_-_1992.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail_unscaled)
- ![Amos Gitai & Henri Alekan 1986](https://film.one/media/person/3932018/gallery-ecce06fef8f2.jpg) Amos Gitai & Henri Alekan 1986 — Gal deren d, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons (https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/a/a2/Gitai88.jpg/1280px-Gitai88.jpg?utm_source=commons.wikimedia.org&utm_campaign=imageinfo&utm_content=thumbnail)

## Awards

### Other awards — 3 won

- Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy 2019: Grand Officer of the Order of the Star of Italy (won)
- honorary doctorate from Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University 2011: honorary doctorate from Versailles-Saint-Quentin-en-Yvelines University (won)
- Annual award ACFK 2008: Annual award ACFK (won)

*From Wikidata, which records wins more completely than nominations.*

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/person/amos-gitai