Dov Alfon

Dov Alfon is the head of 'Storyvid (il)', a non-profit production venture he founded with writer Etgar Keret and aiming to bridge between Literature and New Media. Born in Tunisia in 1961, Dov Alfon was brought up in Paris till his parents immigrated to Israel. He began to write during his studies at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem and went on to pursue a successful career in journalism, culminating in his nomination as the editor in chief of Haaretz, the oldest newspaper in Hebrew and one of the world's most respected dailies. Known for his ability to invent new formats across all media, he launched over the year many original creations, among them "The Authors' Issue", an experiment in which top international writers replace all Haaretz reporters for a day. Called "an unexpected delight" by The New Yorker, the issue won him the 2011 prize from the International Council for Press and Broadcasting in London. His TV program, "Cultural attaché", won Israel's top-award "Ophir" for best cultural show three years in a row. He also created the format for illustrator Hanoch Piven's weekly column, who received (among other prizes) the Society of Illustrators Gold Medal and the Society of Publication Designers Silver Medal. He is the editor in chief of Alaxon, a digital journal for the Arts, and before that he was chief editor of Kinneret-Zmora, Israel's biggest publishing house. In 2009 he was the jury chairman for the Jerusalem Prize for the Freedom of the Individual in Society, awarded to Haruki Murakami. His company, Storyvid, produces short films based on an audio narration of short stories. Labelled "the literary equivalent of a music video" by the prestigious Paris Review, The Storyvid concept brings a director's visual reading to a short text. The pilot film, What Do We Have in Our Pockets? (2013), was presented at The Sundance Festival and won several awards, among them the Best Script Prize at the Nantucket Festival and the People's award at the International Denver Festival. There are 8 other films in various production stages for 2014.