Udi Aloni

Udi Aloni (born December 10, 1959) is an American-Israeli filmmaker , writer and visual artist whose works focus on the interrelationships between art , theory ,and action .¹ He began his career as a painter , establishing the Bugrashov gallery in Tel Aviv , a home for contemporary art, cultural and political events. His work in large-scale art led him, while living in New York in the 1990s, to invent a method for hanging advertisements on urban architectural structures, and for this he is credited as the artist who changed the look of New York [1] . In 1996, Aloni began making films. His documentary, Local Angel (2002), and his first feature-length fiction, Forgiveness (2006), are both radical interpretations of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that have stirred controversy in the Middle East and internationally. Aloni also directed “Kashmir: Journey to Freedom” (2008), a documentary about the nonviolent movement for liberation and freedom in Jammu and Kashmir that opened in the Berlin International Film Festival . He is a member of the advisory board of Jewish Voice for Peace and the head cinema coach in the Freedom Theatre of the Jenin Refugee Camp. His book, What Does a Jew Want (edited by Slavoj Žižek ), will be published by Columbia University Press in Spring 2011.²