Micha Yinon was born in Jerusalem in 1942. He studied law at the Hebrew University and became a lawyer in 1966. A decade and a half later, Micha changed course and moved into the field of media and culture. Micha Yinon served as chairman of the Israel Broadcast Authority for two tenures, 1984-1988 and 1992-1995. He chaired the co-productions committee of the Broadcast Authority, at a time when the IBA was greatly involved in budgeting for Israeli films, which of course were broadcast afterwards on television and received wide viewership (those were the days before commercial broadcasters and cable television reached Israel).
Micha continued to support the production of Jewishthemed films in the framework of the Nehora association,
and he was on the original management of the Ma'aleh School of Cinema and Television, to whose development he contributed greatly. In 1998, Micha was chosen to direct the Culture Authority, a position he held until his retirement in 2009. During these years he invested great efforts in the advancement of the
Cinema Law, the establishment of the Israel Film Council, and the setting of criteria for the distribution of funding to cinematheque screenings, festivals, and Israeli cinema in general.
Eleven years ago, Micha was a partner in the initiative to establish a Jewish Film Festival in Jerusalem, along with Lia van Leer, Yigal Molad-Hayo, and the Ma'aleh Center of Religious Zionism and has followed the festival's progress throughout the years. In the periphery, he took part in the establishment of the Sderot Cinematheque. At the Israel Film Service of the Culture Authority, Micha initiated a documentation series of Israeli culture with a special emphasis on Israel Prize laureates in the fields of the arts. Even in his retirement, Micha Yinon remains active in a number of cultural institutions and festivals around the country, and we wish him a continued and prolific contribution to the advancement of culture and arts in Israel.
For all these, we are honored to present Micha Yinon with the Festival's Achievement Award.