Na’ama Keha

Born and raised in a Socialist Kibbutz to parents of Turkish Sephardic and Yemeni descent, Na’ama Keha is an award-winning NY-based filmmaker. She’s the recipient of the ISEF Nina Weiner & Lily Safra International Fellowship, the Fusion Film Festival’s Grand Prize for Shelter, and the recipient of the Ronit Elkabetz Pomegranate Award. She wrote, directed, and produced Keep It Cool, which premiered at the Montreal World Film Festival. As part of Water, an Israeli Palestinian co-production, she wrote Now and Forever, which premiered at the Venice International Film Festival. She won a full production award to shoot her project Sanya in Bueng Kan as part of Thailand’s International Film Festival, 

Na’ama holds an MFA in Film Writing/Directing from NYU Tisch, winning the Dean’s Fellowship, and a magna cum laude Bachelor’s degree from Tel Aviv University. 

Currently, she’s developing her debut feature, which has been awarded two writing fellowships at NYU London.   

Artistic discipline:  Film Writer/Director/Editor 

Project vision:  

The project that I’m interested in developing in LABA is inspired by Rabbi Abulafia. Abraham Ben Samuel Abulafia was one of the earliest Kabbalists. Born in Spain, a student of the writings of Moses Maimonides and of Hillel, from twenty years of age, he began a life of ceaseless wandering. 

Abulafia dreamed of dissolving the differences between Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. He is closely associated with gematria, the symbolic employment of letters as numerals. 

Our musical visual project will be to adapt texts of Abulafia into short clips, performed by Victoria Hanna, a vocal artist and composed by an electronic musician. The idea is to look at Abulafia’s words as material and to create both a visual and musical expression in a way that would connect modern life to his artistry. We believe that once being ‘served’ in an engaging audio-visual way, an audience that is less familiar with Abulafia’s work will be able to relate to his timeless texts. By Abulafia’s attempts to connect the three religions, we hope this project will leave a message of peace and mutual understanding.