YUVAL OVADIA - About the director - Hamesima X  Filmmaker / Actor / Musician  972-52-7654124 / 972-72-2306905 /Visual911911@gmail.com  

Yuval Ovadia was born in Tel Aviv, Israel in October 31, 1965.

After serving 3 years in the Israeli army he flew to New York, planning to study filmmaking and acting in the best schools he could find.

 As soon as he arrived in New York, he went to Lee Strasburg Institute, where he studied acting, singing and dancing. Later on he continued his studies at HB Studio, where he spent a long time under the late, famous Herbert Berghof and Bill Hickey. Then he studied all aspects of filmmaking at NYU Film School.

Simultaneously he started working on various music videos, karaoke’s and short films, where he gave his creative input either in front or behind the camera, slowly preparing himself for the big dream - making a feature film.

  By the years 1996-1998 Yuval worked on a feature film called "Orphan Of War" - a 90min, 35mm Action/Drama, co-starring the legendary singer from Woodstock "Richie Havens". In addition to co-producing this film, Yuval had starred in it, co-wrote the screenplay, edited, and came up with a music album called "Peaceful Circle" - based on songs from the film, which he wrote together with Mr. Richie Havens.  

In the year 1998 Yuval got involved with the NY producer Bruce Weiss and the well known director Charles Lane ("Sidewalk Stories", "True Identity") in order to produce a feature called "Kaleidoscope", written by Yuval and Thomas Mitz, a film which was suppose to be co-starring Wesley Snipes. During that time Yuval decided to go back to his roots and in 1999 he moved back from New York to Israel, were he got married and is having now 5  beautiful kids.

 Between the years 2000 - 2008, Yuval played different rolls such as writing, directing, editing and producing in about 7 different 50-60 minutes documentaries (a full list and/or a show reel is available upon request), most of them are about Judaism and spirituality.  

In 2009 Yuval co-directed, edited and starred in a 70 minutes historical  docudrama, called "The Jerusalem Code".

During the years 2010-2011 Yuval has worked as a director & writer (together with Or Yashar and Prosper Malka) on a 90 minutes feature film (for the first time in his life as a director of a feature film),  called "Hamesima X" (meaning in Hebrew - Mission X), where he is playing also a roll of an editor, producer and an actor. Hamesima X was officially selected to 12 international film festivals, and won a several film awards.

Now-a-days Yuval is in a process of producing and directing a 60 minutes docudrama called "A Flight To Eternity" and also he is in a process of pre-production, together with Lightcatcher Productions, on his new feature film based on a real story, temporary titled "The Chosen Spy ".

In addition to filmmaking, Yuval also gives lectures both in Hebrew or English in these subjects: Filmmaking, Judaism in modern time, Spirituality VS materialism, The impact of modern media and more... where he is invited by schools, universities and different communities around the world..

  ABOUT  THE  DIRECTOR -  Or  Yasahar - "Hamesima X"                                                                                                                             Ori Gruder aka Or Yashar (means Direct Light in Hebrew)  is a writer, director & cinematographer. Born in Israel in 1970, at the age of 18 he enlisted into the Israeli army and served as a stills photographer for the air force.He graduated (B.A) with honors the Film&TV School in the Tel Aviv University on 1998.   Since then Ori filmed and directed films, shows, docu's, commercials, music videos for all channels of the Israeli TV. All of his films come with a special touch by using a new language of editing, digital cameras - HD filming and modern music. Combining fiction and documentary with a new approach. specialized at Judaism Kabala and New age topics.His first film KARAHANA from 1998 was screened for a year in the cinemateques in Israel becoming a cult movie. It is a documentary-musical that was dealing for the first time with the techno-trance culture of the youngsters In Israel. The movie is still selling throughout the globe and Israel on video distributed by a big record company.Ori  is one of the Israeli young new wave directors of the late night culture freestyle TV program called  ZOOM, that takes each time a different subject and attack it with new eyes. LEGAL DRUGS a musical combined with a documentary about the drugs that are legal and easy to find around us - translating "high" into visual & sound.

PIGS a film about the poor animal growing to be a steak ,the hunters who go after it and a girl that her dream come true to bring home and pet a baby pig all this among other interesting angels. TORTURE was the last movie (#52) of the series that made a lot of buzz and became a TV cult to be study from.

Some other films: THE JEWS about an Israli rock&roll band touring the country and performing in front of young solders, was shown in the Israeli  60 minutes-UVDA.

THAI FOOD about the foreign Thai agriculture workers in israel and their collision with the Israeli culture, for another research TV program called THE  3RD EYE.

Ori also directed promos, video clips and worked for the MTV, the Israeli

National Geographic and many more. He also was chosen to be one of the directors from the Israeli part of the world winning international documentary series "ORDINARY PEOPLE". 

His latest works are : "MY FAITH" a documentary 12 parts series for THE FIRST ISRAELY CHANNEL , "THE TRUTH"  a docudrama series for the Judaism channel HIDABROOT , "HIGH&SECRET" a TV show for MICKAN channel at HOT&YES,     "FREE CONECTION" a long drama for Indy distributions…and more. 

O.Y is also the head of the professional teaching at the Jewish Film School – "Torat Hachaim" at Yad Binyamin.

Gruder lives in nice town between Jerusalem and Tel Aviv as a orthodox Jew with his wife and 6 kids, learning Torah Hasidut and Kabala from masters rabies.  HAMESIMA X  is his first long movie picture a kabalistic drama and action movie wining the golden Remi award at the 44th Huston international film festival and winning best thriller/drama at the Philadelphia international indi film fest' and also being officially selected to many other world wide film fest's. O.Y is working now a days on his next big project with his partners.